CONTENTS

Partition Plans Furthered

In furtherance of its plans of partition, and in violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and its international obligations regarding respect for human rights and all relevant resolutions of the United Nations, which it has itself endorsed or voted for, Turkey organized on 8 June 1975, in collaboration with the Turkish Cypriot leadership, a "referendum" in the occupied part of the Republic. This so-called referendum is of course null and void. A referendum in an area where 80% of the population has been forcibly expelled by a foreign occupying country is inconceivable. According to basic theory and logic a referendum is a democratic process and not a tool for racial discrimination against the overwhelming majority of the population. This action is not only against the Greek Cypriots, who have been living in this island for thousands of years, but also against the real interests of the Turkish Cypriot community, which has been used by Turkey in the last decade or so as its tool against the independence of Cyprus. The provisions of the "constitution" of the so-called Turkish Federated State of Cyprus are eloquent. In its preamble it claims that the "Turkish Cypriot community constitutes the inseparable part of the Great Turkish Nation". That the "constitution" aims at linking the occupied part with Turkey also becomes clear from the affirmation of the "members of the Assembly" to respect the "principles of Ataturk" and not the principles of the Constitution of Cyprus. It should be noted that the "constitution", in all relevant provisions, refers to the members of the Turkish Cypriot community as "Turkish citizens" so as to enable Turks from Turkey to colonize Cyprus without being distinguished from the indigenous Turkish population.
Another feature of the above "constitution" is the fact that all the enclaved Greek Cypriots as well as the non-Turkish communities in the territory under occupation by Turkey are defined as "aliens". They are deprived of their fundamental human and political rights, and their rights are determined by a "special law" for "aliens". Moreover, the Greek Cypriots' right to ownership is not respected. On the contrary, the "constitution" contains provisions whose application presupposes the expropriation of property belonging to Greek Cypriot displaced persons, such as houses, fields, factories, hotels etc., and their allocation to Turkish Cypriots and Turks from Turkey. An outrageous act of the Turkish Cypriot leadership was also the enactment of a "law" for the distribution of Greek Cypriot property to the Turks.

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Giorgos Zacharia (lysi@mit.edu) © 1995-1999.