Tuesday, December 14, 1999

Ted Galen Carpenter certainly hit a raw nerve with his commentary of 18 November, entitled "Wearing blinders on Turkey" as evident by the many angry letters which followed. On 24 November, The Washington Times was generous with its dedication of the entire LETTERS section to attacks on Mr. Carpenter's truthful and honest assessment of "Washington's double standard" in dealing with the Cyprus situation and its impact on relations between Greece and Turkey , both NATO countries. Another attack against Mr. Carpenter was published on 27 November.

Then, as though that were not sufficient, a third and lengthy attack against Mr. Carpenter was launched on the 28 November FORUM section by Ahmet Erdengiz, Washington D.C . Representative of the " Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus ." It appears that Mr. Erdengiz's views differ from the historical record regarding the circumstances of Cypriot independence. This is not surprising considering that the so-called Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus , which he represents, is diplomatically recognized by only one country, Turkey . In view of the assaults against Mr. Carpenter, I hope The Washington Times will be as generous with my letter in defending Mr. Carpenter as it was with those attacking him.

In 1974, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus on the pretext of protecting the 19% Turkish minority. As a result, the Turkish minority today occupies 40% of the island and 30,000 Turkish troops remain, not to mention an unknown number who have shed their uniforms and become Cypriot "citizens." This situation has remained virtually unchanged for 25 years, a situation brought about by a combination of British colonial rule and Greek-Turkish animosity.

Under the 1878 Cyprus Convention, Britain assumed administration of the island which still remained part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1923, under the Treaty of Lausanne , Turkey renounced all claim to Cyprus and in 1925, Cyprus was declared a British colony. When Cyprus won its freedom in 1960, relations between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities rapidly deteriorated because of British mandated flaws in the island's constitution which gave disproportional rights to the Turkish Cypriot minority. These flaws in the constitution gave the Turkish minority a guarantee of the Vice Presidency and the right to block passage of certain types of legislation. I sincerely doubt that the US government would give any 19% minority in this country a guarantee of the Vice Presidency and the right to veto congressional legislation. When in 1963, the President of the Republic offered some amendments to facilitate the functions of the state, the Turkish community rebelled and Turkey threatened to invade. The ensuring inter-communal struggle culminated in an attempted coup against the elected government in 1974. The coup was instigated, in league with the military junta then in power in Greece , by a group whose aim was "Enosis," or union of Cyprus with the mother country. The Turkish reaction to the coup attempt was to invade and occupy the northern 40% of the island, with resultant mass displacement, deaths and disappearances among the Greek Cypriots. 200,000 Greek Cypriots were forced from their homes and over 1600 civilians are still missing and presumed dead, including five Americans. Several years ago, a Greek Cypriot woman called into C-SPAN and said that she saw the Turks cut off the head of her twin sister when the Turks invaded in 1974. At the time, she and her sister were 8 years old. On 22 September 1996, Brian James wrote in "Night & Day," a British publication: "The Island Prisoners: Their homes are plundered, their children banished. The Christian Greeks of north Cyprus live in fear of the Muslim Turks. And they blame the British for abandoning them."

This was not the first time Turkey had threatened to invade Cyprus ; but on previous occasions, the US government, knowing the consequences, placed the 6th Fleet between Turkey and Cyprus . However, in 1974, Turkey saw its golden opportunity when America's attention was focused on the possible impeachment of President Nixon. In an effort to head off the crisis, the former Prime Minister of Greece, Panayiotis Kanellopoulos spoke with Dr. Kissinger, then Secretary of State, and urged him to place the US 6th Fleet between Turkey and Cyprus as it had previously, to avoid the tragic results we are witnessing today. But Dr. Kissinger ignored that sound advice most possibly because of his pro-Turkish bias and also because of his friendship with then Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, whom he met when they were students at Harvard, and who once again is Prime Minister of Turkey and has arrogantly rejected any talk of a negotiated settlement that would bring justice to the island.

Public Law 105-292, The International Religious Freedom Act, passed by the Congress and signed into law by the President, was enacted to put oppressive governments on notice that the United States would not stand idly by while religious groups were being persecuted. But the United States remains silent when it comes to abuses by Turkey towards its Greek Orthodox Christian minority in Constantinople where its population of 225,000 has been reduced to fewer than 1,500 due to persecution and harassment, where ethnic Greeks are forced to take Turkish names in order to get a decent job or an apartment and where a permit is required from the Turkish government by the Patriarch (primary spiritual leader among 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide) before a single repair can be made to church facilities and where His All-Holiness' quarters have been bombed not once, but many times. The magnificent Orthodox Christian Cathedral, Aghia Sophia, has been converted into an Islamic museum. Posted on the inner walls of the Cathedral are sayings of Mohammed, while many beautiful and historic icons which originally adorned the walls are covered by whitewash. Yet there has been no outrage expressed by any of the Christian communities in the West concerning the desecration of what was once considered to be the eighth wonder of the world.

The desecration of Christian holy places in Turkey has been repeated in the occupied areas of Cyprus . According to a 25 April 1999 Nicosia publication, some 500 churches in the areas of Cyprus occupied by Turkey since it invaded in 1974 have been destroyed, looted or used for other purposes, such as warehouses and stables. More egregiously, the alters have been turned into public toilets. Some of the churches that have been destroyed date back to the 12th century, while most of their priceless relics have been looted and sold on the international black market. At least 41 churches have been turned into Muslim mosques and the outspoken Turkish Cypriot newspaper "Avrupa" (Europe) reported that the Aghia Anastasia church on the northern coast will be converted into a casino. One of the favorite ways of desecrating 12th century icons is to gouge out the eyes of the Saints.

Turkish atrocities are not limited to Christians; the Turks have been equally brutal with the Kurdish population in Turkey and neighboring Iraq . The Kurds, who number up to 36 million, were promised by the British following World War I that they would become an independent state. While the US tacitly approves of an independent Kosovo consisting of fewer than two million ethnic Albanians, the administration does not support a Kurdish homeland. The hypocrisy of the Clinton administration is even more evident in the US reaction to persecution of the Kurds by Iraq . When Iraqis kill Kurds, that's bad so we bomb. But when Turks kills Kurds, that's okay, we look the other way because Turkey is our ally.

Unfortunately, The Washington Times has also been a party to the one-sided view of Turkey's abominable human rights record. On July 20, 1999, thousands of demonstrators joined hands to form a human chain entirely around the United States Capitol building to send a message to US lawmakers that 25 years of Turkish ethnic cleansing and occupation of Cyprus is 25 years too long to wait for justice. The marchers then proceeded along Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House . As a longtime subscriber, I genuinely thought that a protest of this magnitude would surely have had some coverage in The Washington Times . I saw none, even though the Times has often reported on much smaller demonstrations.

The seriousness of the Cyprus situation cannot be ignored. Several times, exacerbated by disagreements over air and sea rights in the Aegean, this ongoing dispute has brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war. As Mr. Carpenter correctly pointed out, the US willingness to overlook Turkish human rights violations, military aggression and intransigence regarding Cyprus has shown a definite pro-Turkish policy. What few friends the US has around the world are rapidly learning that friendship means about as much to the Clinton administration as personal friendship means to Mr. Clinton. While Greece fought on the side of the Allies in two world wars, Turkey fought on the side of Germany in World War I and adopted a position of benevolent neutrality toward Nazi Germany in World War II. Greece survived 400 years under the brutality of the Ottoman Empire. Today my fear is that just as the US betrayed the Serbian people twice in this century (once in World War II by supporting the communist dictator, Marshal Tito, and again from 1992 until today)we will betray Greece .

What should our policy be? Strict evenhandedness and as an unbiased facilitator to help arrive at a just solution to the problem. In his article, Mr. Carpenter essentially restated the views of John Quincy Adams who, in 1821 cautioned our young republic not to take sides in foreign conflicts ". . . even the banners of foreign independence." It is ironic that Mr. Adams' words of caution were against involvement in what he felt was a just cause, but one in which the United States should not be a party - the Greek War of Independence from Turkey . Unlike Mr. Carpenter's detractors, I am sure that Mr. Adams would agree that Mr. Carpenter is correct in pointing out the error of America's pro-Turkish bias.