North Cyprus Brief History

History:

Early Settlers

It is not possible to say when first inhabitants of Cyprus lived, but it is believed possible that as long ago as 8.500 B.C. there were settlements on Cyprus. Cyprus has had many names, but the name we use now is believed to have come from the word copper of which there was, and possibly still is, an abundance of on the island. An alternative theory is that its name comes from the word Kypros (the Greek for henna) of which there was also abundance. No one knows for sure.

Cyprus has had a troubled history. The abundance of copper, timber, and the strategic location between East and West resulted in repeated invasions, changes of rulers, and strife for the inhabitants.

Before the annexation to Rome in 58 B.C. Phoenicians, Archaeans, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks colonized Cyprus.

History: Roman PeriodIn 43 A.D. Christianity came to Cyprus and in 330 A.D. Cyprus became part of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire. And so it remained until 1191 when Richard the Lionheart, on his way to the Holy Land to fight the 3rd Crusade, conquered the island. A year later Richard sold the island to the Knights Templar for 100,000 Byzants. The Knights Templar, unable to exploit the island satisfactorily, then returned the island to Richard who sold it to the French nobleman Guy de Lusignan. The Lusignan dynasty ruled the island for the next three hundred years - a rule that was often oppressive, effectively reducing Cypriots to serfdom. History: Venetian Rule

In 1489 the Lusignan King James died leaving the Kingdom to his Venetian wife who abdicated giving the island to Venice. The Venetians saw Cyprus primarily as a military base and built fortifications all over the island. Cypriots, at that time, were seen merely as a populous to be taxed as much as possible. In fact, it is said that Venetian rule was so unpleasant that when the Ottomans arrived in Cyprus in 571 the locals felt as if they had been liberated from slavery.

History: Ottoman RuleThe Ottomans abolished serfdom and instated the Orthodox Church as the Church, of Cyprus. They also made being Catholic a punishable offense, so Cypriots had to choose between Orthodox Christianity and Islam. The majority chose Christianity, but the result was that the population began to take on the ethnic structure it still possesses today, namely Greek and Turkish.

The Ottoman Empire entering the First World War on the side of Germany and emerged defeated, partly occupied by foreign powers, and with harsh restrictions imposed, Cyprus became a part of the British colonies, following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1925 .

In 1960 the Treaty of Zurich was signed to give independence to Cyprus whilst protecting the rights of the Turkish Cypriot population. The guarantors of this treaty were Britain, Greece, and Turkey.

In 1963 relations between the two communities separated by language, culture and religion, had deteriorated. 13 articles of the Constitution were attempted to be changed in favour of Greek Cypriot community, also disarming Turkish Cypriot Police and establishing the National Greek Cypriot Guards. These measures were in clear contravention of the Treaty of Zurich. Civil war began, and the United Nations sent in troops in an attempt to restore peace, creating the Green Line, which effectively divided the communities.

History: Division of CyprusIn 1974 Greece attempted a military coup in conjunction with the Greek National Guard in a bid to achieve ENOSIS (Idea of union with Greece).

On the 20th July 1974, Turkey, after consultation with Britain, intervened military, namely Peace-Keeping Action to protect the Turkish Cypriot community. This was in exercise of the powers of guarantee agreed in the Treaty of Zurich.

Since this time the island has remained divided. On the 15th November 1983 The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was founded. It is a fully democratic state and with exception of a few border incidents, internal peace has been established.

North Cyprus Geography

Fire in North Cyprus

The fire of 1995 in Kyrenia Mountains

At the end of June 1995 Kyrenia region suffered the worst bush fire in living memory when more than 160 square kilometres of beautiful forest and olive groves between Lapta in the west and Besparmak peak to the east were left burnt to ash.

The blaze, set simultaneously at several points late on a windy afternoon, was believed to be the result of an unknown arsonist intended to strike a blow at North Cyprus tourism and thus may have caused the devastating inferno. Paranoid speculation has embraced Greek Cypriots, Greek, Israelis, Syrians and more likely PKK (Kurdish separatist) activists from the Turkish mainland. Eleven people were arrested, following an angry mob throwing upon a police car carrying three of them to Kyrenia District Court. Reported as Syrians, they remanded in police custody for three days. The three others were later released but there was no news on the rest of the suspects, or no final verdict given and the identity of the perpetrator remained a mystery.

It was almost after a day that effective fire-fighting measures were undertaken, featuring the lack of staff, equipment, and general funding of North Cypruss forestry division. Help was offered by the Greek-Cypriot administration, but it was turned down as their ground vehicles were no use for fighting the flames in such mountainous terrain and as reported, only aircrafts and helicopters were needed. Turkish and British helicopters then flew into the action spraying over the seawater from 1000-litre tubs, donated by one of the British Sovereign Bases. The colossal forest fire which sent thousands fleeing from villages and holiday homes as a wall of flame raged along the Kyrenia mountain range lasted for three days. Occasional blasts were heard as gas bottles exploded, and bombs, shells, and mines, thought to have remained scattered in forest areas since the 1974 Peace Operation, erupted. Kyrenia range gleamed strangely, giving the mountain an awesome volcano-like display of destruction.

After the disaster an enormous clear-up operation was launched as well as touring the fire-hit villages. There was no human casualty reported in the disaster, only some 10 minor injuries among thousands of soldiers, policemen, firemen, and civilian volunteers who had battled the flames. Many animals and vehicles were lost. The total number of the houses destroyed by the blaze was about 50 and the damage to the real estate went up to 3, 5 million pounds, with the entire value of destroyed wood and the crops estimated at approximately 43, 5 million sterling. Fortunately, hotels and hotel complexes were left miraculously intact, just with some three bungalows hit.

The only historical casualty of the blaze appears to have been the 13th century St Hilarion Castle, perched high above Kyrenia, which "went up like a Roman candle", the witnesses said, and was badly burnt. Buffavento Castle escaped.
The biggest tragedy fell on the North Cyprus rich woodland. During the latter half of 1995, the Anatolian woodcutters were given a task to clean-cut the burnt zone and the logs were shipped by daily barge to paper mills in Turkey before terracing, reseeding and replanting of the new young trees took place. The clear land was replaced by growing mimosa mixed with baby pines and cypresses of three varieties.

This type of Mediterranean forest takes over fifty years to retrieve the shape of maturity (in the case of the olive groves, several hundred years) and especially the dry winters that came later prevented their natural re-sprouting. Seemingly bare hillsides, with scrub vegetation extending just above the sea level to the watershed of the Besparmak barrier range reflect this unhappy feature after the ecological disaster in Kyrenia landscape.