The blame cannot be put solely on Greek Cypriots

Dear Editor,

I would like to refer to last Sunday’s article by your regular columnist Mr George Koumoullis on the intercommunal events of 1963-1964 and express my strong disagreement with both its content and the way your esteemed newspaper has chosen to present it.

Mr Koumoullis writes about a cataclysmic event in the modern history of Cyprus without bothering to show any research or documentation, save the trite argument about the ‘Akritas Plan’, and even that through the work of Makarios Drousiotis, better known for his sensationalism than objectivity.

Under the title ‘For the Turkish Cypriots the Zurich-London Agreements were a fairy tale solution’, your columnist asserts that there never was a Turkish Cypriot mutiny against the Cypriot state in 1963-64 as the Greek Cypriots claim because the Turkish Cypriots were elated with it and couldn’t have been so stupid as to ruin things for themselves; therefore, the Greek Cypriots are really to blame for everything.

If this is Mr Koumoullis’ idea of a logical argument it does not stand to reason at all. He enumerates the many advantages the TC minority had won over the GC majority but fails to explain why instead of using them to enjoy life in their new-found fairy tale world they used them instead to hamper and paralyse the functioning of the state. The answer of course is to be found in two secret TC documents, one signed by the Turkish Cypriot leadership – none other than Fazil Kutchuk, the Vice-President of the Republic of Cyprus himself, and Rauf Denktash, the President of the TC Communal Assembly – in which they described how the Republic of Cyprus would be broken up and a separate TC administration established with the aid of Turkey. Mr Koumoullis’ lips are sealed about this incriminating evidence as they are about the notorious TMT organisation, which ruthlessly assassinated its opponents and terrorised the entire TC population into falling in line with making a nightmare out of the fairy tale. He is also deafeningly silent about how they blew up mosques blaming it on the Greek Cypriots. The only thing he concedes is that the TC smuggled in weapons from Turkey, even as the Republic was about to be proclaimed, but finds this completely justified allegedly for fear of the GC.

All these historical facts are thoroughly documented irrefutably not only by Greek but also Turkish Cypriot and international sources. Mr Koumoullis disregarding them reduces his article to a mere personal fancy, to say the least, and I find it disappointing that the Cyprus Mail has featured it as its anniversary piece on those tragic events 57 years ago. Not only that but it has allowed its regular columnist to brand all those who disagree with him on the issue as “paid henchmen of the nationalist press”, including the state CyBC channel.

But I will not let Mr Koumoullis get away with it so lightly: I challenge him to accept an independent inquiry into who is getting paid as a henchman by and for whom on this island, which I am ready to do for one.

I thank you for your kind attention.

Philippos Stylianou

Nicosia