Alleged British Atrocities?

[boycott]

Read this today in the Daily Mail -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ising.html

Also a very similar article in -
http://english.cyprustimes.com/2018/04/ ... e-shunned/

British colonial forces raped a 15-year-old girl and tortured civilian detainees with beatings and mock hangings during the Cyprus uprising in the 1950s, papers lodged at the High Court reveal.
The devastating claims have been made in damning eyewitness reports by 31 elderly men and two women who are suing the Government for human rights abuses.
The evidence comes after The Mail on Sunday revealed in April that senior British officers had seen evidence of beatings, torture and murder by soldiers during the British occupation of the island, and that their complaints had been covered up by the authorities.The British Government denies any wrongdoing and has appealed against a High Court ruling that the case can be heard in the UK.
Lawyers representing the Cypriots, who were mostly juveniles at the time, say they have irrefutable evidence, including detention and medical records.
The Cyprus insurgency began on April 1, 1955, when the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) began a four-year insurgency against British authorities determined that 'Cyprus shall never have self-determination'.
Military personnel and local police were given free rein, Cypriot fighters were rounded up and torture was said to be used to gather intelligence. One woman, known only as Mrs XY and now in her 70s, was suspected of being an EOKA member. She was taken from her home by Turkish Cypriot police in 1956, under the command of Detective Sergeant Geoffrey Leach. Court papers state she was driven to a forest area, beaten and raped by the officers.She was then taken to a police station, beaten during interrogation and 'pushed between her tormentors like a ball', before passing out.
At one point a noose was tied around her neck and tightened.
In 1960, the Cyprus government paid for medical treatment for internal injuries resulting from the multiple rape.
Her lawyers at Birmingham-based K. J. Conroy & Co argue that the colonial government not only breached the Convention on Human Rights, but also failed to protect the rights of its own subjects.Christos Constantinou, 83, says he was arrested three times in 1956 and on the third occasion he was taken to the British Army camp Xeros, where he was punched and beaten. He was then stripped to the waist and whipped with a metal chain by a member of the intelligence corps and two Gordon Highlanders.
Christos Socratous, now 79, was detained in 1958. Then 18, he was kicked, beaten, stamped on, then forced to stand in a stress position – spreadeagled, with his arms up – for four hours.
'They kept saying I was a terrorist and that I knew about a bomb going off,' he said last week.
During his 28-day ordeal, he saw other young men being dragged from their cells to be tortured.There had been complaints about the abuse at the time.
Former Grenadier Guards officer Jamie Eykyn, 79, told The Mail on Sunday that he and his colleague, the late Major Michael Stourton, were so appalled that they complained to their superiors. They were ignored, and the Ministry of Defence removed the episode from the official history of the Grenadier Guards.
Christos Socratous insists the case is not just about money, but about justice. 'What they did was wrong and yet they have always denied any wrongdoings.
'I want my day in court. I want my story to be told so that people know what the British did in Cyprus.
'The point is that it did happen. That must be acknowledged and a public apology made.'

[Dominic]

If they were fresh claims I would agree HiC. But if there was a cover-up preventing action in the past, then I think it only fair.

[treandaena]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/per ... -land.html

Remember these people ?

Most of them shot in the back.

[TLR]

I'm not entirely sure if any of these revelations and raking over of the past helps anyone.
They were dreadful, highly fraught times and many people on all sides of the conflict committed crimes which they will have to atone for in a higher court.
Perhaps we should let it alone on this forum.

[Firefly]

So it seems, rather one sided isn't it.

[boycott]

I presume that if you are a terrorist organisation you do not have to play by the rules (Would you be a terrorist if you played by the rules?).
However I suspect that a Government is duty bound and expected to be above board and not resort to illegal activities.

[Devil]

However I suspect that a Government is duty bound and expected to be above board and not resort to illegal activities.

Snigger!

[Kili01]

All this happened over 60 years ago. In another time, 1955-59 the British were involved in what was a guerilla war fought against a GC terrorist organisation, EOKA. There were unspeakable acts committed by the terrorists against both the British military and ordinary British civilians, and by GC’s to TC’s and vica versa.
Why should only GC’s be entitled to take part in legal actions in court to claim compensation and maybe to settle old scores?

Dee

[treandaena]

I was in Malaya in the late 1950s, and years later we were accused of overreacting to an incident in a Kampong where Communist terrorists were hiding.
In the incident some Malays were killed in the crossfire and we lost two of our comrades, ten years ago the descendants of those killed in the village tried to claim compensation and they failed .

[Dominic]

I am right in saying that ROC don't consider EOKA to be a terrorist organisation, am I not?

[bromerzz]

Money (Compensation) is the root of Invention.

[treandaena]

I am right in saying that ROC don't consider EOKA to be a terrorist organisation, am I not?

Of course they are not, they are "Freedom Fighters" but quite how fighting for freedom from "Colonial Rule" whilst driving towards Enosis with Greece sits with that description whilst carrying out a campaign of terror against your own people, Murder and intimidation of both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities and of course targeting innocent families of British Service Personnel at the time is deemed "Justifiable" and to be admired is perhaps stretching the term somewhat.

So the IRA are freedom fighters then ?
Admiration you must be joking.

[Dominic]

Well, if you are in a country who deems a certain organisation not to be terrorists surely it is just a matter of politeness to let them have their opinion.

[2QuarterPints]

I lived in Nicosia during the late 50's and can remember going to school with grenade nets on the bus windows, and armed guards on the bus. One day the nets did what they were there for and a grenade bounced off but failed to explode in any event. Had the net not been there, and the grenade not a dud, it would have been carnage in a bus full of small children. Children over the age of 12 were giving small arms training because things were becoming so tense. Bizarrely, whilst all this was going on a lot of service families, mine included, lived out in the village suburbs virtually unprotected. My father, who was an Army Warrant Officer, was notionally in charge of our village. However, he was a hopeless alcoholic and despite us living in a Turkish village, he would go to the nearby Greek village, just across the river from us, because drink was cheaper there. How he survived goodness only knows.

[Lofos-5]

Thanks for sharing your personal story 2QP. It is an interesting and first hand account of what happened in these troubled years (ref again also to the book Bitter Lemons on the previous other thread).

A.

[Firefly]

2QP

I have just read your story, and thank you for posting it. So sad about your father, it can't have helped your situation.

Austin7

Just so.

Jackie

[Dominic]

Well, if you are in a country who deems a certain organisation not to be terrorists surely it is just a matter of politeness to let them have their opinion.

You mean like Jeremy Corbyn supported the IRA

What has Corbyn's opinion of the IRA got to do with Cyprus and this forum? Personally I think Corbyn is a monstrous bell end.

[Kili01]

Hudswell,
Can only agree wth your previous post about ‘Freedom Fighters aka EOKA. I thought that what you wrote was very well put. It should leave those who are ‘EOKA sympathisers’ with a better idea of what this terrorist organisation was really doing.
And you didn’t mention EOKA B and the ‘Akritas Plan’ in the post ‘1963-74’ years which if it had been fully implemented would have amounted to genocide of the Turkist Cypriots’.

EOKA is stil revered by some sectors of the local people.

Dee