THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLIHED BY TURKISHNEWS PAPERS 7 YEARS AGO
THIS IS RE PUBLICATION TO SHOW NOTHING IS CHANGED IN ....
<><><><><><><><><><> T U R K I S H F O R U M <><><><><><><><><><><>
<><><> Informing and Activating Turks and Friends World Wide <><><>
<>>><<>><< " B I R L I K T E N K U V V E T D O G A R " <<>><<>><<>
<><><><><><> " United We Stand - United We Are Stronger " <><><><><><>
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
CBS' 60 MINUTES STORY OF SUNDAY JANUARY 6, 2002 MIMICS ANOTHER ONE
WRITTEN IN 1995. THE TURKISH FORUM IS PROUD TO PRESENT IT VERBATIM.
Mahmut Esat Ozan
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
APOSTOLOS KAKLAMANIS
THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREEK
PARLIAMENT-THE KING OF
DISINFORMATION
Mahmut Esat Ozan
January 26, 1995
Mr. Apostolos Kaklamanis
President of Parliament
Governmental Offices, Athens
Sir,
I read with great dismay a report emanating from Athens News Agency
(ANA), which had implications that you, as the President of the Greek
Parliament, had allegedly made against Turkey on the subject of "Democracy
and Human Rights" in that country.
The News Agency had this to say:
Athens, 20/01/95 - The Parliament President Apostolos Kaklamanis said
yesterday that the recently published photographs of Turkish soldiers holding
the decapitated heads of Kurdish guerrillas "show in the clearest possible
way that the road to democratization and the improvements of the human rights
in that country, Turkey, is still a long one."
In statements to the German-based DEM news agency, Mr. Kaklamanis added in a
most sarcastic tone the following:
"With amazement and abhorrence, the international public opinion once again
witnesses the 'humanitarian performance' and 'deeds of valor' of Turkey which
hopes to become a member of the European Union, and which contradicts all
concepts of protection of human rights and respect for international law."
"The continuous reports of torture, the curtailing of the operation and
freedom of the press, the executions without trial, the torching and forced
evacuation of villages, the threats against foreign news media and even Euro
deputies, and the recent prohibition imposed on the former deputy Leyla Zana,
preventing her from accepting the Sakharov prize, cause painful associations
and raise questions as to that country's true intentions with respect to
democratization."
Kieyos Kaklamanis, after verifying the veracity of the above-mentioned news
items and the statements attributed to you, and consequently being satisfied
that those were your own words, I must now tell you that now I believe that
the statements made by German scholar and historian Dr. Hans Falmerayer, were
one hundred percent correct.
Dr. Falmerayer, who is also an anthropologist, claims in his well-known
treatise that "today's Greeks do not have any continuity with their
namesakes, the Greeks of antiquity." His claims are very meaningful, because
in Turkish schools we were taught to believe that in ancient Greece there
existed civilization, which is a concept directly related to 'civility.'
However, your highly uncivilized comportment and your outrageous
prevarications and out and out lies illustrate for all to see that even
though the inhabitants of Greece of antiquity understood the true meaning of
the word 'democracy', you, Mr. Kaklamanis, do not seem to comprehend that
precept at all. Reading your statements, I found well enough proof that
those lofty ideals of justice, compassion, honesty and love of freedom, etc.,
ever-present in the celebrated literary works of Homer, Socrates, or
Aristotle, were sadly absent in your delivery.
I am a journalist, and have been so perhaps more years than you have been
living on this earth. As a layman, with no official governmental title
linking me to any administration, I may exercise my first amendment rights
and privileges and may criticize a person or persons, or subjects of an
infinite variety, obviously, within the boundaries of a civilized,
journalistic code of ethics. But, you, Sir, you are supposed to be the
second highest representative of the Greek Government.
You are the President of the Greek Parliament. You are selected among a
group of presumably honorable dignitaries. Your words and actions reflect
directly upon your whole nation of Greeks. More than anyone else, you should
be aware of the fact that in the case of all civilized countries, there is a
universally-adhered-to protocol, beyond which no self-respecting diplomat or
politician dares to trespass. But, you went beyond that prescribed line of
honor and decency, and made statements espousing the official diplomatic
views of the Greek Government. Furthermore, you carelessly read them to the
international press, and talked about them as if they were the gospel truth.
You were doing this, knowing well that they were slanderous statements made
just to hurt the Turks. You also did not refrain from showing the ugly
photos and text, which were totally repudiated in the European press, and
even in the Greek newspapers the next day. Some papers said they were proven
to be falsified copies and doctored-up materials. However, you, without
batting an eye, with premeditation, tried to convince your German
interviewers that you were telling the truth. The Turco-phobic refrains in
your language were well camouflaged, as to leave the impression on the
listeners that they were as honest as the Solomonic parables from the Old and
the New testaments of the holy books.
The Turkish people whose character you were besmirching were not only your
next-door neighbors, but also those who have been your partners in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization during the last 44 years.Greece's moral and
financial support of the PKK, as a terrorist organization, outlawed by most
European countries and the United States of America, is simply untenable and
unacceptable under any norm of international diplomatic behavior. This
policy of your government is still being carried out, while the ruthless
guerrillas of the aforementioned organization, the PKK, are murdering daily
scores of innocent men, women, and children, even as we speak.
Knowing all this and more, I now have to ask myself, as to what kind of inner
drive of hate for the Turkish people your nation and its government must have
accumulated in their hearts to trample over concepts of truth, tolerance, and
compassion. Do not these exalted verities, truth, tolerance, and compassion
constitute the preamble to the idea of 'democracy' which you Greeks flaunt
with conceited pride in all international circles, and gloat about the fact
that you are the 'originators' of them?
How can you, on the one hand, reconcile the statement you have made about the
'lack of human rights' in Turkey, and on the other hand continue to stifle
the total cultural and religious freedoms of close to a million ethnic Turks
living in Western Thrace?
There seems to be a dichotomy forming in the Balkans today. The Muslims of
ex-Yugoslavia have been showing their gratitude for the Turkish support given
to them throughout their deadly struggle with your allies, the Serbs, by the
way of using the international Media. In addition to the Bosnian Muslims,
the Hungarian Christians also find positive enough feelings in them for the
Turks, to collect funds, and to erect a statue of Suleyman the Magnificent,
in a prominent public square of Budapest, thus commemorating the former
Turkish ruler. In the meantime, what are the Greeks doing?
Well, in stark contrast, the encourage, methodically, common thugs to
desecrate Muslim mosques, and continue to violate the basic human rights and
religious freedoms of the Turkish minority there. What follows is one such
graphic example of recorded history:
On February 12, 1995, fanatic Greek goons assaulted a group of worshippers,
praying at a mosque in the Hurriyet province of Xhanti. The hurling of
stones at the congregation and the threatening of worshippers with deafening
chants of 'death to the Turks' followed these attacks. The smashing of the
windows of the mosque and of the official vehicle of the clergyman Ferit
Darman, while he was leading the prayers inside at the time, was the drowning
glory of these proud gangs of salaried riffraff, as some of the peace-loving
citizens of modern Greece.
The sizable Turkish minority living in Western Thrace today are the direct
descendants of the Turkish colonizers who once ruled that land and they are
the direct descendants of the former rulers of the Balkans for over 400
years. You people may have coined the word 'democracy' at one time, but you
are surely missing the boat on its applications.
Here are some examples:
During the recent brouhaha over the ownership of the small Rock of KARDAK
only 3.6 miles off the Turkish coastline, your government, in which you are a
member, is brewing trouble. The Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Ciller said
that Greeks should leave the solution of the problem to international
arbitration. Instead of being so intransigent, you should learn to live in
peace with your neighbors. These neighbors, be they Albanians, Macedonians,
Bulgarians or Turks, have every right to be left alone, to live in harmony,
without worrying about embargoes or militaristic braggadocios created to
appease and divert the appetites of economically and politically dissatisfied
internal masses.
The physical help, given by the Greek government to the bloody
Maxist-Leninist PKK and the unsolved murders of your Nov,17 terrorist
gangsters, indicate one thing most assuredly, and that is this : Greece has
no desire to abandon its lofty dreams of recapturing what you people still
call Constantinople. There is a correlation between your foreign policy and
your sinister actions. To you, Greeks, the butcher of close to 30 thousand
innocent men, women, and children, Abdullah Ocalan whom you are aiding,
remains as a symbol of attainment of your daydreams. Mr. Kaklamanis daydreams
do not work it is the reality that counts.
You may have easily forgotten that in 1941, when the Second World War was
raging, several hundreds of Turkish Merchant Marines lost their lives at sea
trying to break the German and Italian naval blockades around your country.
Their ships were sunk by U-boat torpedoes. The Turks you despise so much
today were the kind of altruistic Turks who did not mind risking their lives
to bring your starving population flour, sugar, canned meat products, and a
variety of other rare staples and commodities to sustain the lives of their
hungry neighbors.
Instead of fooling the world with fake pictures of decapitated 'Kurdish'
heads, and even claiming that the Turkish soldiers were seen 'playing soccer'
with them, is a shameful thing to do. Comparing your lies with the
magnanimous acts of the Turkish people, performed at a time when food was
very scarce and strictly rationed throughout their entire land this
magnanimity of theirs alone shines as a glorious advantage for the Turks,
your long-time former masters, from whom you people have not learned much
about the concept of civility, it seems.
* * *
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
<><><><><><><><><><> T U R K I S H F O R U M <><><><><><><><><><><>
<><><> Informing and Activating Turks and Friends World Wide <><><>
<>>><<>><< " B I R L I K T E N K U V V E T D O G A R " <<>><<>><<>
<><><><><><> " United We Stand - United We Are Stronger " <><><><><><>
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
http://www.TurkishForum.com http://www.DiscoverTurkey.com
http://www.TurkishNews.com/Ataturk http://www.TurkishForum.org
http://www.Med-TV.com http://www.ftaa.org http://www.ATMG.org
http://www.TurkishForum.net http://www.TurkishNews.com
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
* TO LEAVE THE LIST * DAGITIM LISTESINDEN CIKMAK *
Uyelikten cikmak icin mesaj aldiginiz hesabinizdan ici bos bir mesaji
grassroots-unsubscribe-request@turkishforum.org adresine gondermeniz
yeterli!
To remove yourself from this list send a blank message from the email
account you are getting messages to
grassroots-unsubscribe-request@turkishforum.org
>>><<>><<>><>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<><
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 01/08/02 EST