They speak of themselves: Eyewitness testimony of a high-ranking officer of the Turkish Armed Forces regarding war crimes committed during the Attila invasion inc Cyprus

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Excerpts from the book CYPRUS: AN ISLAND FOR SALE, by Erol Moutertzimler [accused and convicted in the Ergenegon case, later granted a pardon]

Subtitle: Unknown details of the Peace Operation in Cyprus (1^st edition 1990, 7^th edition, April 2007)

Report of the remembrances of infantry colonel Salih Gulergiuz, (pp 623-660) who belonged to the brigade command. Provided as Appendix 2.

Page 641

3^rd August, 1974

The day began and all was quiet in the morning. There are no battles anywhere. For the first time I have written a letter home.

Captain Nermi and lieutenant Gurkan were found in a state of decomposition near the village of Ayermola [n. Ayios Ermolaos, St. Ermolaos, Kyrenia District]. The body of the 2^nd lieutenant is nowhere to be found; he has been on the missing list for five days. They have brought the wallet of captain Nermi. It contains his officer ID and 400 TL. It smells very badly.

We have begun organizing the brigade. It will not be good to have to evacuate the mountains [n. the portion of the Pendadactylos range that was captured by the Turkish invasion forces].

We learned in the evening that 14 Greeks were killed in one house in the village of Sysklipos (n. close to St. Ermolaos, Kyrenia district). We found out that this was committed by an artillery non-commissioned officer, two paratroopers and two mujahedin (Turkish Cypriot civil guards).

We took depositions from these soldiers until late into the night.

4^th August, 1974

The chief of staff of the expeditionary force, a classmate and friend, colonel Mahmout Boguslu, came early in the morning. We went together to Sysklipos and found the house where the Greeks were killed. The sight made our hair stand. They were killed in the hallway of a house near a chicken farm. Eight of them had several bullet holes in their head and chest, fallen on settees and chairs, and all are sitting in a pool of blood. Five men and women are down [on the floor] embracing one another, also dead in a pool of blood. A corpse in a sitting position on a chair next to the entrance of the house has no head, and the neck and throat are totally white.

A frail 11-12-year old Greek girl has been raped. They have put on her a Greek soldier’s overcoat. We have seen her taking breakfast with our own soldiers at the chicken farm in Sysklipos. When she sees us she smiles sheepishly, saying “kalimeras” (n. misspelling of “good morning” in Greek).

We returned to our head-quarters in St. Hilarion [n. the famous medieval castle] passing through the Sysklipos gorge and by the mountain with an altitude of 1023 m. [n. probably means the highest peak of the Pendadactylos range “Kyparissovouno”], inspecting all our units.

Notes:

1. Everything explanatory is in brackets as notes [n].
2. Spelling of the original was retained, though proper names are restored in brackets.
3. This text is an obvious and official confession of the commission of war crimes by the invading Turkish Army during the Attila operation (20^th July-18^th August, 1974) in Cyprus. The book has made seven editions in Turkish in the course of 17 years, therefore the admission of war crimes is not a spur-of-the-moment event.

1. For starters, there is the execution in cold blood of 13 civilians in Sysklipou, evidenced after the fact by Colonels Gulerguz and Boguslu. The latter is the chief of staff of the invasion force, so this means that the top brass of the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) were made aware, even if only unofficially, of this mass murder. Depositions by the guilty party (a non-commissioned officer, two Turkish paratroopers and perhaps the two T/C “mujahedin”) were taken.

There is no mention of any proceedings against the guilty parties, or notification of the International Red Cross (IRC) of this atrocity. Thus, besides the ghoulish atrocity itself (all corpses full of bullet holes, one corpse has been beheaded), there is a failure to notify proper authorities, and a cover up.

The cover-up unavoidably must have reached to top level of the TAF. After all, the book has been in circulation for 32 years (with 7 editions at least) without anyone from the TAF being disturbed by its contents. And this in a country where censorship has been widespread, more so since the “failed coup attempt” of 2015.

1. Mass rape has been committed on an 11-12 year-old frail Greek Cypriot girl, who apparently remained (under force, obviously) with the invading army, with all imaginable consequences. Here also a blatant war crime has been committed, alongside a cover-up and failure to report to proper authorities! The responsibility of these two colonels as well as all their higher ups to whom they reported these atrocities cannot be overstated!

It is perhaps no accident that two days later, on the 6^th of August, 1974, Turkey sent an official notice to the International Red Cross claiming that the invasion of Cyprus was “an internal affair” hence the IRC, an organization for the relief of victims of war and other calamities, had no jurisdiction over such atrocities!

1. According to extensive reporting by Frixos Dalitis of the Phileftheros newspaper, this poor girl was eventually freed and provided testimony of her immense suffering to the Acting President of the Republic of Cyprus Glafkos Clerides. Obviously she has been under psychiatric care for years, and (as far as we know) she has never been able to have a family. I personally kneel with respect in view of her immense suffering, alongside that of her butchered fellow villagers, and consider it the obligation of the Republic of Cyprus, and all of us individually, to try so that all persons responsible for   the war crimes committed during the Attila operation are brought to justice (below).
2. These specific excerpts from the book were incorporated in memorandum of the Republic of Cyprus to the Council of Europe, May 2012, concerning the violations of human rights of Cypriot citizens in the territory of the republic occupied illegally by the TAF since 1974. It would be good to learn from the authorities of the fate of this memorandum. Russia was recently obliged to leave the CoE, out of fear of possible conviction/expulsion, before any violations of human rights, committed in Ukranian territory invaded by the Russian armed forces, were certified by the relevant council committees. What about the 48-year-long Attila operation, to whose horrible consequences we are still subjected?

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