The following text is a memo written by US Ambassador to Cyprus William Crawford to the US State Department on 29/04/76, describing the last days of the Greek Cypriot inhabitants of the village of Bellapais, after the Turkish invasion of 1974. Greek Cypriots lived in Bellapais until 1976. A newspaper article adding context to the memo can be located by pressing here.
The text below has been adjusted from the memo for typos and other minor inconsistencies. The original can be found by pressing here.
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The last days of a Greek Cypriot village
Before 1974, no village in Cyprus was better known for Charm, location and history than Bellapais. Sited in the Kyrenia hills looking northward to the Mediterranean, it had A Greek Cypriot population of over 1200, a delicately beautiful Crusader abbey, a reputation enhanced by Lawrence Durrell's "Bitter lemons", a modest community of foreign artists, Musicians, archaeologists, journalists and retired British. No Village, in fact, better represented the tranquil attractions That brought tourists by the tens of thousands to Cyprus every year.
In part because of its symbolic role, in part for its accessibility, and in part because we enjoyed its people and Its beauty, we have closely watched the post-war fortunes of Bellapais.
By this past Greek Orthodox holiday weekend, we knew we were seeing the last days of this village as it has existed. More or less without change for the last several centuries. Its population was down to under 300. Of these, all but six families had signed "Voluntary" statements of their wish to leave the Turkish zone. The livestock had been slaughtered, the last bottles of wine brought out of the hoard for the Easter meal. The villagers were packed to go. A half dozen large trucks every day had been shuttling southward to the border loaded with household possessions. In the central square before the abbey, the huge traditional bonfire representing the burning of Judas had been lit in the afternoon instead of in conjunction with the usual Easter midnight mass, which the Turkish police had forbidden because of curfew. The Six Greek Cypriot families which had refused to sign away their past lives and properties, and the few foreign families remaining in the village, wondered painfully what might become of them if they continued to fight the tide: the Turkish police having passed the word that for anyone who did not leave before April 28 there would be no trucks for hire to transport possessions South.
Three embassy families, mine included, who over the months have used Bellapais as an occasional weekend retreat, and who were present over its last Orthodox Easter, pooled the following recollections of the vents which had led to its decease:
"The sons who never returned from war. Those who survived but were not allowed to return on security grounds. The father who returned to their families physically and psychically bruised after two months in mainland Turkish detention camps".
"The custodian of the abbey, desperately ill, who would not leave the village for medical care in a Nicosia hospital before receiving through the international red cross Turkish assurance that he would be allowed to return after treatment. Who did return after months of waiting while the Turks stalled on their promise, only to die of a heart attack the day after he finally reached home".
"The mayor, who was evicted on the charge of having buried a pistol in his garden - which a Turkish platoon could not unearth until its sergeant redirected their digging. The "Election" of a Turkish-supported new mayor".
"As 1975 wore on, ever tightened curfews, the confiscation of all automobiles, the denial of permission to work lands or go to market in Kyrenia. The peremptory jailing of the village's remaining natural leaders with the threat of "Sign or go without your family or furniture." "Sign now or stay in jail." or, "We have confessions - we know you are a member of a clandestine organization" planning to attack Turkish commando headquarters (600 strong) on the village periphery".
"The school teachers and doctor and UNFICYP presence sought but never admitted regardless of the Vienna understandings in the fall of the year".
"With the last of the leadership forced out and Turkish police statements in early April that the village would be evacuated in two months at the latest, morale cracked; resignation took its place".
"Symbolically, Denktash in April chose Bellapais as his weekend home. Turkish police assured foreign residents that the future Turkish population would be from the better classes".
What we saw last weekend was that 20 months of intimidation had done its work.
By Denktash's own admission what has happened in Bellapais reflects a larger military policy aimed at removing, not reassuring, Greek Cypriot communities remaining in Turkish Cyprus.
Comment: we are neither moralists nor partisan. The consequences of Greek folly are what they are and will be. Cyprus today still carries the scars of the 1964 and 1967 decimation and levelling of Turkish villages by Greeks. But treatment of Greeks in Bellapais and elsewhere in the Turkish zone is far from the government's portrayal. Perhaps the true story is not known to the civilian leadership in Ankara.
Crawford
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