The most painful and painful wound of the Turkish invasion and the ongoing occupation of our homeland is the tragedy of the missing persons and their families. A tragedy that unfortunately continues for almost half a century, causing daily untold pain and misery to the families of our missing persons, who leave this life without any answers about the fate of their loved ones.
Yes, it is a fact: Parents, spouses, siblings and children of missing persons are completing the circle of their lives and leaving with unanswered questions about the fate of their loved ones.
Yes, it is a fact: Parents, spouses, siblings and children of missing persons are still missing, completing the circle of their lives and leaving with unanswered questions about the fate of their loved ones. Without any answer to the agonizing reasons for a life, without being able to deposit the tears of their love for them in the coffin with their sacred bones, and without the State being able to pay with them the honours due to them for their sacrifice and contribution to our country.
In a few days, on 10 December, World Human Rights Day will be celebrated again this year, commemorating the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly on 10 December 1948. The vision of its initiators was a world of rights and freedoms without discrimination and inequalities.
And the crucial question is what are the consequences - social, political and other - of failure to apply the principles of the Declaration, and by extension International Law, to a blatantly humanitarian issue such as the problem of our missing persons.
Cyprus has filed four appeals against Turkey at the Council of Europe.
Cyprus has filed four appeals against Turkey at the Council of Europe. The 4th Transnational Application was also heard by the then newly established European Court of Human Rights. In its 2001 judgment the Court condemned Turkey for violating a number of articles of the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to the rights of our missing persons and their relatives. But in subsequent judgments, such as the one in 2014, the ECHR again condemned Turkey for failing to meet its obligations. Turkey's mockery, denial and defiance of the judgments of the ECHR is a challenge not only to Europe but also to international legitimacy.
Of course Turkey has enormous responsibilities, both moral, legal and political, and it should finally cooperate with sincerity and humanity to end the drama that the relatives have been experiencing every day for so many decades.
But here, in relation to what I mentioned before, are the reasons for the pendency of the problem limited? Certainly Turkey's responsibilities are enormous. But is it only up to its own will whether or not to implement the condemning judgments of the European Court of Human Rights? Should the international community, the international system of justice, be limited, and limited, to the role of a mere observer? Or worse, should the decisions be applied accordingly and in accordance with political expediency and criteria? Alas, if that were the case. Then what is the role of the international courts, the UN and other international organizations, and what are the responsibilities of the international community in the face of a reality that cannot be disputed and concerns the flagrant violation of human rights in a small country like ours? Russia invaded Ukraine, wreaking havoc and destruction, and the whole world was mobilised. Measure for measure and so on. At the heart of it, the human losses in terms of dead and missing persons, for which the international community as a whole is rightly reacting strongly. But why has this reaction not existed and does not even now exist to the same extent in the case of Turkey's invasion of Cyprus and the ongoing violations of human rights in our country? In 1974 we had mass executions of prisoners, murders of children, rapes, but we did not see the international community or the powerful decision-making centres show the same sensitivity. And they are still just accepting our suggestions and protests without acting in the direction of Turkey in order to convince it to change its attitude and cooperate even to solve the humanitarian aspect of the problem.
There are certainly pathologies in the international arena with the inefficiency of the system in solving major humanitarian problems such as the missing persons of the Cypriot tragedy. The important thing is to address these pathologies and to protect human rights in practice, regardless of political or other considerations.
With measures and procedures that could be promoted, it would be possible to effectively address the long stagnation observed in the long-standing problem of the missing persons in Cyprus and to resolve it once and for all, as required by international law and the primarily human aspect of the issue.
For 48 years now, the souls of so many people, especially the relatives, who continue to climb their personal Golgotha without receiving the answers they seek for the fate of their loved ones and without being able to pay their last respects, in accordance with our faith and traditions, cannot be tormented.
The decisions of international courts set up specifically to protect human rights cannot be so defiantly disregarded without any real impact on the violating party involved in the matter. All the more so when, by its negative and insincere attitude, this side deliberately and continuously puts obstacles in the way of investigative efforts.
If one looks at the history of the problem, as repeatedly set out in the Security Council, the General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Committee, as well as in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights, one will find a great deal of evidence that clearly demonstrates the The same is true in the history of efforts to initiate an investigative effort on the missing persons.
It was only 24 years after its establishment, in April 1981, that the Missing Persons' Committee, which includes a representative of the United Nations, was able to begin to present some work, even if it is limited to the handing over of bones and in several cases of individual bones.
Note also Turkey's non-participation in any of the relevant activities, as well as its refusal to present its records of missing persons or prisoners of war as required by the Geneva Conventions.
Turkey's lack of any cooperation was also underlined in decisions of European legal bodies which ruled that any violation of the rights of the missing persons and their families is the responsibility of Turkey because of its effective control over the occupied part of Cyprus.
We do not disregard the work carried out so far by the Missing Persons' Committee, which is morally and financially supported by the Government of the Republic of Cyprus, with the aim of investigating every case of a missing person, including the number of Turkish Cypriots whose names have been included in the relevant list. At the same time, however, we are not and cannot be satisfied with the pace and the results to date.
With sincerity and goodwill, our side is participating in the relevant efforts by facilitating the investigative work and making available to the Commission all the information at its disposal. However, this is not done by the occupying power for the cases of Greek Cypriots and Greek Cypriot missing persons that are pending before the Commission, and these are not few, constituting about 50% of the cases filed with the ICTY.
We recognize the technical problems that exist, such as the building, the death of witnesses, the fading of memory, etc.etc. that have been deliberately raised from time to time, but these are clearly subordinate in importance to those related to the lack of the required political will and willpower on the Turkish side involved in the disappearance of a large number of persons even after their arrest. The increasingly limited number of remains identified each year, the problems posed by the occupying power for exhumations and searches in the so-called military zones, the failure to indicate mass burial sites from the collections of the dead from the battlefields, the destruction of the mass burial sites and the deliberate movement of the remains to places unknown to us, as well as the refusal of the occupying power to study its military records, are the main problems encountered by the whole investigative effort.
Due to time constraints, I will limit myself to an extract from a relevant judgment of the European Court of Human Rights:
"For the Court, the silence of the authorities of the respondent State (i.e. Turkey) in the face of the real concerns of the relatives of the missing persons approaches a level of cruelty that can only be categorised as inhuman treatment."
Ladies and gentlemen,
Undoubtedly, it is unacceptable, unacceptable and inhumane, 48 years after the Turkish invasion, to still be searching for missing persons. But I want to assure you that, despite the difficulties and problems and the refusal of the occupying power to cooperate, we are continuing and intensifying our efforts to clarify the last case of our missing person. For this we are always cooperating closely with the Greek government, as well as with the organized groups of relatives. This is for us an obligation and a debt to our heroes and their families who fought and sacrificed defending the dignity, the sacred and the sacred of Greeks everywhere. We will not compromise or give in to the appetites and tactics of the occupying power. We will fulfill our duty towards our heroes and our history as our conscience and our duty dictates.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the Union of Cypriots in Greece for organizing the event, as well as the other speakers with whom we have shared the great dimension of the problem.
(AT/MB)
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