From: ptg2351@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Panos Tamamidis )
Subject: Re: "Bayraktar/Omerye" mosques had been totally vandalised by the Greeks.
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 04:13:34 GMT

sera@zuma.UUCP (Serdar Argic) writes:

>I love people who don't read and then spout myths as evidence.

>UNESCO expert Mr Jacques Dalibard's report presented in Jan 1976,
>no. RP/975-76/3.41.

>This report expresses in para. 6.c. that "Bayraktar" and "Omerye"
>mosques had been "totally vandalised" by the Greeks and that their
>minarets had been destroyed by them.

>  Paragraph 10 of the  report also states that " all the known
>collections and a large number of religious artifacts found in
>abandoned churches had been restored in central locations..
>the cataloguing of these these objects was quite advanced"
>"all the significant antiquities found in the antique shops within
>Turkish controlled zone had been seized  and stored."

>Another recent report prepared by Mr Van der Werff, a member of
>the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who was
>also General Rapporteur of the Sub-Committee on the
>Architectural and Artistic Heritage of the Committee on Culture
>and Education:

>   The report was published a a document of The Council of Europe
>on 2.7.1989 with the number AS/CULT/AA(41)1.

>   The said report, while dealing with the subject of cultural
>property  in both parts of Cyprus, also makes various suggestions
>with regard to its protection and preservation. Referring also
>to the question of the smuggling of antiquities, the report points
>out that mosaics are also being stolen from the churches in the
>South and makes the following observation in this regard:
>"The South is also vulnerable as the theft of the Leda and Swan
>mosaic from the (Kouklia Museum of) Paphos Museum shows".
>"Unfortunately the international market is now well aware of
>a well funded market in the South for items coming from the
>north". (page 5, para. 5.1)

>   With regard to the destruction and desecration of Turkish
>Muslim cultural property in the South, the report, at page 13,
>para. 5.3 states the following:

>   "We noted with regret the complete destruction of the main
>mosque in Paphos. The whole are has since been flattened to
>give way for a widened road junction and a car park. There
>is no memorial to the existence of the mosque. Below the road
>a Turkish bath complex remains hidden in rubble and vegetation
>awaiting restoration. The Turkish Cypriot cemetery by the
>nearby St. Sophia Myttalos mosque is dilapidated."

>   And, at page 13, we find an expose of the Greek falsifications:

>   "We saw no churches, destroyed though St. George in Liminia
>(in the North) was listed as such (by Greek Cypriot Government)."

>   On the use or reuse of religious buildings, the report,
>again at page 13, states the following:

>   "In several cases the churches are used as mosques. Although
>the point is controversial we find it difficult to criticise
>such reuse. As the Turkish Cypriots point out, it has been general
>Council of Europe policy for some time to urge reuse of redundant
>religious buildings. This was reasserted as recently as May 1989
>in the Parliamentary Assembly when we adopted Resolution 916."

>Serdar Argic

>                     'This war quickly developed into one of extermination. 
>                      We closed the roads and mountain passes that might 
>                      serve as ways of escape for the Tartars [Turks] and 
>                      then proceeded in the work of extermination.'
>                                                       (Ohanus Appressian)