heritage

The systematic destruction of everything that is Greek and everything that is Christian in the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus is based on a well organised plan, with a view to creating a "homogeneous geographic area" which will form the future "Turkish state". Cultural treasures, religious sites, ancient and contemporary symbols and anything reminding the Greek-Cypriot presence in the Turkish occupied part of Cyprus is destroyed. Even the traditional names of the Greek Cypriot villages are changed according to tha above mentioned Turkish plan. Here are a few reports from non Greek-Cypriot media.

"It is important to distinguish between random damage that might have been caused by drunks after a night out, and the demolition of crosses, tombstones and heavy marble slabs which weigh several hundredweights and would need men with sledgehammers to destroy them. We found nothing to fit the first category. In fact, at Dhavlos, on the north coast, now occupied by mainland Turks, even the graveyard wall was partly demolished. Not a single tombstone remained standing[...] ..the process of obliterating everything Greek has been carried out methodically. The churches and graveyards have suffered severely."
"The Times", 5.27.1976

"The little treasure house of Antiphonitis Monastery, in the mountains north of Lefkoniko, had sustained the most comprehensive looting and damage....the 11th, 12th and 15th century icons..all had vanished or had been destroyed. The nineteenth and twentieth century icons were smashed, the furniture broken. In the corner were bags of cement and the remains of a fire. Furniture had been lugged outside onto the grass, and the whole place was a strewn with bottles and filth. Somebody was clearly proud of this work, for the wrecked iconostasis the date was chalked March 6, 1975."
"The Times", 5.27.1976

"The Turkish Cypriot Arts Society leader, Ali Atakan, in a statement issued on May 20 revealed yet more antique smuggling. According to this revelation, a valuable Byzantine mosaic has been stolen from a Byzantine Church in the village of Lythrangomi. There are two inter-connected churches in the village and the mosaic was stolen from the apse of the older church which dates back to the 8th century..."
Turkish Cypriot newspaper "Yenidyzen", 6.1.1982

"You will see chambers cut out of the rocks, lighthouses, the remains of baths, layouts and the military camps set up on the ruins both before and after 1974... Today Lambousa is a military zone closed to tourists. Here are many important churches and the mythological Akhiropietos Monastery. Now you cannot see it because it is being used as a military warehouse. The icons stolen from Lambousa were retrieved while being smuggled out of Ankara airport."
Turkish Cypriot newspaper "Olay", 'Perishing Cyprus', 4.26.75 - 5.17.1982

"Haven't you heard that the 2000 year old Christian church in Cyprus, St Barnabas' Church, has been robbed? Haven't you heard that 35 icons were stolen, that 11 of them were found in Kythrea, that 11 were retrieved at Ankara airport while being smuggled out, and that the rest are lost? Haven't you heard what's happening in Varosha (Famagusta)? Haven't you heard that figurines belonging to the Catholic period and kept in the Archaeological Museum have been stolen and smuggled to London? What about the icons in the other churches; the mosaics, the private collections, the illegal digs? Why have they stopped the digs started before 1974 at the city of Gastria, which belongs to the geometric age? Do you know what happened since then? The government [sic] has issued permits to certain businessmen from Turkey to set up a gypsum factory there. The tombs were destroyed and plundered."
Mehmet Yiasin, "Perishing Cyprus", in the Turkish Cypriot Review "Olay", April 1982:

"The antiques are illegally exported from the northern part of the island, especially rich in archaeological sites."
"Le Monde", 12.27.1978

"The Cyprus Arts Society [in the occupied areas] issued a press release saying that the antique smuggling in the occupied areas has reached enormous dimensions and that measures should be taken to protect the destruction of the antiques."
Turkish Cypriot "Bozkurt", 7.4.1982

"...The vandalism and desecration are so methodical and so widespread that they amount to institutionalized obliteration of everything sacred to a Greek [...] In some instances, an entire graveyard of 50 or more tombs had been reduced to pieces or rubble no larger than a matchbox...we found the chapel of Ayios Demetrios at Ardhana empty but for the remains of the altar plinth, and that was fouled with human excrement[...] At Syngrasis [...] the broken crucifix was drenched in urine.. At Lefkoniko [...the interior of Gaidhouras church...] was overlooked by an armless Christ on a smashed crucifix.. Tombs gaped open wherever we went... crosses bearing the pictures of those buried beneath [...] had been flattened and destroyed."
"The Guardian", 'The Rape of northern Cyprus', 5.6.1976

PANCYPRIAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS