By ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
It just won’t end…
New “provocations” are being planned for Varosha…
Ankara’s involvement in this issue is not clear yet…
However, the news that a Turkish businessman has purchased three hotels owned by a Greek Cypriot in the area has caused a stir…
A dual-passport-holder Turkish minister hinted at new faits accomplis in Varosha…
“We are waiting for the right time,” he said. He suggests that Turks should buy the Greek Cypriot properties in Varosha…
You would think that this man is a “real estate agent”…
But the reality is that he’s got our “Cypriot” politicians at the Council of Ministers tied around his little finger.
He jumps head-on into “sensitive” issues that go against “political ethics” and that would be cause for being “banned from politics” in a democratic country, trampling our guys with his skill in cunningness…
He sits down and negotiates with power plant owners who do business with the state, works vigorously to pass the laws they want, engages in “talks” with airline companies, and tries to deceive us by telling us [the new airline] is “local and national” while suddenly declaring that we bought a ship.
It is uncommon in the tradition of this poor “little state” for a politician in the executive to sit down and “negotiate” with a businessman or get things done…
Those who attempted to do so in the past could not avoid being labelled “bribe-takers”…
However, these days, this is how “new politics” is carried out and everyone “keeps mum”…
That’s why the discussion on Varosha rests with Erhan Arıklı…
On the other hand, Mr Tatar is not remaining idle either…
Since Ankara has not been able to make any moves in Cyprus to “win votes” before the elections, he settles with attending ceremonies, making symbolic gestures and patriotic rhetoric…
On the very first day of the Eid holiday, the one-millionth visitor walked into Varosha…
Mr Tatar was there to greet him right away… Taking the commander of the Security Forces and the Mayor of Famagusta with him, he stood before the cameras in front of the entrance to Varosha.
He handed the “lucky” visitor a large, gold-embossed, framed “diploma”…
And his own book that he printed with the “state’s” money…
A complete “dark” propaganda… And just then the person who is from Famagusta says, “I come here often anyway.”
The whole “magic” of the setting evaporated right there…
We are supposedly doing tourism with such a “mentality” that markets this great act of “shame on humanity” in the world, without feeling any discomfort about it…
We reward the millionth visitor for visiting this “monument of disgrace”…
But what does it mean for a million people to walk the streets of Varosha?
It means a million acts of shame…
It means a million disgraceful acts…
It means being humiliated a million times…
It means sinking to new depths a million times…
Not a single person who tours the city, who is “human”, who witnesses the demolished buildings, the looted banks, and the books scattered on the ground, can leave with “positive” feelings…
Could believing that we “accomplish” something by showing “tourists” how we destroyed a city, how we plundered and looted it, be called anything other than “insanity” for God’s sake?
Do you not think that people do not question this ruthless “looting” after witnessing that everything that can be moved has been stripped away from a place surrounded by barbed wires where no civilian can enter?
Or do you want to get people to say “Good for you… The infidels deserved even worse”? Is this your goal?
To “normalize” theft and plunder by encouraging hostility against others and raising crude nationalism?
Is this why you encourage schoolchildren to visit?
Is this why you allow visits from newlyweds to pose in front of the collapsed, ruined school building?
What is the message you really want to give to the world?
There is no message you can give to the international community by celebrating the millionth visit to Varosha and by displaying the ruins of a city you plundered other than “we are proud of our work”…
And what you are doing does not fit into the “dark tourism model” implemented elsewhere in the world…
Tourists today visit Chernobyl… To see what is left of the biggest nuclear disaster…
There, they visit the ghost town of “Prypyat” where the employees working at the plant once lived…
People visit Hiroshima in Japan to see the aftermath of the atomic bomb…
They visit the “killing fields” in Cambodia to see what is left of hundreds of thousands of innocent people who were killed… They visit the “concentration camps” in Poland…
However, there is a priority in showcasing all these “dark tourism” destinations, which is to “learn from tragedies”…
More importantly, all of these events and places have “historical value”…
People go to Hiroshima to curse the crimes committed against humanity by looking at the flame burning at the “Peace Park”…
They visit these places to curse wars, concentration camps, and mass killings…
And you are showcasing the corpse of a city that you “failed to preserve”…
The question is: “Are all your efforts aimed at drawing these curses upon yourself?” Varosha has truly “taken you captive” since October 2020… You are unable to do anything but hand out framed diplomas at the [city’s] entrance…
And thus Erdogan’s threats that “I might come unexpectedly one night” have also evaporated…
Setting up “breakfast” tables among the ruins did no good…
Neither did the “lie” of the local politician who vowed to “open all of Varosha” work…
Now you are up to new “tricks”…
But the real trouble is in Ankara…
The table of six [Translator’s note: The six-party alliance standing in the Turkish presidential elections against Erdoğan] says, “international law is our benchmark”…
We’ll wait and see…
