"If I was to speak out and reveal the treachery of the Americans, no Greek would ever vote for anything other than the Communist Party in the future."
Dimitrios Ioannides, strongman of the CIA-backed military junta that ruled over the Greeks of the mainland between 1967 and 1974, who was charged by the US State Department with providing the pretext for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus July 20, 1974.
His job was to carry out a badly organised coup in Cyprus, the success of which was irrelevant, and order the Cypriot National Guard and other Greek units stationed on the Island to abandon their defensive positions in the north and deploy to the south, thus allowing the Turkish invading force an unopposed landing on the island. The few units that disobeyed that order, were those that put up the initial resistance to the Turks and cost them a lot more military casualties than those sustained by the Greeks. The Turkish military made up for that, however, by cold bloodedly slaughtering civilians and captured National Guardsmen.
Ioannides spent the rest of his life in prison, having been tried and convicted of treason, but he never broke his silence with the exception of the above confession he made to a friend who had inquired why he had not defended himself during his trial.
Ioannides need not have bothered as most of us, on the Island at least, already knew that the Americans and British were the guiding hands behind the Turkish invasion. We knew of the direct involvement of the US military when the captured pilot of a downed Turkish jet, turned out to be an American. Not a Turkish/American, but an Anglo. We knew that the British were actively helping when their helicopters were scouting out positions and a short while later the Turkish airforce would follow with a pinpoint accuracy that had been decidedly absent from their initial sorties.
It came as no surprise to us, when decades later, declassified State Department documents, although still heavily redacted, left no doubt as to the extend of American duplicity and outright treachery.
These corrections to the history of what had happened to Cyprus, have not reached the "official version" of events that is favoured by the US, Britain and of course Turkey. If someone is still interested, 45 years later, they have to look for these in the millions of documents that are, from time to time, declassified.
There is the "official version" and then there is the truth. What you have just read here, is NOT the "official version".
The photo below depicts a captured Cypriot serviceman being humanely treated by a Turkish soldier. As soon as the press left and the cameras stopped clicking, he was shot in the back of the head and his body thrown in a mass grave. His remains were identified decades later through DNA testing.
Dimitrios Ioannides, strongman of the CIA-backed military junta that ruled over the Greeks of the mainland between 1967 and 1974, who was charged by the US State Department with providing the pretext for the Turkish invasion of Cyprus July 20, 1974.
His job was to carry out a badly organised coup in Cyprus, the success of which was irrelevant, and order the Cypriot National Guard and other Greek units stationed on the Island to abandon their defensive positions in the north and deploy to the south, thus allowing the Turkish invading force an unopposed landing on the island. The few units that disobeyed that order, were those that put up the initial resistance to the Turks and cost them a lot more military casualties than those sustained by the Greeks. The Turkish military made up for that, however, by cold bloodedly slaughtering civilians and captured National Guardsmen.
Ioannides spent the rest of his life in prison, having been tried and convicted of treason, but he never broke his silence with the exception of the above confession he made to a friend who had inquired why he had not defended himself during his trial.
Ioannides need not have bothered as most of us, on the Island at least, already knew that the Americans and British were the guiding hands behind the Turkish invasion. We knew of the direct involvement of the US military when the captured pilot of a downed Turkish jet, turned out to be an American. Not a Turkish/American, but an Anglo. We knew that the British were actively helping when their helicopters were scouting out positions and a short while later the Turkish airforce would follow with a pinpoint accuracy that had been decidedly absent from their initial sorties.
It came as no surprise to us, when decades later, declassified State Department documents, although still heavily redacted, left no doubt as to the extend of American duplicity and outright treachery.
These corrections to the history of what had happened to Cyprus, have not reached the "official version" of events that is favoured by the US, Britain and of course Turkey. If someone is still interested, 45 years later, they have to look for these in the millions of documents that are, from time to time, declassified.
There is the "official version" and then there is the truth. What you have just read here, is NOT the "official version".
The photo below depicts a captured Cypriot serviceman being humanely treated by a Turkish soldier. As soon as the press left and the cameras stopped clicking, he was shot in the back of the head and his body thrown in a mass grave. His remains were identified decades later through DNA testing.
