UK's Murky Role In Cyprus Crisis
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By Jolyon Jenkins
Producer, BBC Radio 4's Documment
Monday, 23 January 2006

Evidence has emerged that British undercover forces were involved in fomenting the conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots ten years before the 1974 partition of Cyprus.

The new evidence found by BBC Radio 4's Programme Document Centres on the mystery of Ted Macey, a British Army Major who was abducted, presumed killed by Greek Cypriot Paramilitaries.

In 1964, Martin was a Naval Intelligence officer, sent to Cyprus to do an extraordinary Job.
Fighting had broken out in the capital, Nicosia, between Greeks and Turks.

Unrest spread, and the British troops in Cyprus stepped in to keep the peace. But the British General Peter Young, thought that peace meant more than keeping the two sides apart. He believed the communities could live side by side, sometimes in mixed villages, as they had for centuries.

But that meant small disputes had to be prevented from turning into big ones.
Gen Young appointed Martin, a fluent Greek speaker, as a roving trouble-shooter and negotiator. With two officers from the mainland Greek and Turkish Armies, he roamed the North of Cyprus by helicopter, settling disputes.

Diplomacy
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Martin believes such small episodes were the key to preventing the island drifting towards ethnic separation. But, he says, this was not what the American's and British had in mind.

He recalls being asked to take a visiting US politician, Acting Secretary of State George Ball, around the island. Arriving back in Nicosia, says Martin, "Ball patted me on the back, as though I were sadly deluded and he said: that was a fantastic show son, but you've got it all wrong, hasn't anyone told you that our plan here is for partition?"

Undaunted, Martin pursued plans to move Turkish Cypriots back to the villages they had fled. But Just as the first settlement was about to take place, British Gen. Michael Carver had him arrested and flown off the island--in an unmarked CIA plane.

The ostensible reason was that Cyprus had become too dangerous for Martin to operate in; the evidence given was that British liaison officer, Major Ted Macey, had been abducted and presumed murdered Just a few days before.

All the evidence points to the murder having been carried out by Greek Cypriot extremists.

In the Public Record Office in London, I found files showing that British military commanders in Cyprus received "very reliable information" that Major Macey's abduction was planned "by Greek security forces with the approval of high government circles and connivance of the police to extract information about Turkish invasion plans."

The Greek Cypriots wre convinced that Major Macey was aiding the Turks.

Listening Bases
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Could it be true?

I spoke to a former Para who accompanied Major Macey on expeditions to Turkish Cypriot Villages. There, says the Para, he demonstrated the use of British ammunition and sub-machine guns to the Turkish Cypriot irregular forces.

I also tracked down one of Major Macey's former drivers, who showed me a curious note, in the Major's handwriting. It is a list of arms and explosives being stored in civilian premisis in Nocsia: arms, says the driver, which Major Macey had supplied, under British orders, to the Turkish fighters.

So did the peacekeeping forces, and the big powers, really want Cyprus to remain an independent, unitary state?

Or was it more like important to head off the threat of a "Mediterranean Cuba," by keeping the island within Turkey's--and hence NATO's--Sphere of influence?

Britain had, and has, electronic listening bases on the island-important parts of the NATO Intelligence effort.

Nicos Koshis, a former Justice Minister, thinks that it was those bases that determined the fate of the island:

"It is my feeling they wanted to have fighting between the two sides. They didn't want us to get together. If the communities come together maybe in the future we say no bases in Cyprus."

Source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4632080.stm