Kept in the Dark: The Silent Screams of Cyprus

While the island reeled from the after-effects of a brutal invasion and genocide by Greece, and people struggled to flee north for safety, not everyone would be able to make it out alive

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In the summer of 1974 on the island of Cyprus, Greek and Greek Cypriot soldiers, together with the Greek Cypriot police, local private armies, and large numbers of civilian volunteers attacked and stormed Turkish Cypriot villages pursuant to legal state and military orders, including written plans to annihilate them.

The massacres that ensued included targeted sexual violence and rape against Turkish Cypriot women, raising fears of further atrocities, before all the Turkish Cypriot men in those villages - such as in Taşkent (Dohni) - were rounded up, and in that particular circumstance forced into a coffee shop, then taken away in a bus that night, and shot.

Evidence of taxonomic violence against the Turkish Cypriots, committed by Greek soldiers of the elite ELDYK regiment, reinforced by the junta in Athens, the Greek Cypriot soldiers of the National Guard, officered by the Greek Armed Forces and EOKA terror group, members of the Greek Cypriot police forces, local private armies, and droves of civilian volunteers, makes it clear they all used terror as a tactic of war.

And the raw asseveration of evidenced sexual violence and rape against Turkish Cypriot women, intentionally inflicted in order to humiliate, ravage and force their community into total submission, makes it clear they all used rape as a tactic of war.

They did this consciously and deliberately in order to terrorise the Turkish Cypriot population and, in textbook violation of United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1820 (2008), S/RES/1820(2008), to: “humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group”.

It is also well known that together with the terrible crimes committed by Greek and Greek Cypriot elements in the summer of 1974, and during the attempted genocide beginning 1963-64, which saw either the direct participation, complicity or silence of people from all sides of the social, religious and political spectrum, that they raided Turkish Cypriot villages, captured – and afterwards murdered – the male populations, while they then raped and slaughtered the women.

“These things happened in those days. What have we done that is different from what was happening throughout the island at those times? Whatever we did, we did in collaboration with the legal forces of the state." - Andreas Dimitriu

“I was taken as a prisoner of war by the Greek Cypriots. I was a prisoner in an unknown location... The day we first entered as prisoners, we found a stale piece of bread and dry olives in the toilet... on the 20th day they also took 2 female prisoners. Of course the female prisoners were kept in a separate room, separated by a wall. We could hear the screaming voices of the girls as they were being raped by the Greek Cypriot policemen. I mean... these are not moments you can ever forget.” - Turkish Cypriot survivor

Acts of sexual violence and rape continued to be committed against Turkish Cypriot women even during the mass exodus to north Cyprus which followed, and through to 1975, where they were harassed, hunted, intercepted - and afterwards detained - then raped, subjected to more “outrages upon personal dignity”, then slaughtered.

In some instances Greek Cypriot civilians were trusted and paid to take Turkish Cypriot women and children to the north for safety, but instead they ended up taking, disappearing - and afterwards tying up - then raping, mutilating and massacring them.

"Yes, I killed the women and children, but they were Turkish!" - Yannis Vauniotis

In the major cities such as Lefkoşa (Nicosia), Leymosun (Limassol), Larnaka (Larnaca) and Baf (Paphos), the Turkish populations were rounded up and thrown into WWII-style ghettos, hollowed-out buildings and concentration camps, where they were held as hostages, kept in inhuman conditions, deprived of food and water, isolated from the outside world, denied visits from reporters, and subjected to abhorrent levels of sexual violence and beatings, including rapes of both men and women, but especially women.

This constituted serious violations of international humanitarian law under the Fourth Geneva convention (12 August 1949) relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war, as well as Additional Protocols I and II, and standard customary law which regards rape and other forms of sexual violence, when committed in the context of an armed conflict either international or non-international, as serious and flagrant violations.

Furthermore, homes were also looted, mosques, graveyards and other religious and holy sites were desecrated, and other unspeakable atrocities took place, while the Turkish Cypriot leadership and brave local guides evacuated those they could, until the Third Vienna Agreement (2 August 1975) - also known as the Voluntary Exchange of Populations (VEP) or Population Exchange Agreement (PEA) - was signed, through which an additional 8,033 civilians were transferred to the north, with the assistance of the United Nations Peacekeeping Forces in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the United Nations Civilian Police (UNCIVPOL) element of the UNFICYP, as well as with the involvement of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, solving this problem for good.

But the systemic theft, looting and large-scale misappropriation of Turkish Cypriot property, homes, lands and crops became normalised, and the threats, harassment and attacks against them continued.

Unabated violations of the international demarcation lines by state-backed mobs of angry and zealous thugs followed, and became routine, while Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration continued facilitating further illegal encroachments.

This was a serious violation of a ceasefire, and international humanitarian law (IHL), as outlined in Principle I, Paragraph 5, of UN General Assembly (UNGA) Resolution 2625 (XXV), which imposes on states “the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation, such as armistice lines,” which experts argue includes “through conduct that does not constitute an armed attack”.

And further outrages were also committed including against the deceased, another war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as clarified by the 56th session of the UNGA Human Rights Council (HRC) 18 June - 12 July 2024 (A/HRC/56/56).

These were all war crimes, crimes against humanity, a series of constitutive acts with respect to genocide, for which there needs to be a comprehensive approach to seeking sustainable peace, justice, truth and reconciliation.

But despite all of this, this painful wound, this horrible history of taxonomic violence against the Turkish Cypriot people, of sexual violence and torture against the Turkish women of Cyprus, using rape and starvation as weapons of war, and genocide, for 11 long years, and even during a ceasefire, and the 51-years of collective punishment which followed, it is a tragedy that this has been largely kept in the dark.

It should also be noted, moreover, that not many from the Greek Cypriot community have the strength and the courage to speak openly about these crimes, and those who do water things down, deny complicity, and come under a barrage of vulgar attacks from their own circles in the illegal Greek occupied territories of Cyprus and beyond.

But I think it’s about time we break the dams of silence and start sharing.

In this article I’ll be focusing on one of the most high-profile cases of sexual violence and rape against Turkish women on Cyprus, and after we get into the nitty gritty, I’ll also then start by answering a few questions for everyone, to help you all understand:

How or why was this happening? What led to all of this? What does international law say about sexual violence against women, and what makes what happened to the Turkish women on Cyprus in particular stand out, especially when juxtaposed with other known and documented cases of sexual violence against women?

So without further ado, here is the tragic story of Nevin Mahmut and her daughter Tijen, Ülfet Osman and her daughter Semay, and Meryem Niyazi.

Punished for Treating People as People

Following Operation President - the Greek invasion and occupation of Cyprus, the sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power orchestrated by Athens, and the unilateral declaration of the establishment of a new Greek republic - the more than a decade long crisis on the island could be tolerated no longer.

After failing to gain the support of the other legal guarantor of the island, Britain, the Republic of Türkiye activated the Right to Intervene (RTI) (entrusted to it in the Treaties of Establishment, Guarantee and Alliance), the Right to Self Defense (RSD) and Defence of Others (RDO) (the inherent right of a state to the use of necessary and proportionate force in response to an armed attack against either itself or another), and the Right to Protect (RTP) (the right to intervention against Humanitarian Crises), and embarked on an ambitious humanitarian intervention for peace.

This Turkish intervention took place in two phases, the first phase toppled the fascist military dictatorships in Athens and Lefkoşa (Nicosia), and the second phase liberated the north of the island from Greek occupation, establishing it as a safe zone and placing it under the authority of the Turkish Cypriot administration.

A fragile ceasefire took hold, and was forced to keep hold, despite repeated violations and provocations threatening to destroy it, and many Turkish Cypriots still remained trapped and assailable in the south, desperate to reach the safety of the north and to join their families.

For almost half a year after the dust of the conflict had settled, this situation persisted. Turkish Cypriot men were still being held hostage in horrible conditions in war prison camps located in Leymosun (Limasol), Baf (Paphos) and Larnaka (Larnaca), while the women and young children were left alone at home, exposed and vulnerable.

They were denied access to basic needs including food, water, electricity, fuel and medicine, and they were routinely harassed, at times even assaulted, and sometimes subjected to physical, sexual and gender based violence, including rape.

And of course there were those who - feet or fleet - tried to escape this fate, but some would not be able to do so, while others tried and were clipped along the way.

This brings us to the sad events that occurred on 10 November 1974.

Nevin Mahmut was a Turkish Cypriot woman who lived in Leymosun (Limassol), and like thousands of others, did not want to live under Greek occupation.

Her husband was a Turkish Cypriot resistance fighter who defended the Turkish areas of Lefkoşa (Nicosia) during the war.

They were cut off, and naturally she wanted to join him and bring their daughter, 8 year old Tijen, to the safety of the liberated north where her husband resided.

That’s when she found a Greek man named Yannis Vauniotis - a taxi driver in Larnaka - who agreed to take her and her daughter, Tijen, to the north, in exchange for money.

He charged £200 Cyprus lira per person.

Please note: £1 Cyprus lira in 1974 was almost equal in value to £1 British pound, meaning he charged roughly £200 per person; the British pound today has lost 92% of its value since 1974, that means £200 Cyprus lira in 1974 is equivalent in purchasing power to roughly £1,331.87 British pounds today. Now think about that. Imagine charging someone from Gaza today £1,331.87 British pounds to help get them out of that bleak humanitarian situation. Just think about that.

Before setting off, Nevin Mahmut was able to inform her husband of the name of the Greek taxi driver who would transport them, including the car's number plate as well as the date and time they would leave and an implied time of arrival.

Nevin Mahmut also brought her 24 year old neighbour, Ülfet Osman, and her 3 year old daughter Semay, while another young girl, 16 year old Meryem Niyazi, also joined them.

So he stood to make £1000 Cyprus lira in total, equivalent to £6659.35 British pounds in today’s currency. Talk about profiting from war, humanitarian crises and people’s suffering.

Instead of driving them to the north and through the expected route, however, Yannis Vauniotis deviated from the direction of the agreed upon location, picked up a friend along the way, Makis loannus, from the village of Monagri, and together the men took them all to an area of the Trodos (Troodos) Mountain range.

They took the women to the mountain forest, tied the two mothers, their children and the young girl to trees, and ignoring their screams raped them, tortured them, mutilated them, cut off their breasts, and riddled their bodies with bullets.

Vauniotis and loannus then left the scene, leaving their victims’ bodies in the forest.

They didn’t care.

The Aftermath

The husbands waited for their wives and children at the given location in Lefkoşa (Nicosia) for hours before - worried and fearing the worst - they contacted the Turkish police and the Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktaş, explaining the situation and providing the name of the Greek taxi driver and his taxi plate.

Denktaş then immediately got on the phone and spoke directly with the Greek Cypriot leader, Galfcos Clerides, and gave him all the relevant information, together with his fervent expectation that no harm would be allowed to befall upon them.

Upon learning of what happened, and fearing the potential crisis about to unfold, Clerides gave careful instructions to the Greek Cypriot police, who reluctantly took action and with great disappointment arrested one of the murderers, Yannis Vauniotis.

Vauniotis confessed to killing the Turkish Cypriot mothers and their children with his friend Makis loannus, citing that it was for “revenge” against Türkiye for intervening, and gave them the location of where the crime took place.

The Greek Cypriot police then went to the scene of the murder, retrieved the bodies, and handed them over to the Turkish Cypriot authorities to prevent any escalation.

An autopsy was later conducted which confirmed that the women and children had indeed been raped, tortured, and their breasts had been cut off, and Yannis Vauniotis was then tried and sentenced to prison in the Greek occupied south of the island.

During his trial, as part of his statement, he said: "yes, I killed the women and children, but they were Turkish!"

He was released on parole after only 3-4 years of incarceration, on the grounds that he had cancer.

He died shortly afterwards.

Initial Thoughts

Now there’s alot that needs unpacking here. And we’ll go through it all when we get to it. First of all, though, I need to start by saying I condemn what had occurred in the strongest of terms. I condemn the Greek Cypriot men who committed these atrocities. And I condemn the atrocities committed by these Greek Cypriot men.

I also think this is somewhat of a watershed moment for us, and I believe it is fair to say that it must therefore be through this lens of Greek Cypriot atrocities that we start to unpack and understand the history of sexual violence and torture against Turkish Cypriot women, and how this fits into the wider tragedy of this atrocious missive, this machination, this cultural and social ethos, to violate, to torture, to try and destroy, with intent, the Turkish Cypriot people as a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

And just as importantly, I also think we need to start this by going back to those questions raised earlier about what international law says about sexual violence against women, and what makes what happened to the Turkish women on Cyprus in particular stand out, especially when juxtaposed with other known and documented cases of sexual violence against women.

Sexual Violence and International Law

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), adopted in 1979, is a treaty that set out the obligations of state parties to combat discrimination and promote substantive equality for women and is the most important human rights treaty focused specifically on women’s human rights.

While it did not use the word "violence" once in it's entire text, the omission of which is striking, and we can pin that down to this treaty being a product of the times in which it was drafted, but we can still take and apply what it does say, the word “discrimination”, to our understanding that gender-based violence is a form of discrimination which gravely affects women’s enjoyment of their human rights.

That being said, within the UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (DEVAW) issued by the UNGA in 1993, however, any type of Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) as well as its various physical, sexual and psychological forms, were clearly and explicitly outlined, and defined as follows:

“Any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.” - UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women

Ending all forms of violence against women and girls is also an important target under the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), and this goes hand-in-hand with wider global efforts to eliminate gender inequality and empower all.

But when it comes to law and order in particular, and though there are laws in many countries that prohibit violence against women, not only are there these laws, but there are also laws that treat women and men differently, and societal, cultural and institutional biases remain a persistent cog in the failure to recognise, reduce and ultimately conquer these tendencies to violence against women.

Then there’s this terrible, evil, foul, vile, ignoble, dishonorouable, wretched scourge of an affliction called rape, in particular the paradigm of wartime rape, a tragedy of many ancient and modern cultures, with evidence of rape being used to humiliate women, but also men, even young girls and boys, all subjected to salacious assaults, exploitation, and harassment, raising this type of sexual violence into prominence.

“There are “conventional” wartime rapes, if we can call them that, associated with situations of anomie, freedom from punishment, and decline in social bonds; these have no political significance in the history of the conflict. There are also rapes “commanded” (either tacitly or explicitly), which are a war tactic that uses sexual activity as a means.” - Véronique Nahoum-Grappe, Sexual violence in wartime

Modern examples of this include in Europe under German occupation, Germany under Allied occupation, China under Japanese occupation, there’s Iraq under US occupation, Rwanda during the Rwandan Genocide, of course there’s also Palestine, where sexual violence including mutilation, rape and torture are arguably a tool during the ongoing conflict there, as it is in the war and genocide in Sudan, and as it also was in Bosnia, as well as in Anatolia and Cyprus under Greek occupation.

I think you can all figure out for yourselves the recurring themes in all these cases.

But as far as wartime rape goes, whether or not it goes against the common law or moral code of a society, if we can call it that, there are also exemptions made for it in certain cases, notwithstanding where evidence of sexual violence and brutal mass rapes against German women in Europe, both during and after World War II, was not prosecuted at the Nuremberg Tribunals, or against Turkish women on Cyprus, during, before and after the ‘74 Greek Invasion of Cyprus, was not acted upon or condemned.

Now this raises many questions.

And we can say the German case in particular was due to a lack of will to prosecution, namely, the judges stating the laws of war only applied to enemy nationals, not that of an ally, meaning such acts were not war crimes, or maybe I’d like to think concerns were also raised over the potential social and judicial treatment of women who were found to have been raped, because German society was still very polarised in that way, but the judges couldn’t have been any more explicit.

“On principle, the cases will not be handed over to justice.” - Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals, Volume IV, "The Einsatzgruppen Case"; "The Rusha Case"

And sadly this also seems to be the case with the horrific sexual violence and torture committed against the Turkish women of Cyprus, especially while the island was still reeling from the after-effects of a brutal invasion and attempted genocide by Greece, and Turkish Cypriots struggled to flee north for their own safety amidst the fragile ceasefire, and not everyone would be able to make it out alive.

“The United Nations, the Commonwealth, and the rest of the world have put political expediency before principle, and failed to condemn the appalling behaviour of the Greek Cypriots. Greek Cypriots are guilty of attempted genocide in violation of Articles 2(a), (b) and (c) and Articles 3(a), (b), (c), (d) and (e) of the 1948 Genocide Convention, but no action has ever been taken against them.” - Select Committee on Foreign Affairs Written Evidence

Yet, their silent screams could not be heard, and would be ignored, or they would be heard, and still be ignored.

You can all take a gander and guess at why that is.

In case you’re confused, I’ll spell it out for you.

You’ve all heard that tersely cogent pithy that a brown-skinned, Muslim, Palestinian life is less important than a blond-haired, blue-eyed, Christian from Ukraine. Well a Turkish life, but especially a Turkish Cypriot life, is even less important than that.

There are clear double standards here that seriously need to be addressed, double standards that seem to be a very pervasive and contentious theme in many societies, but also in international law.

And there are clear issues at the social and sometimes also judicial levels in many countries, which threaten to either: (a) stigmatise or (b) punish women who come out as rape victims, making the coming out of victims, and conviction and punishment of criminals, even more difficult.

We just gave the examples of Germany, but we certainly can’t rule out that this may have also been a contributing factor on Cyprus also, especially where in Turkish Cypriot culture the shame of rape can be considered worse than anything.

And the same applies not just to wartime sexual violence and rape but also to sexual violence and gender-based discrimination generally speaking, the complexities of which are sadly interwoven into the cultural tapestries entrenching much of mankind.

But in order to really tap into the deep underlying context behind the incredible levels of suffering dispensed on Turkish Cypriot women - the focus of this article - it is fundamentally crucial to understand the root causes of all the relevant dichotomies, and what drives this overwhelmingly narcissistic, racist, supremacist society high on hate to commit such barbaric acts against Turkish Cypriot women.

Gender Equality and Empowerment VS Racialised Rape Culture: National, Cultural and Institutional Indicators

There are certainly some nations and cultures that thrive on gender equality and empowerment, with the view it is a necessary foundation for a successful, peaceful, prosperous and sustainable society, such as ancient Scythian or Turkic culture.

In ancient Turkic culture, for example, we can observe that not only were their first religious leaders - seers, prophets, shamans - women, but they played important roles in political life as well as in society, as rulers, commanders, castle guards, governors and ambassadors… some even dueled with men to marry, as diversity of this dynamic.

There was always that degree of equality and empowerment there, while acts of sexual violence and rape certainly did likely occur, especially during times of conflict, there was always this cultural consensus to non-discrimination based on gender.

But even these cultures, and to give a modern form of Turkic culture - Turkish culture - as a specific example, it still has a seemingly dyadic relationship between women - and in particular mothers - being treated as the crux of everything that matters, to put it bluntly, they are simply revered, respected, lionized as the brave warriors and bastions of that culture, and they are fervently protected, including at the expense of the physical well-being of men, while at the same time gender based inequality and violence there, in particular domestic violence, and specifically against women, still poses a serious problem, especially in rural areas.

While some argue this violence against women, occasionally seen in contemporary Turkish society, should be considered as individual incidents, and attitudes towards violence against women in the name of honour are largely negative, flagrant signs of male domination of women's bodies, including what we today refer to as wife-beating, still exist as a dramatic example of sexual and gender based violence against women.

And these problems are not unique to Turkish culture.

In ancient Greek culture, verbal formulations were used to describe and conceptually connect the threat of violence against women - and sexual violence and rape - with the words “bia” (violence) and “hybris” (insult, outrage), evidencing they existed there.

In classical Greek culture, different forms of sexual misconduct were embedded in the normative framework of society, with numerous indicators of “popular culture” - such as mythology, literature and art - propagating the normalcy of rape, helplessness, and sexual violence.

In modern Greek culture, that exists as an elegiac relationship between violence and the threat of violence against women, typically used if a woman challenges male authority, and that physical violence is complimentary to threats and verbal abuse.

The first dyad here lies in the fact they condemn the sexual violation and rape of their women, but also excuse many forms of sexual violence against them.

This enables a culture of impunity around sexual violence against women, and as a consequence, large numbers of Greek Cypriot women, more than 22% in 2016 to throw a date, have domestically suffered physical, psychological or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, while not only Greek Cypriot women but also holiday-goers have suffered “victim blaming” after being sexually assaulted and raped.

This culture is also evident in the 2019 Aya Napa (Ayia Napa) rape allegation case, a high-profile case of a reported gang rape by twelve Israeli tourists against a 19-year old British woman on holiday in the Greek occupied areas of Cyprus. In 2020 the presiding Greek Cypriot judge, Michalis Papathanasiou, charged the young woman with acts of “public mischief” then slapped her with a four month suspended sentence, until in 2022 this was overturned after the Strasbourg-based tribunal ruled the Greek Cypriot administration had “failed in their obligation to effectively investigate the applicant’s complaint of rape”, and the south’s supreme court then considered the initial ruling “manifestly unfair”, stating the judge’s “interruptions and interventions were unjustified and inadmissible.” In 2023 the rapists were acquitted.

In 2023 another British woman told police she was abducted, sexually assaulted and raped by five Israeli men. She was similarly charged and slapped with a sentence, while in 2025 the men were again acquitted of the rape charge. Citing recent rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) "that there is no effective protection for women subject to sexual offences in the Republic of Cyprus,” the woman’s lawyer said the case was further proof of a sexist attitude in the Greek Cypriot administration’s “patriarchal” justice system.

The second dyad lies in their use of sexual violence and rape against women and others during times of conflict, even going so far as to justify therefore legitimising these acts, adding a new variable to this atrocious affliction we call wartime rape.

This tendency in modern Greek culture to violence against women was most powerfully projected through their policies and actions towards the Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus during that period, which lasted eleven years (1963-1974).

And there is also a third variable here, a double connection in Greek Cypriot culture specifically, between “shilli” (dogs) and “psofími” (carrion), coupled with a fourth, the concept of the terrible “Toúrkos” (Turk), the implications being to argue that, like dogs, Turkish Cypriot women and girls could be abused and killed with impunity.

That helps us understand why during the deadly attacks on Turkish Cypriot civilians throughout Cyprus from 1963-1974 and beyond, Greeks and Greek Cypriots frequently tortured, dishonoured and killed Turkish Cypriot women, and used this as a tool of war, and they didn’t care.

An analysis of the etiological role played by their social, religious and political institutions in promoting this sexual violence and rape against Turkish Cypriot women, can be particularly important for understanding how and why this was so easily utilised by the legal forces of the state, as well as why it was so systemic and widespread societally, and how the existence of these cultural institutions provided highly influential and powerful tools in the explosive proliferation of these acts.

It should also be noted, moreover, that the normalcy of sexual violence, physical abuse, and killing being used as weapons of war, and the cultural normalisation of sexual violence against detainees and hostages, and other atrocities in their many various forms, played out in clear and important gendered patterns reflective of the culture, and occurring in the context of that culture’s institutions.

Why Am I Being So Direct? So “Harsh”?

Now you’ll excuse me for not obfuscating things so far, I’m sure you’ll all agree, it’s in our best interests to just call things out for what they are and avoid any euphemisms, or oppressive-to-truth two-side-isms, especially where they don’t actually exist.

As Medhi Hasan the British-American broadcaster, writer and founder of the media company Zeteo eloquently put it:

"Journalism is not just about reporting the news; it's about speaking truth to power," "This idea that the media should be impartial, no, we should have a bias towards truth.” “If someone says it’s raining & another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the f**king window & find out which is true.” - Medhi Hasan

And the Greeks and Greek Cypriots, they were committing these acts against the “pollutant” and “filth” on the island, these “wretched” and “deplorable” Turkish “dogs” and “carrion”, as they unashamedly put it, the “great enemies of Hellenism”, as they continue to put it today, another double connection in Greek Cypriot culture which implied - and still implies - Turkish Cypriots and indeed their women deserved to be abused and killed with impunity.

The frequency, prevalence and severity of this taxonomic violence against the Turkish Cypriot people, in particular sexual violence and rape against their women, alongside other atrocities against their men, elderly, children, even toddlers and babies - I didn’t initially think to go there but here we are - these were routinely used as a method of conflict to terrorise, destabilise, dominate, oppress and destroy the Turkish Cypriot people and undermine their right to self-determination.

This had been systematically perpetrated by Greeks and Greek Cypriots wedded to this ethos, and as the Republic of Cyprus (ROC) through their agents, and when reprimanded and condemned, they had failed to act with due diligence to prevent violations of rights or to investigate and punish these acts of sexual violence or any other type of violence committed against Turkish Cypriots by any person or group.

And as their politicians were occupied with vying to take credit for their sudden, violent and illegal seizures of power on the island in 1963 and 1974, and their police and soldiers alike all mobilised to execute the planned “cleansing” of the island, the “final solution” to the “Turkish problem”, as they put it, and droves of civilians all rushed to be part of that action, reports of appalling atrocities continued filtering through from the tragic island.

The Path from Impunity to Accountability

The international pressure born from these tragedies forced the Greek and Greek Cypriot forces illegally occupying the island’s government to engage in peace talks with the Turkish Cypriots, but while these “peace talks” went on, politicians, soldiers, policemen, and civilian militia were all left to go on unabated, killing and terrorising innocent and defenseless Turkish Cypriot civilians.

And we’ve already established all of this, as well as the blood ruing fact this also included depraved acts of sexual violence against Turkish Cypriot women.

The behaviour of these people should have shocked the world. But as they were doing it in the name of the great and revered nation of Greece, and that nation was an “ally” of the west, and was not forced to immediately take action against the people that proudly wore its white and blue to commit these atrocities, things only escalated.

Until a different nation altogether was forced to act.

“The Turkish armed forces started this morning an operation of peace in Cyprus in order to put an end to struggle of decades of years brought about by extremist elements… The Turkish Government has not resorted to the armed action until after all the other means were tried and proved unsuccessful…” - Former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit

We’ve already gone over it pretty briefly, but there’s still a little more that can be said before we draw this chapter to a close.

To those who don’t know, the territorial security of the Turkish state, the Republic of Türkiye, was also directly tied to and threatened by the political condition of the island, forcing it to activate the relevant clauses of an international treaty which gave it the legal right to militarily intervene on the island, and unilaterally, and it executed the Cyprus Peace Operation to achieve the following key objectives:

1. To remove the fascist dictatorship that had taken over the island’s government following the second sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power in 1974.

2. To put an end to the self-declared “Hellenic Republic of Cyprus”, which was on the cusp of being recognised internationally, and sink its missive to platform illegal Greek attempts to annex the island to Greece.

3. To put a stop to the reckless and merciless internecine civil war waging on the island amongst the Greeks and Greek Cypriots.

4. To finally bring an end to the island-wide attacks against the isolated and defenseless Turkish Cypriots, and to prevent the attempted genocide against them and the ethnic cleansing of the island (and we should all note that this was all happening at a violently accelerated rate, hence the urgency of the situation).

5. To bring peace to both sides.

6. To provide security to the Turkish Cypriots as well as protect its own immediate and regional security interests in the process.

7. To provide a new platform from which to allow for the resumption of talks on solving the Cyprus Problem once and for all.

“It is admitted by everybody that the last coup has been staged by the dictatorial regime of Athens. As a matter of fact it was more than a coup: it was a violent and flagrant violation of the independence of the Republic of Cyprus and of the international treaties on which the Republic was founded. Turkey is co-guarantor… of Cyprus. Turkey taking action is fulfilling her legal responsibility.” - Former Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit

And finally, because we’re touching upon this Turkish intervention, which was by far the most consequential moment in the contemporary history of the island bar none, and the topic of sexual violence and torture against the Turkish women of Cyprus, which I’m sure we can all agree is a stain on the history of this island, we also need to take a moment to recognise that there were also allegations of sexual violence and other atrocities committed by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF; Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK), the Turkish Resistance Movement (TRO; Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı, TMT) and Turkish Cypriot elements against the Greek Cypriots, although these are unfounded, and we will tackle this subject in a later article.

Conclusion

Despite all this, despite everything that has happened on Cyprus, all the pain, the torture, the suffering, the UN has never established an international war crimes tribunal for Cyprus, as it did, for example, for the Former Yugoslavia.

Many men, women and children who were victims of Greece’s aggression 1963-1974, as well as their children and grandchildren, are still forcibly displaced persons unable to return to their homes, unable to pray in the mosques where they congregated, or pursue a meaningful life in lands which have otherwise been depopulated, ethnically cleansed, misappropriated, subjected to the destruction of cultural heritage and denied to them. They are constantly living with the memory of the many unpunished war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against them and their families.

Despite these realities, the UN, the European Union (of which the Greek occupied Republic of Cyprus is a member state), the rest of the international community and human rights organisations have largely failed to address these crimes. This is a continued injustice imposed on both countries on the island by Greece. However, ensuring that the most severe crimes do not go unpunished and promoting respect for international law should be one of the first agendas of human rights defenders.

62 years after Greece’s first invasion and 51 years after the second, the illegally occupied southern part of Cyprus remains a crime scene. It is one of the biggest cases of ongoing settler colonisation, ethnic cleansing and cultural heritage destruction.

Meanwhile mass graves scatter the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and continue to be uncovered, while the Turkish Cypriots struggle to survive despite all attempts to totally isolate and squeeze them out of existence.

However, by combating impunity, particularly in relation to crimes against children and women, sexual violence and torture - and upholding the rule of law - justice could still be secured for the victims of Greece’s severe violations against Cyprus.

Sadly, the international community does not seem to comprehend the full scope of Greece’s atrocities in Cyprus. They are not aware – or do not want to be aware – of the extent of the impunity Greece enjoys and how it has affected the wider region.

And so long as the Greek government and Greek Cypriot administration are not brought to account for their crimes against Turkish Cypriots AND Greek Cypriots, other nations, women and children – will continue being at risk of similar crimes and atrocities at the hands of similar hostile, aggressive, tyrannical regimes.

Final Thoughts

If we are to fight discrimination and injustice against women the world over we must start from here, in all our countries, for if a woman cannot be safe in her own country then she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere on this earth.

And so long as conflict takes over and the desire to harm women is let loose, wherever it is, these things will only keep repeating.

The only way to stop this from happening is deep-rooted societal change, moral codes and ethics embedded collectively in the national consciousness of people the world over.

Cyprus is but a pebble in the vast ocean of stones in the galaxy’s yard that is Earth.

And I believe we can all do better.

“But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.” - Robert Uttaro