GREEK PARLIAMENT

1923 – 1998

75 YEARS AFTER THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE

ATHENS, 1999

THE CONSTANTINOPOLITAN SOCIETY

Established in 1928

Member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)

115-117 Demosthenous Street, 17672 Kallithea

Tel. 0109517072, 0109560611, Fax 0109598967

E-mail: cpolitan@otenet.gr

75 YEARS AFTER THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE

The discussion before the Standing Committee of National Defence and Foreign Affairs of the Greek Parliament, which took place in the Parliament Senate Room on Wednesday, June 3, 1998.

APPENDIX I

Institutional framework for the protection of the Greek minority in Turkey (document pertaining to the address of Dr.Stamatis Georgoulis, Professor of International Law, Hellenic Army Academy)

APPENDIX II

The violations of the Treaty of Lausanne by the Turkish Republic, in chronological order, from 1923 to 1998

APPENDIX III

Attending Members Of Parliament – Members Of The Standing Committee Of National Defence & Foreign Affairs of the Greek Parliament

Introduction & Reports

Today’s session is similar to the one which had taken place three years ago in regard to Imvros (Gokce ada) and Tenedos (Bozca ada), and will revolve around the violations of the Treaty of Lausanne against the Greek population of Constantinople in the 75 years from the signing thereof. The last days of May coincide with two sad anniversaries for Greeks: The genocide of the Greek population of the Black Sea on May 19 and the fall of Constantinople on May 29, 1453, anniversaries which were again this year honored by the Greeks, anniversaries which together with the disaster of Asia Minor are wounds, still bleeding and hurting the psyche of each and every Greek.

After the last disaster, the treaties which determined WW1 and the many acts of the International Community, such as the UNO Charter, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of Minorities, the UNESCO Treaty and the UN Convention on the elimination of racial discriminations, established rights which, as of the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, had made everyone hope that we had passed into another period.

However, we have witnessed Turkey’s constant violations of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Constantinopolitan Society has submitted a request to this Committee for the review of these violations on the basis of facts. The Presidency of the Committee admitted the request and submitted it to the Committee, which approved it.

The Committee will initially hear the reporters, appearing as witnesses, who will then answer the Committee’s brief questions. A political conversation will follow, according to the standard rules of procedure of the Greek Parliament, in order for the Committee to reach its findings.

The Constantinopolitans (Greeks from Istanbul) have suggested four speakers, who will present the framework, texts and facts on the basis of which violations have been noted during the last 75 years, and the current status of the Greek population living in Constantinople is the result of the non-compliance with the international agreements and non-implementation of the International Rules of Law on the part of the Turkish Republic. Mr.Georgoulis is invited to speak.

To me it is the utmost honour that I was assigned by the Athens Constantinopolitan Society the difficult and at the same time graceless task to present the legal framework of the protection of the Greek Orthodox minority of Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos. I will not refer to any witness testimonies, after all I come from Thrace not Constantinople, I was born and raised in Evros Prefecture, near Adrianopolis,(Edirne) and I was happy to gaze with the eyes of the soul from my father’s home, indistinctly in the distance, Constantinople the reigning capital.

The legal framework of the protection of the Greek National Minority was determined through a difficult course, which resulted to a catastrophic for Greece war, which had imbued the grand idea and attempted to carry Greece over to far horizons. The events are known and this vision was not realized in the end, collapsing instead under the defeat of the war in Asia Minor. Immediately after that, at the negotiating table, we come across a Greek delegation headed by Venizelos, his morale low, and on the other side a Turkish delegation, with raised morale, which tries to impose uncompromisingly its own terms.

These terms are eloquently imprinted in the texts of the Treaty of Lausanne, which is a multilateral International Convention, placed under the protection of Turkey, on the one side, and the protection of England, France, Japan, Italy, Serbia, Romania and Greece, on the other side. This text refers explicitly to Turkey and its obligation to respect the human rights of the Greek minority in Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos.

Article 14 refers to the respect of local administration and the protection of persons and property in Imvros.

Next, Article 37 sets forth that this text has an increased formal effect against any other law, regulation or domestic official action which might become effective in Turkey. Therefore, Turkey was required not to pass any laws and regulations contrary to the Treaty.

Articles 38 to 44 actually contain all the protective framework of human rights, the equality among all Turkish nationals, whether they are Muslim or not, the right to acquire property, the right to the free use of language, the right to establish religious institutions, schools and establishments for instruction and education, the right to the protection of religious beliefs etc.

Greece only appears in the last Article (45), because there was no fear that Greece would violate any human rights. This Article sets forth the principle of reciprocity, providing in simple words that all the rights conferred by Turkey on its non-Muslim populations in Constantinople, Greece will also implement on the Muslim populations on its territory.

One wonders, wasn’t this framework effective enough to adequately protect the Greek Orthodox minority, which was once thriving, so that we are forced today to resort to other institutional texts for the protection of human rights, meaning all the texts and the declarations of the United Nations since 1945, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which establishes equality among all human beings, the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights etc? Furthermore, there are the protective texts, which Turkey itself has signed, in the framework of CSCE for instance.

There is also the 1975 Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose 7^th principle is clear and talks about the equality of all human beings and the protection of all persons, wherever they may be, and makes no distinction between minorities or non-minorities, which is explicitly binding on Turkey.

Of course we then have the protective framework of CSCE, today OSCE, mainly as a moral pressure to all member states signing that Convention, such as the 1991 Geneva texts, the 1990 Copenhagen texts, where minority rights are clearly and comprehensively described (education, self administration, religious protection, protection of cultural identity, equal treatment, participation in public life, elimination of discriminations, self-determination of minority identity etc.)

All these are international texts, which the Turkish Republic, even though having declared it would respect, blatantly violated even before the ink of its signature had dried.

Furthermore, there is the Council of Europe, which has more powers of imposition in regard to legal matters, forcing a country violating human rights to respect them, through the proceedings of the Court of Human Rights. It is clear that the respect of any minority must be the apple of the eye of any democratic country. However, none of my Turkish colleagues, young scientists, finding him or herself in my position in the respective Turkish Parliament, would find unblushingly even one positive word to say in favor of Turkey, because the list of violations is indeed long and exceedingly aggravated.

This institutional framework is, in my opinion, clearly established and formulated, and I leave you to consider why indeed we failed to wonder – apart from Turkey’s obligations – as Greeks and as scientists, whey indeed we failed to demand in necessary circumstances that these basic principles be respected.

At the same time, we are all, as Hellenism, given a historic chance to offer from the floor of our national delegation our apologies because why did not act as we had the duty and obligation to act in regard to the Greeks of Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos.

Mr.Chairman, Members of Parliament, I consider it a great honour to stand hear before you in order to give my personal testimony and the testimony of the Greek Orthodox Community of Constantinople, where I belong, with regard to the violations of the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, which refer to the protection of non-Muslim minorities. I would like, in advance, to stress three points, which I consider necessary in order for the problem to be comprehended in depth. The first point is that the Treaty of Lausanne is the first and perhaps the only revisionist Treaty after the end of WWI. We use the term Revisionist Treaty to denote that this was a Treaty, which reversed the conventional results of WWI. WWI had ended with two Treaties, the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Sevres. Hitler attempted unsuccessfully to reverse the Versailles Treaty. Mustafa Kemal and his associates reversed the Treaty of Sevres, and thus reversed the results of WWI. This led Europe to WWII. I say this, because the Treaty of Sevres, which mainly referred to the other nationalities of Asia Minor, was reversed and principally with regard to the 6% of the territorial grounds of current Turkey which concerned Greece. Meaning that Greece acquired 6% of the territory of Turkey under the Treaty of Sevres. I want emphatically to stress that despite the reversal of the Treaty of Sevres, the only provisions which are almost identical to those in the Treaty of Sevres are those regarding the protection of minorities. This means that the provisions on the protection of minorities contained in the Treaty of Lausanne are almost identical to those contained in the Treaty of Sevres. This happened because the persecutions of non-Muslims by the Young Turks were still fresh and the great European powers insisted on the particular protection, which should be afforded to non-Muslims. This was the first point.

Second point. The revisionist nature of the Treaty of Lausanne is dynamic, not static. Meaning that it was the dynamics of a constant revision in favour of Turkey and at the expense, of course, of Greece mainly.

The third point I would like to make is the following: The Treaty of Lausanne establishes a very delicate balance, which has been disturbed to the disadvantage of Greece and the advantage of Turkey.

A clear element of this violation, the disturbance of the balance between the two sides, is manifested in the issue of the minorities.

Members of Parliament, I have with me a book, which was published in 1996 in the United States and refers to Turkey. It was written by Philip Marshal. In page 437 he gives some statistics about the population of Constantinople. I refer to Marshal because 10 years ago, and specifically in 1986, I had given similar statistics in one of my books.

35% to 40% of the population of Constantinople in the years from 1477 to 1927 was Greek – these numbers refer to the administrative boundaries of Constantinople because the respective numbers for the Municipality of Constantinople were 37% to 39% - meaning that Constantinople had a proportionately larger Greek population compared to a large number of Greek cities today, historically and in the course of time. The other populations were 17% Armenians, and this after a period of time, 5%-8% Jews, while the remaining populations include, from 1829 to 1830, 16% to 17% of Greek citizens from Greece, who are characterized as other populations, which means that the percentage of ethnic Greeks is much larger than that appearing in the statistics. The percentage of Greeks starts from 34% to 35% in 1477 and reaches 40% to 42%. In 1927 we have 22%, in 1950 we have 12%, in 1965 we have 3%, in 1980 we have 1%, in 1995 we have 0.0001%! The Armenians from 17% go down to 0.005%, and the Jews also go down to 0.002%.

Therefore, there is a devastating evaporation not only of the Greek Orthodox minority, but also of all non-Muslim minorities. I say this because the balance established by the Treaty of Lausanne is numerical. If one studies carefully the records of the Treaty of Lausanne, two things become apparent:

The first one is that the Turkish delegation has insisted that firstly there are no ethnic minorities in Turkey, only religious minorities, and that is why we make reference to Muslims. This is a contractual obligation on the part of Greece. These provisions have an effect which exceeds that of the Constitution for the countries signing the Treaty of Lausanne. In the first place because the minorities are religious and not ethnic. The Turks insisted on that point firstly because of the religious view of ethnic groups and secondly because if they had referred to ethnic minorities they would have included the Kurds, and they did not wish to recognize any rights to the Kurdish ethnic group.

The second is that Riza Nour insisted on the numeric balance between minorities, meaning the minority of Constantinople and the minority of Muslims in Thrace, which were excepted for special reasons.

At this formal occasion I consider it my obligation to recall the late Ioannis Zigdis, who in 1977 was the first to place before the Hellenic Parliament the matter of the disturbance of the numerical balance established by the Treaty of Lausanne. Indeed, that reminder, which was accompanied by my proposal for a bill for the naturalization of those Constantinopolitans who had found refuge in Greece in the municipal rolls of Thrace, had alarmed the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had made statements to the effect that the Treaty of Lausanne had indeed been disturbed with regard to this point, but that there were other points of disturbance as well, obviously referring to the fact that Greece acquired the Dodecanese.

I would like to point out that the document you are holding is a summary of the Articles. Articles 37 to 45 are a lot more detailed. If one should read the Articles one after the other, and what I am to say is incredible, one would establish that all the Articles, without exception, have been violated by Turkey!

Commencing from Article 14, which refers to Imvros and Tenedos, it is a well-known fact that the basic principle which provides for local administration. Article 39 and paragraphs 2,3 and 4, impose the employment of Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslim minorities in civil service. This has never been implemented in Turkey. Neither has the use, for example, of the Greek language in public establishments or in the courts.

The elective legislation of Greece, for instance, includes a provision of the basis of which the Muslims of Western Thrace vote with the assistance of an interpreter. This is something unheard of in Turkey. The only exception was the case of the reverend Ecumenical Patriarch Athinagoras, who testified before court in 1961 through an interpreter. At that time this had been an issue, how the Patriarch had been allowed to use an interpreter. Which provisions should I mention first? Should I mention the provisions setting forth the protection of churches, cemeteries, which still remain the target of cruel attacks without any of the culprits ever being arrested or indicted to stand trial? In 1955, as it was later revealed, churches, schools, institutions were destroyed on the basis of an organized plan prepared by the government itself and the armed forces of Turkey.

Under Article 42 paragraph 2, schools and charitable foundations are financed by public funds under the State, Municipal and Local budgets. Not only this never happened, but the contrary took place, meaning that churches and foundations were required to pay special taxes, the audit tax and the Vakuf tax. Therefore, these provisions are subject to shameless violations.

I would like to close with a personal testimony. A number of those present inside the room are familiar with each other’s personal history. My expected biography, judging from my struggles in my school and student days, would be to be on the floor of the Turkish parliament, representing my community. I am the only person, perhaps, since 1922, to have had a political history in the Turkish political parties. My colleagues in the struggles of those days were already telling me that I would have a bright future in Greece. This means that it was considered a certainty that the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople, and I amongst them, would have to leave.

With this I want to emphasize that the uprooting of the Greeks of Constantinople has taken place on the basis of a pre-determined plan. If you examine the records of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, you will see that the Hellenic Governments were criminally negligent. This negligence can be interpreted. A lot of times, the Hellenic Governments obeyed to the recommendations coming from across the Atlantic for the appeasement of the situation and this resulted to this kind of negligence.

Members of Parliament, the whole problem is focused on a dignified foreign policy, which must be based on law, the protection of human rights and mainly dignity. The sense of dignity is a sense which has been totally trivialized. I thank you.

Mr.Chairman, Members of Parliament, I feel the obligation to thank you, because you are the first committee of MPs after 75 years to deal spherically with the violations of human rights in Constantinople. Our association, with the other Constantinopolitan societies, reached this point after strenuous and long efforts. Unfortunately, you come in third.

Our voice of protest was first heard by the senate of the United States, then by the Organization for security and cooperation in Europe, and now our voice of protest is heard through your Committee. We, as Constantinopolitans, will remain always at the disposal of any representative of the Hellenic or other parliaments, to provide information.

The Greek errors commenced not only with the long-term unwillingness of the Parliament to deal with the problems of the ethnic Greeks of Asia Minor, but also with the lack of preparedness of the members and collab Speakers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot deal with Turkey, with a staff consisting of only 4 or 5 persons, when that country is the first and foremost problem of Greece. However, our independence struggle did not end in 1821.

Greece had no Turkology institute and it is only three years ago that a Turkology chair was established at the University of Crete. How is it therefore possible for you to know proximately the thoughts and tendencies in Turkey? Your certainly know that have to know thy enemy in order to deal with him. The word ‘enemy’ may sound harsh for some of you. Unfortunately, however, Turkey views Greece as an enemy and the word is well-known to us, since all the Constantinopolitans here have finished Turkish high schools. A number of us have served in the Turkish armed forces as Turkish nationals, and we are very well aware of how Turks think about Greece. They are always afraid – even though there are no signs of such a case – that Greece will take back Constantinople, Smyrna (Izmir), Asia Minor. Even this fear alone makes them hostile against us, so that they begin an anti-Greek propaganda from the first grades of Turkish school.

The extermination of the Greek Orthodox community – and I would like to ask you not to use the word ‘minority’, because maybe those who left Greece and went to Germany or the United States were a minority, but we were hundreds of thousands of natives and now there are only 1,500 of us left – began with the plan put into effect from 1908 on in Thessaloniki by the Young Turks and led to the results we all know. Thus, we must know Turkey well in order to be able to deal with it, without of course advocating wars or conflicts.

Turks have a wise saying: ‘a friend tells things bitterly’. If there are persons in the Greek community and on these benches who love Turkey, and want its cooperation and prosperity, they will have to tell the truth, they will have to talk ‘bitterly’ to Turkey. When they humor Turkey and say that it is a democratic state, the results is that things deteriorate, and this is constantly proven in the last fifty years. From 1940, when I was born, to this day the infringements of all the international obligations of Turkey are unfortunately constant.

I thank you for hearing me and I hope that today is only the beginning. The Association remains at your disposal.

Mr.Chairman, Members of Parliament, with the capacity of those who were born in the fatherlands of Asia Minor and experienced painfully the Turkish policy with regard to Hellenism, we will try to give you as concise as possible an image of the strategy and actions of the Turkish Republic after the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne, which brought the Greco-Turkish war to an end and solved the Eastern question.

Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne without the slightest intention to perform its commitments. Its sole objective was to turn to its maximum advantage all that the Treaty offered it, in order to gain time until the suitable conditions occurred, which would allow it to achieve in fact what it had failed to achieved in the negotiating table.

On the contrary, Greece implemented a constant policy of good faith, meeting its obligations with consistency and honor. This different approach of the two countries to the meaning of their obligations had devastating effects on the ethnic Greeks who remained in turkey after the Treaty of Lausanne was signed.

In the course of the 75 years that lapsed from the signing of the Treaty until today, the actual facts recorded in history reveal the infringement and manifest violation of all the obligations of the Turkish Republic to respect the minorities under the Treaty of Lausanne and at the same time Turkey’s strategy to impose, following the reason of violence, accomplished facts as irreversible.

Turkey’s methodical and planned steps in the direction of the infringement of its obligations under the Treaty of Lausanne commenced on the day after the singing thereof and are still going on.

At this point of the report, we will attempt a brief review of Turkey’s most characteristic actions, which consist a violation of its obligations under the Treaty of Lausanne and took place during the period from the signing of the Treaty, in July 1923, until the end of WWII.

Immediately after the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, Turkey arbitrarily characterized 40,000 Greeks, who had temporarily taken refuge outside Turkey for reasons of safety, as personae non grate. At the same time, Turkey removed their citizenship and confiscated their properties with summary procedures. Greece’s appeal to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and its vindication on February 21, 1925 had no practical effect, since the Turks had already achieved their target, meaning to get rid of a significant number of Greeks, who had been agreed to stay in Turkey.

Simultaneously, Turkey rushed to restrict the civil and political rights of ethnic Greeks, with the result that Banks, public services of all forms and categories, and big enterprises immediately let go from their employ all persons of Greek descent.

Law 2525 forced all persons of Greek descent to turn their last names into Turkish, because all those who tried to register names with Greek roots, were rejected.

A huge racist campaign was launched, which culminated in the 1950s and 1960s under the central slogan ‘Vatandas Turkce konus’, meaning ‘Citizens speak Turkish’, with the result that anyone daring to speak his mother tongue in the street was abused and fined.

Law 2007 prohibited Greeks to exercise 30 professions in an undisguised attempt to force them to leave their hearths. The banned professions covered a broad spectrum, from itinerant seller, barber, musician, and photographer to carpenter, tailor and waiter. This was followed by the prohibition of more professions, and thus the ethnic Greek residents of Constantinople were compelled to make a painful decision: to either remain unemployed, work illegally or emigrate from their land.

The Turkish authorities supported with every means the establishment, in September 1923, of the so-called ‘Turkish Orthodox Church’, which was founded by father Efthym Karahisarides Erenerol, a priest from Keskin, Anatolia, who was the blind instrument of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, head of the Young Turks. The Turkish strategy of downgrading and humiliating the Ecumenical Throne of Orthodoxy became obvious with the series of acts that followed:

With the undisguised support of father Efthym’s bold attempt to occupy the Patriarchic Mansion, which led to a serious incident.

With the issue of a decree, which characterized the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as a simple Turkish institution and determined that the Patriarch was to be elected by priest having the Turkish citizenship and already serving in Turkey.

With the occupation by father Efthym and his Turkish supporters of the historic church of PanHaghia Kafatiani in Galatas and the church of Sotiras Christos.

With the unprecedented eagerness of the Turkish courts to fine the Ecumenical Patriarch because he had caused mental anguish to pseudo-priest Efthym, when the Patriarchal Holy Synod had unfrocked him and excommunicated him as an apostate and shameless traitor of the orthodox faith.

With the barbarous invasion of the Turkish police in the premises of the Patriarchate, the arrest of Ecumenical Patriarch Constantinos VI and his expulsion with the invented excuse that he was ‘exchangeable’.

With the institution of criminal proceedings against the Ecumenical Patriarch and all the Holy Synod on the grounds that they had held a session in the premises of the Theological School in Halki (Heybeli ada) and not in Phanare (Fener), where the administrative seat of the Patriarchate.

With the passing of Law 2596, whereby all Christian clergymen are prohibited from donning cassocks outside the church. The only exception in this rule manifests the Turkish intention to lower the Ecumenical Patriarch to the level of the neo-Turk’s agent pseudo-priest Efthym Karahisarides Erenerol, given that the Turkish law set forth that only the Ecumenical Patriarch and pseudo-priest Efthym, under his capacity as head of the Turkish Orthodox Church, and self-acclaimed founder and leader thereof, were allowed to don cassocks outside the church.

The fact that Turkey could not unilaterally oust the Ecumenical Patriarchate from Constantinople, which is what it would have done for any foundation governed by the domestic Turkish law, and was compelled by the parties co-signing the Treaty of Lausanne to accept that it would remain in Constantinople as a purely Religious Institution with world-wide radiance, shows the dimensions of all this Turkish arbitrariness.

In the islands of Imvros and Tenedos, where, cumulatively, more than 90% of the population was Greek, Turkey flamboyantly ignored the special local administration, which the two islands should have enjoyed, as granted by the British in the framework of the Treaty of Lausanne. They rushed to appoint a Turkish governor and they placed Turkish officials in the administration of justice, in the customs, police and port authorities, dismissing all the elected local officials. Law 1151 passed by the Turkish National Assembly officially abolished the local government status of the islands of Imvros and Tenedos, shut down on various pretexts the Greek School, prohibited the teaching of the Greek language and placed Christians under persecution until they were fully exterminated.

In the field of education 104 teachers of Greek descent and 52 Greeks were dismissed, because they were arbitrarily deemed ‘unfit’ to teach in minority schools. The Turkish Government, aiming to exclude teachers coming from Greece from teaching in Turkey required them to pass examinations in the Turkish language in order to be approved a new teaching license. Initially, most courses in Greek schools were obligatorily taught in the Turkish language. The Turkish authorities doubled the salaries of Turkish teachers appointed in minority schools and forced the population of Greek descent to pay them!

Later on, all the courses, with the exception of the Greek course, were obligatorily taught in Turkish. The military education course was added, taught by an officer of the Turkish army. A Turkish deputy principal was appointed to all minority schools, who was answerable to the Turkish Ministry of Education, and who gradually became the sole and dominant power in minority schools.

The operation of the historic Greek Literary Club was terminated and the books of its invaluable library were scattered among the various state libraries of Ankara and Suleymaniye and in the Turkish language and Turkish History societies.

On the occasion of the introduction of the civil code in Turkey, a legal framework was put in place which did not allow minority institutions to acquire any new real estate, either by property transaction or by donation or inheritance, while the Ecumenical Patriarchate was not recognized any more as a legal entity, something which created serious impediments in the management and representation of the huge Patriarchal estate.

From the 1930s the Turkish authorities started to intervene openly in the elections of the administration boards of minority institutions. They started with the minority hospital of Valoukli (Balikli Rum Hasthanesi) and the community of Pera (Beyoglu), which had large estates.

Law 2762 on Vakufs, which was passed by the Turkish National Assembly, placed minority communities under the control and supervision of the General Directorate of Charitable Foundations (Vakuf) and required them to submit statements in regard to their incomes and properties. The administration of minority institutions and schools was assigned to a commissioner, appointed by the Turkish authorities.

In the same period, the Turks appointed the infamous Zihni Ozdamar, who was pseudo-priest Efthym’s right arm, as commissioner to the Valoukli Charitable Foundation, causing an uproar in the Greek minority.

In 1939 all minority sports clubs were required to merge with Turkish sports clubs, so that they progressively shrank and lost their Greek identity.

During WWII, Turkey found a wonderful opportunity, from the safety of its neutrality, to strike heavy blows on the ethnic Greeks of Turkey. The circumstances were ideal, given that Greece was paying a heavy price in blood to the struggle for the ideals of freedom and justice, at the side of the Allied forces. Thus Turkey, in a treacherous and methodical manner, performed leaps ahead in its long-term strategy to annihilate the ethnic Greeks living there.

In May 1941 the Turkish Government mobilized the prefectures in Eastern Thrace, starting from the prefecture of Constantinople. The enlistment offices were ordered, by way of a ciphered footnote under the mobilization decision, to summon selectively the reservists from the Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities. This way, the Turks dragged to the Turkish army all Christians aged 20 to 45, whom they scattered in the depths of Asia Minor to construct roads and military buildings under the most adverse circumstances.

On September 21, 1941 ‘unknown’ arsonists threw on the wooden roof of the Ecumenical Patriarchate rags which they had immersed in gasoline and put on fire. The Patriarchal Building burnt to ashes, taking with it records, paintings of Patriarchs and valuable relics of the Greek population. For decades the Turkish Government refused to grant a permit for the repair of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, until a few years ago, when it was reconstructed with the donation of a well-known Greek benefactor.

On November 11, 1942, the Turkish Government with its Law 4305, using as criteria religion and ethnicity, imposed an enormous emergency property tax, which aimed at the financial extinction of Christians in Turkey. The Law, which came to be known as “Varlik Vergisi”, required the payment of the tax arbitrarily imposed by the tax inspector within 15 days, without the right to appeal. Four weeks after the imposition of the tax, failure to pay resulted to the confiscation of the taxpayer’s property, his arrest and displacement to forced labor camps in Askale, the Turkish Siberia. In total, 1,869 illustrious members of the minority population saw their properties suddenly confiscated and themselves exiled to the Askale Siberia, where they built roads in order to settle their debt to the Turkish State. Their daily wages were 2 Turkish pounds, out of which one was deducted for the rudimentary meals they were given and the other one deducted with regard to their debt to the Turkish State. Most of them, in order to settle the debt arbitrarily imposed on them, would have to work from 200 to 300 years!

In January 1943 the Turkish Government confiscated the properties of the Holy Monasteries of Athos Megisti Lavra and Koutloumousi in Imvros and started to relocate settlers from Asia Minor to the island in order to alter the population composition of the island, a method implemented about thirty years later in the occupied section of Cyprus.

Towards the end of WWII, Turkey seeing that the Greece’s stand during the war, at the side of the Allies – in contradiction to its own ‘cunning neutral’ position – had given rise to a negative conjunction of circumstances against it, rushed to apply its fixed tactics, which consists in taking two steps ahead and one step back. The step back, which Turkey was forced given the situation to take, was certain actions towards meeting its obligations under the Treaty of Lausanne. The forced labor camps were emptied of those who had managed to survive. The victims of the notorious ‘Varlik Vergisi’ were set free. The conditions were noticeably improved for the ethnic Greeks in Turkey for a period of time. A period of prosperity for the long-suffering Greek minority in Turkey brought new hopes and dreams for a peaceful coexistence. All this was only temporary. It only lasted until the suitable conjunction of circumstances occurred again, permitting Turkey to proceed with its long-range plan to exterminate those Greeks still daring to remain in their hearths. And these circumstances soon came and offered Turkey the chance to achieve the uprooting of the majority of the ethnic Greeks in Turkey.

But it is the next speaker, Mr.Nikos Atzemoglou, who will cover Turkey’s ways, practices, planning and actions in the period of the last forty years up to this date. Thank you.

Mr.Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a former Chairman of the Constantinopolitan Society and I represent Constantinopolitans in international organizations. I took refuge in Greece in 1966.

Two were the main facts which contributed to the flight of the ethnic Greeks from Constantinople. The first took place in 1955, with the vandalisms you are all familiar with, when the Turks destroyed houses, churches, factories, cemeteries, and left nothing standing. The second significant fact was in 1964, when the Turkish authorities deported approximately 12,000 Greek citizens, born in Constantinople, who were protected by the Treaty of Lausanne. They took with them three times their number in relatives and friends. Therefore, in the years 1964 to 1966, about 48,000 Greeks were forced to abandon their ancestral homes, without any serious reaction on the part of Greece, without the international community taking notice of it and without this stream being characterized as a stream of refugees by the United Nations.

This flight was of course intensified and completed with the intrusion of the Turks in Cyprus in 1974. Thus, the policy of ethnic catharsis imposed by Turkey against the ethnic Greeks was at the same time a policy of violations and infringements of the international conventions, including not only the Treaty of Lausanne but also those treaties guaranteeing human and minority rights and fundamental freedoms, such as the principles of the United Nations charter, the charter of Paris, the other agreements in the framework of CSCE and OSCE, so that since 1923 there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of Greeks in Constantinople.

Specifically, from approximately 110,000 Greeks still living there at the time of the exchange of populations, today there are less than 2,000. From those 300 are in the Greek Home for the Old.

I will now refer to the violations, which took place in the last 40 years and to the situation today. The Greek community today is subjected to systematic, humiliating harassments, state terrorism and policy threats. Acts violating the rules set forth in the European Convention on Human Rights, which Turkey has of course signed.

Specifically, minority members are often visited by police officers or summoned to the security, are investigated and terrorized. Senior state officials, the Turkish Press and other authorities threaten to convert to a mosque the museum of Haghia Sofia, which be many is considered the symbol of the Orthodox faith. That they will evict the Ecumenical Patriarchate and much more.

The universal declaration of human rights, Article 19 of the international covenant on civil and political rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provide the necessary guarantees as to the freedom of expression and the right to information, without any restrictions and regardless of frontiers.

Moreover documents issued from time to time by the organization for safety and cooperation in Europe offer similar guarantees. However, despite all these guarantees, the Turkish authorities deny the Greek community these rights. The two Greek newspapers, which enjoy a small circulation, are censored. Furthermore, the sale and circulation of Greek newspapers and magazines is prohibited, while the use of the Greek language is very limited.

Freedom in education: The international agreements signed by Turkey offer equal rights to all those living in the country.

Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights sets forth that the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in that Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, color, language, religion etc. CSCE documents offer similar guarantees for equal treatment. Additionally, the Treaty of Lausanne guarantees equality before the law to the Greek minority, as well as equal civil and political rights to those enjoyed by the majority.

Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne guarantees the minority the right to establish, manage and control, at its own expense, schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language freely. However, in the field of Education, despite all these national and international guarantees, clear discriminations are observed against the Greek minority in matters of teachers, schoolbooks and curricula. Turkey still prevents to this date the free management and control of Greek schools by the minority itself.

Also, Turkey does not permit the appointment of teachers and principals of Greek descent to minority schools, prohibits morning Christian prayers in schools and forces children, every morning, to recite the Turkish national anthem, Kemal’s sayings and other nationalistic slogans.

The result of all these counter measures, the attempt to brainwash, alter the children’s ethnic Greek consciousness and these psychological pressures, is the forced flight of ethnic Greeks from Turkey and as a consequence the noticeable reduction in the number of students attending Greek schools.

From 15,000 students in 1923, they were reduced to 5,000 in 1954 and today there are only 200.

With regard to religious freedoms, Turkey has signed the Greco-Turkish Protocol of 1968, the European Convention on Human Rights and all the agreements in the framework of CSCE, which guarantee such freedoms. However, Turkey constantly violates them. In 1971 it banned the operation of the Theological School in Halki, it pulls down churches on the pretext of opening roads, while the Greek churches and cemeteries are constantly being broken in and destroyed, a unique phenomenon worldwide. For instance I would like to mention the demolition of the Holy Water of Haghios Nikolaos, the break-in and fire in Haghios Therapon and the murder of the verger, the fourth in a row break-in in Haghios Nikolaos of Phanare (Fener), from where even the last icons have now been stolen.

The Turks refuse to recognize the Ecumenical nature of the Patriarchate. After Patriarch Vartholomeos was installed, they started to exercise psychological violence with bomb attacks against the Patriarchate, such as the attack with a grenade in December 1997 which resulted to the injury of verger Nektarios.

Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne offers the Greek minority the right to establish and control charitable institutions. Despite all the international guarantees, the operation of the institutions remains problematic. The Turkish Government has prohibited since 1935 the donation of legacies to these foundations. In 1964 it banned the operation of a Greek orphanage, which had been operating since 1953, and it is now arbitrarily selling its property. In 1967 it ceased to recognize the institutions’ real property and imposed a 5% tax on the income of community organizations. In 1991 it clearly intervened in the intra-community elections, which were allowed after 22 years.

With regard to real property, this is classified in 3 categories: a) the personal property of Greeks having the Greek nationality, b) the personal property of Greeks having the Turkish nationality, c) the property of charitable institutions.

Concerning the first category, up to 1988 the notorious secret decree, which denied Greeks the right to property, even the right to inherit, was in effect. This resulted to the seizure of their properties. After the first Greco-Turkish summit meeting in Davos, this decree was supposedly abolished. However, it is now again in effect. Greeks in Constantinople are not entitled to acquire real estate by virtue of their right to succession. Greeks do not have the right to freely sell real property, and most of those properties have been occupied by the Turkish State itself. Their owners have been deported and must now get involved in long and costly court proceedings in order to save their properties. In 1994 the European Parliament, on the initiative of Member of the European Parliament Mr.Alecos Alavanos, condemned Turkey’s practice in this matter. Furthermore, Members of the European Parliament Ms Ekaterini Daskalaki and Mr.Nikitas Kaklamanis also posed questions on the same matter. The Turks, however, invoking the principle of reciprocity hold on to their practice. With regard to the second category, no buying and selling transactions were permitted up to 1988. Until then, a sale had to be authorized, pursuant to the opinion of a committee meeting in Ankara. Since 1988 the sale of properties is free, only if the property belongs to a citizen of Greek descent, its value is reduced to the minimum. As to the third category, Turkey challenges the ownership of that property. The properties donated to charitable institutions after 1936 are not recognized and are deemed to belong to the Turkish State.

Greek communities are not entitled to manage freely or sell their real properties, as they are supposed to under the various CSCE agreements, which have been also signed by Turkey, as well as under Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne.

Finally, there is the matter of our cultural heritage, with regard to which the Turkish Government has the clear tendency and policy of altering historic Byzantine and later post-Byzantine monuments, buildings and churches, which are torn down for the opening of roads or the construction of communal parks. There have been various protests, led by the report of Europa Nostra, including those of a large number of Turkish archaeologists.

The ethnic Greeks of Constantinople request the actual support of the Hellenic State and ask for the following:

First, a complaint against the Turkish Republic in International Organizations, in all the members of the European and American Parliamentary Assemblies for the manifest violation of the Treaty of Lausanne and other, more recent Agreements.

Second, an imperative demand that Turkey respect all of its obligations under its contractual commitments with regard to the Greeks remaining in Turkey, by way of the abolishment and lawful quashing of all the laws, decrees and decisions of the Turkish authorities referring to them and violating their freedoms and human rights.

Third, a more effective protection and guarantee of the necessary conditions for the unimpeded operation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, as the venerable head of Orthodoxy, towards the achievement of its high ecumenical mission.

Fourth, a demand for damages with regard to the properties of the ethnic Greeks of Turkey, which they were forced to abandon as a result of the anti-Greek measures adopted in 1964.

Fifth, a demand for the safeguarding of the lives and properties of ethnic Greeks still living in their hearths and the rescue of the huge community property.

Sixth, the rescue and preservation intact of the invaluable cultural heritage of Hellenism.

Finally, the immediate adoption of decisions by the competent instruments to the end of recognizing September 6 as the day to remember the uprooting of he Constantinople Hellenism, of recognizing the refugee status to the ethnic Greeks of Turkey who were forced to leave their hearths in the recent decades and reviewing the bureaucratic naturalization procedure of the Turkish nationals of Greek descent who wish to be naturalized, is deemed absolutely necessary.

We will always assist, at the side of the Hellenic State, in the protection of the rights of the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople.

IOANNIS VARVITSIOTIS: Mr.Chairman, I appreciate your initiative for the hearing of witnesses and the political discussion with regard to the violations of the Treaty of Lausanne by Turkey during the last 75 years. I would like to thank the gentlemen, who responsibly and based on documentation posed the problem in all its dimensions.

Some years ago, a similar discussion had taken place upon my recommendation, with regard to the persecutions of ethnic Greeks in Imvros and Tenedos. As the Parliamentary Committee is neither a research center nor a historic society, being instead a political body, which cannot exhaust itself in discussions without a specific objective, I propose that the Parliament, upon our Committee’s research, undertake the issue of a Black Book in most of the spoken languages in the world concerning the violations of the Treaty of Lausanne, which will then be sent to all the members of all the parliamentary assemblies worldwide and to all the International Organizations. Thus, I believe, it will become apparent in an official manner that Turkey is a State which does not respect the international law and order and holds in undisguised contempt its international obligations.

ELEFTHERIOS VERYVAKIS: Mr. Colleague, I already have in my hands a note by colleague Mr. Vrettos, saying that the Committee should issue the proceedings of these meetings in a special volume and see that they are circulated everywhere.

STYLIANOS PAPATHEMELIS (Special Speaker representing PASOK): Waiting for our turn and according to the order of procedure, this question would have been placed by the Special Speaker representing PASOK. I do not claim to be original, but this is our issue.

IOANNIS KAPSIS: These days the French Senate and the French National Assembly approved a resolution – and correctly – with regard to the persecution of the Armenians. Thus, to limit ourselves only to the persecution occasioned by the Varlik Vergisi would be perhaps an error, because in that way we would ignore the great genocide of the ethnic Greeks of Asia Minor. If we wish to publish a Black Book, this will have to include all the chapters, with foremost among them the slaughter of 1.5 ethnic Greeks of Asia Minor.

ORESTES KOLOZOV (Special Speaker representing KKE): Mr.Chairman, I too in my turn would like to thank all those who contributed to this update. I would like to address myself to Mr.Sarris, whom I heard very carefully. In addition to the scientific account of the issues I saw that his report contains elements of a political assessment of the events.

I would like to make an observation and pose a question. The observation regards the statistics of the American writer you gave us. I do not think that this method is correct, because it may be disputed. Relative numbers always depend on the increase of the population, the area examined. Absolute numbers would be best. These show the actual reduction of the population and the extent of the persecutions taken place.

My question is the following. In your address you made an implication with regard to our allies from across the Atlantic, that they made certain suggestions, which the Hellenic Governments probably accepted. My question is if such an implication can be substantiated. Is it simply a conclusion? If there is specific information, it must be given here. So, we too will learn what exactly happened during that period.

ALEXANDROS PAPADOGONAS: Mr.Chairman, I will respect the time allocated for questions. I will try to limit myself to this sense of posing questions.

It is usually said, in the media, press etc., that the peoples of Greece and Turkey are friends, that one loves the other, and that it is Turkey’s military establishment or military and political establishment that are to blame for causing every time the problem, which have been correctly reported.

I have visited Constantinople a long time now and I have observed the downfall you described. Whatever the government in Turkey, the same measures are adopted. This makes me think that this might emanate from a feeling of the Turkish people, which is satisfied by the governments of Turkey. I would like to ask the following: Is it the fault of the Turkish Governments or is it the fault of a feeling more common amongst the Turkish people, characterized by animosity towards the Greek people and Hellenism in general. This is a major issue and it should be clarified on the Greek side, in order for a correct policy to be established in actually dealing with this tendency to annihilate Greeks. I have monitored these issues, as I told you, during a long period of years. I would like to come to a close with one more question.

Mr.Chairman, unfortunately today we come across the policy followed in Constantinople and more widely in Turkey in the Greek Thrace area as well, with another approach, while the results pursued are in fact the same. These are the dwindling of the Greek population and increase of the Muslim population, according to the Treaty of Lausanne, or Turkish population according to the Turkish MPs.

Therefore, those present here who are familiar with the issue should recommend to us and recommend to the Hellenic Governments, which are the measures we should adopt in Thrace in order to stop the actual genocide taking place there by other means, whether these means are called propaganda or measures adopted by the Turkish side.

CHRISTOS KIPOUROS: It is the honourable thing that the President of the Republic apologized to the Hellenism of Imvros, Tenedos and, by extension, to the Hellenism of Constantinople. It is an example to be followed. It opens new routes. Retrospectively, all political officials should offer the same apologies. If they do, they will have no political standing to repeat Davos, Brussels, Madrid etc.

Both we and you seem to leave some voids in the advancement of our positions and the account of the tragedies. What must be done? There is a processed proposal submitted by Mr.Sarris, which was the specialized version of a proposal first made by Mr.Tenekidis. The Parliamentary Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defense could adopt that proposal. This is the proposal for the recourse of Greece to the International Court of Justice for the prevention of the commission of fresh offences by the fascist and racist Turkish State and for the restitution of the offences perpetrated against the last remaining ethnic Greeks in Asia Minor.

Do you agree with that proposal? I say that, because you must be summoned to answer as witnesses, since I had posed a similar question to the delegates of the ethnic Greeks of Imvros and Tenedos, so that if the conclusions are positive they may be included in the adoption of this proposal. This would honour our Committee as well.

CHRISTOS VYZOVITIS: In Mr.Atzemoglou’s report the phrase ‘reciprocity’ was heard in connection with Turkey. I would like you to clarify what is the reciprocity invoked by Turkey with regard to the properties of the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople.

NEOCLES SARRIS: I would like to offer a spherical answer, because a significant side of the problem has not yet been touched upon.

The problem has its origins in the exception from the compulsory ‘exchange of populations’. In essence, what took place was the purging of an ethnic population, not the exchange of populations. The population was ousted and later on it was decided that this would be called an ‘exchange of populations’, by way of equalizing the one point five million of persons of Greek descent still surviving in Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace to the three hundred and sixty thousand Muslims at that time. I say this because the exception will provide the stigma of the persecutions.

The ethnic Greeks of Constantinople were excepted for two reasons. The first was mainly financial. Because 70% of the Turkish economy was concentrated in Constantinople. And 70% of the economy was in the hands of the Christian population. So that if those Greeks, and the Christian populations in general, had to leave, the Turkish economy would be left in suspense. The new forces of economy and society in general were the Christian populations. The various ethnicities had their own rate of social modernization within the framework of the Ottoman Empire. Social modernization in Turkey took place by way of ethnic purging. This means that instead of making them partners in the political power – this being Kemal’s movement – they eliminated them, took possession of their production means and appropriated them by way of stealing.

In Constantinople, the English felt alarmed because it was the ethnic Greeks that held the economy in their hands and because they represented mainly foreign firms, English and French, and asked that the ethnic Greeks remain there until the Turks have the chance to study near them and finally learn the capitalist way. All the persecutions of the ethnic Greeks in Constantinople coincide in time with the development of Turkish capitalism. Meaning that during the growth of the Turkish urban class, a persecution accompanies every phase when the economy took off. In 1930 certain professions were prohibited to Greeks, because it was the first year Turkish professionals had graduated from the technical schools established by Kemal.

The exchange of populations was based on a proportion of populations and numbers. This is the answer to Mr.Kolozov’s question with regard to the use of American’s method. If you read the proceedings of the Treaty of Lausanne you will see that the reasoning behind it is a numerical and statistic proportion. When the proceedings commenced in Lausanne in October-November, 396,000 Greeks were in Constantinople. When in July, that is after 6-7 months, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, only 150,000 Greeks were left there.

I will refer to the persecutions and the fact that they were hushed up by the transatlantic confederation. At a young age, I served as the political adviser of the reverend Patriarch Athinagoras, who is known to have been connected with a personal friendship with Truman and Kennedy. We all know that in 1955 in particular, there was an intervention by John Foster Dalles with the Hellenic Government and at the same time an intervention with the Turkish Government, equalizing culprits and victims.

For the common interests of NATO they had to put aside their differences, and therefore whatever was done was for the best. The same interventions had taken place with Patriarch Athinagoras, so that no issue would be made out of the situation and no voice of protest would be raised by the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople. But this was not independently promoted from the American side.

I hold responsible the Hellenic Governments from time to time, which in order to please obviously in a spirit of alliance have sold out the rights of Hellenism in general and the rights of the Greeks of the Metropolis of the Greek nation, which is Constantinople, in particular.

ALEXANDROS PAPADOGONAS: My question is: Does the responsibility lie with the Turkish Governments, or were the Turkish Governments following the widely spread and more general propensity towards animosity of the Turkish people?

NEOCLES SARRIS: Your question may be supplemented with the well-known refrain, which is repeated by the Turkish side: Greek people are good, they love the Turks, it is the politicians’ fault.

We cannot talk today of a ruling ideology, only of a dominant common ideology. The problem is theoretical. The various political stands in Turkey are sectarian with relation to the neo-Turkish ideology. This dominant ideology is diffuse all over the political spectrum, is supposedly officially expressed in the form of Kemalism and is clearly contrary to the preservation of any other foreign element in Turkey, apart from the Turkish element. It is based on the logic of Turkifying by force the Muslim population, including the Kurds.

Mr.Papadogonas, your question goes a lot farther. Meaning that the dominant ideology consists in the elimination of any ethnic, indeed cultural particularity, particularly in the elimination of Hellenism. There will be some ‘crocodile tears’ and ‘sobbing’, saying the following: We love you – and this was constantly repeated by the Turkish Governments – you must come back. What they say proves, Mr.Papadogonas, the correctness of your question, because this is the murderer who after murdering his victim then ‘washes his hands of the crime’. The relief following the departure of the ethnic Greeks from Constantinople is general.

Certain cycles in Turkey, which are progressive, want us Greeks – if they actually want us – as folklore, as the ‘last of the Mohicans’, to be placed in a Museum. We decline this role, because it does not fit our historic mission.

NIKOLAOS ATZEMOGLOU: Mr.Vyzovitis asked a question with regard to reciprocity, meaning how and why do the Turks invoke reciprocity and on the basis of that invocation refuse the ethnic Greeks the right to sell their properties. This means that certain Turkish nationals here cannot sell their properties. The reciprocity issue would have been posed from the beginning, when in 1963-1964 the expulsions of ethnic Greeks began. However, it neither was nor is the policy of Greece to do something like that.

The invocation of the principle of reciprocity, with regard to the cases of minorities, consists a violation of the minority rights, which under the international law is an action contrary to the principles of the United Nations Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights. No Muslim in Thrace is impeded from selling his property. However, this is falsely alleged by the Turks in order to appropriate the properties of ethnic Greeks.

STYLIANOS PAPATHEMELIS (Special Speaker representing PASOK): Mr.Chairman, we thank the representatives of the Constantinopolitan Society who managed today to perform an anatomy of the crime and unravel a crime which was committed constantly, repeatedly and concurrently against the ethnic Greeks who lived inside the Turkish and Ottoman territory. Turkey proves to be a country, which irresponsibly and shamelessly violates all the international law to which it is bound by official signatures. The international community has never imposed sanctions on Turkey with regard to these violations, infringements, the brutal, atrocious, blunt and cynical violation-trampling on the human rights, lives and properties of all the minorities. Turkey still is the West’s ‘darling’ and thus it is offered the right to repeat this crime, since it commits it with impunity.

We were abhorred to read yesterday about Brjejinsky, one of the ‘gurus’ of foreign affairs in the United States. In an interview he gave to a Greek newspaper, he recommends that we assist Turkey in its western orientation and that we furthermore assist it in restoring its national confidence. And he asks that of us, who as Greeks are the constant target of a genocide, which in this century may count hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of uprooted persons. This is Turkey and this is Turkish politics. What is important is how we respond to this behaviour from Turkey. We must resolve finally to demonstrate internationally the barbarous indeed face of that country, making use of indisputable records, which exist, working systematically and not scrappily. It is a significant fact that we, Greeks, remembered the genocide of the Hellenism of Pontus 80 years after it happened.

It is a significant fact that on the initiative of our colleagues from Pontus the recognition of the genocide of the Pontus Greeks reached the Greek Parliament, but the fact that we moved scrappily with regard to this matter too is not significant, and it does not do us honor. In addition to the genocide of the Pontus Greeks there is the genocide of all the ethnic Greeks of Asia Minor, there is the genocide of the ethnic Greeks of Eastern Thrace. The evidence of Turkey’s criminal behavior is infinite. Thus, we all talk about an international agreement, signed under special circumstances with regard to Hellenism, following the tragedy of Asia Minor, but where the negotiator was a man of the stature of Eleftherios Venizelos, who after the second day he appeared in Lausanne, according to the descriptions of Michael Theotokas who had accompanied him as an adviser during that period in the Swiss city, and having been treated as a loser, found the courage, after giving instructions to the revolutionary government of Athens, to reform out of the wrecks of the Asia Minor disaster the army of Evros and to declare that he was negotiating not as a loser but as a party in a state of war.

He finally succeeded in imposing this role, which resulted in a relatively decent treaty, the Treaty of Lausanne. He was the one who should have been thinking about its amendment, unfortunately, however, its amendment is being now discussed by the others, who never respected it. Today, the last vestiges of Hellenism remain in Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos. There is a huge issue, how can this country project these crimes in order to beautify even more the already beautified image of Turkey, which is constructed before the eyes of the international community and the foreign governments by a well-planned and effective propaganda mechanism.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, this is of huge significance, whether a book of suffering is to be compiled or another action to be made indicating these atrocities on the part of Turkey. The point is to act and not to stay indifferent. These crimes must be presented constantly and ceaselessly and indeed in many languages, starting from English, which is an international language. They must never be forgotten. There was at a time a Black book prepared with the order of the then Prime Minister Constantinos Karamanlis. But it was again with the order of Constantinos Karamanlis that it was never distributed. I think it was turned to pulp.

Consequently, the first issue is the international presentation and constant invocation of the evidence to the crime.

The fact that the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been treated by Turkey as an institution governed by the private domestic Turkish law, has been systematically humiliated and isolated all these years, in the persons of its officials, is unacceptable. Decree No 1092/1923 to that effect issued by the Prefect of Constantinople, prohibiting the right to elect and be elected in regard to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the absence of the Turkish nationality, is also unacceptable. The Ecumenical Patriarch, who represents millions of persons of the Greek Orthodox faith, must have the same authority lent by President Bush to the reverend Patriarch Dimitrios, when the latter visited the United States. On the contrary, today the Patriarch is deprived of his most elementary human right.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate must be governed by International law, not Turkish law.

Ladies and Gentlemen, if we fail to make these demands, we should not expect them to be made by others or be made automatically.

Sadly, the Hellenic State in these 75 years has ignored all these infringements on Turkey’s part. It did not turn to advantage the economic and other potential offered by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Colleague Mr.Kipouros in his address earlier clarified in what manner Greece can seek recourse in the International Court of Justice. And while Greece has that right, it never made use of it.

The reciprocity term is binding on all governments. Unfortunately Turkey does not comply with it. And here is where professor Sarris’ correct observation pertains.

It is known that there would be no ethnic Greeks if the well-known English Lord had not intervened, seeing that trade was about to be lost, to the end of having trade remaining in Greek hands, in order for Western governments to be paid.

You realize how things stand, but one can also examine Dalles’ relevant acts, thoughts and admonitions to the Turks, when he said – ‘we can hold the Communists liable for that’ – and when they told him – ‘this will lead nowhere’ – he said – ‘we will frame them’.

I am not surprised by the fact that recently a known American Senator told me, ‘you would have finished from 1955 with the Muslims in Thrace, it is your fault, you should have moved accordingly’. This is where Thucydides’ saying applies:

‘If you do not have the strength to fight back and impose your freedom and impose your will for your rightful claims, no one will give it back to you for free’.

EUGENIOS HAITIDIS (Special Speaker representing Nea Dimokratia): I salute the presence of our fellow Greeks from Asia Minor, because I too am the child of parents coming from Asia Minor.

A lot of actions have taken place against Hellenism by its murderous enemy, Turkish imperialism. I honor the fortitude and persistence of Constantinopolitans in keeping history and memories alive, in defending themselves and the ethnic Greeks of Asia Minor, who are still being persecuted, with the absence of any assistance from the official Hellenic State being a given fact. I honor all the societies of Greeks from Asia Minor, which with their action are the living conscience of the Greek nation and remind the Hellenic Government each time what it must do to protect their rights, which have been established and never granted, as these are set forth in the international treaties. I honour the ethnic Greeks of Imvros and Tenedos, those still remaining in their suffering Land, for their patience, strength and endurance. Our fatherlands there are unforgettable, not lost.

Article 14 of the Treaty of Lausanne sets forth that Imvros and Tenedos will remain under Turkish occupation and enjoy a special administrative organization ‘composed of local elements’. The population used to be 97% Greek with 7,500 Greeks and 200 Turks. The Treaty provides that ‘The maintenance of order will be assured therein by a police force recruited from amongst the local population by the local administration above provided for and placed under its orders’.

The protocol signed in Corfu in 1913 with regard to Northern Epirus also provided for a local army, which would only be incorporated in the Albanian army in the event of an outside attack.

Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne mentions that Greeks shall have the right to establish and control any religious and charitable institutions and schools. This has not been respected. Furthermore, the Turkish Government did not meet its obligation to offer any protection to the churches and cemeteries of the minorities indicated in the Treaty, such as the Armenian, Jewish etc.

With Article 44 Turkey acknowledges that the provisions of the preceding Articles, affecting non-Muslim nationals of its State, constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. Furthermore, that these provisions shall not be modified without the assent of the majority of the Council of the League of Nations then, United Nations today. However, the Hellenic Government never made use of Article 44 in order to protect the rights of the ethnic Greeks from Asia Minor, which have been repeatedly violated.

Article 45 refers to the principle of reciprocity, and sets forth that the rights conferred on the non-Muslim minorities of Turkey will be similarly conferred on the Muslim minority in Greek territory. This principle requires, provided we care for Hellenism in its entirety, to implement it in Thrace as well, as both we and the other guarantor powers are obliged to under the Treaty.

The bloody and criminal acts against the Hellenism of Asia Minor from time to time were reported to us in a lively manner. Some of these acts are still taking place in Imvros, Tenedos and Constantinople. Since 1964, pursuant to a plan machinated by Turkey, and in the absence of a similar plan on our part to protect Hellenism outside Greece and our national security inside Greece, expropriations have begun, allegedly for the purposes of the establishment of correctional institutions, reforestation etc. with the result that the population of 7,500 Greeks has dwindled and today only 350 old people remain in Imvros and 25-30 people in Tenedos.

These properties have been converted to country houses for officers of the Turkish armed forces and lands offered for cultivation to Kurdish apostates and traitors of the struggles of the Kurdish people. Currently, there is a systematic, group relocation of Turkish population from Anatolia to the islands, while even now the plan for the elimination of the last remaining overage Greeks is implemented methodically.

In January 1988, the school in Glyky, Imvros was seized and converted to a club. This school had been built with money gathered by Greeks in the period 1963-1964. On the other part, the last icons have been stolen from Agridia. All this points to the fact that vandalisms are not the result of some chance happenings, of the acts of some criminals acting on their own. These are plans implemented by the Turkish State.

The provocation in 1955 in Salonica, with the arrested Muslim student and the doorman at the Turkish Consulate, which were the pretext and occasion for the annihilation of the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople, had been well established in detail.

Our responsibility is the following: First of all these notes, as well the notes prepared by you, the Constantinopolitans, must be published and distributed not only to all the national assemblies and organizations and mass media in the world, but if possible to be more widely distributed, in some manner that we can determine in cooperation, to the European public opinion, so that Europe will know what to expect if Turkey achieves its accession to the European Union as an equal member. Europe must realize that if the barbarous and uncivilized Turk is allowed into the Union this will be its death penalty.

I recommend, though, that we perform a self-criticism in order to find out, as Greeks, if we have done our duty. As Parliament, have we established the memory and have we paid the ethnic Greeks from Asia Minor the honor they are due for the genocide executed and the persecutions taken place against them? For a whole year the resolution of the Standing Committee of Public Administration for the recognition of the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor awaits its approval by the Plenary Session of the Parliament. I propose that the genocide of the Hellenism of Asia Minor be included in all the history books and taught in both primary and secondary education schools, so that our children will know that we want friendship with the Turks and concerts and an interest for the Muslim minority, but at the same time we demand that Turkey afford the same to ethnic Greeks and the punishment of all those who perpetrated crimes against the Greeks of Turkey.

The catastrophe in Asia Minor and the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor should be honored every year as national holidays and in this sense all Hellenism, which suffered and still suffers because it refuses to lose its identity and become Turkish, will also be honoured.

ORESTES KOLOZOV (Special Speaker representing KKE): I believe that what we have heard, and indeed in such a spirited manner, and what we have read ascertain what all Greeks know. The drama of Hellenism in Turkey, from the time of the catastrophe in Asia Minor to these days. I have been struck by the fact, and I do not know whether the Chairman had anticipated it, that this whole discussion is taking place in the absence of the government. In such an issue, where we need to hear certain aspects, possibly not as well known as the specialists believe, the government could help us by providing specific information.

The indictment expressed by the previous speakers must be acknowledged, meaning that there are indeed responsibilities attributable o the former governments, or rebutted and explanations offered as to the behavior of the Hellenic Governments all these years.

Furthermore, I must report that congratulations are due to all those who contributed to the preparation of the texts distributed to us, which are complete both scientifically and from the point of view of the evaluation of the facts.

I would like the government’s view on all those issues. Should I accept, perhaps, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is unable to offer us a dossier in regard to these issues? I do not believe that. A dossier is, of course, binding. I believe that there are many things this government, along with the previous governments, does not wish widely known.

This whole tragedy, which was described here with the most vivid colors, has a background. This is not about the bad Turks, who came, ravaged and that was all. This is one aspect, we know that. Whether the military decisions of the Turkish leadership or events within a specific conjunction of circumstances, these take place against a background of international events, in the framework of which each Hellenic Government is called to function as well. If we wish to get to the root of the problem, we must stress this aspect as well. We must stress the role played by the imperialist powers, whether the Americans today or the English previously or other powers as well, from the time of the catastrophe in Asia Minor until today.

I feel that this discussion will suffer if we do not emphasize this element. This element is not emphasized; it is only Turkey’s responsibility that is. All things considered, our discussion seems lame. It is as if we are hitting on the wrong spot. A lot of what has happened could have reached smaller dimensions and a lot could have been avoided too, if they did not have the approval of the great powers. Still today a lot of things happen with the tolerance and encouragement of the imperialist powers.

The tactics of keeping equal distances is not current. It is correct that these reports should be gathered today and offered to the international community, that we should act one way or the other. Of course, the reasoning is to inform, to make them understand. But, don’t they already know? Is it possible that the European Union – given that we are part of it – does not know what is going on in Turkey or how Turkey has treated Greeks? Or is it possible that it lacks evidence?

Here I will bring another testimony. This is the testimony as to how we discuss in the international forums, whether these are the Council of Europe, OECD or the Western European Union. Our Members of Parliament have to fight each time amongst the delegations to take the floor and bring various charges in regard to the violation of human rights in Turkey. We are often the recipients of various remarks on the part of our colleagues that we exaggerate and that we ought to show some constraint in these issues. What are these expediencies, which force us every time to react the way we do as a country, as governments?

Ladies and Gentlemen, it is the Treaty of Lausanne itself that offers us the potential to intervene. It is the Treaty itself that provides for an intervention, setting forth how and where we will intervene in the event of a violation of the Treaty. If we do not tie the interests of those now protecting Turkey, their interests in that area, interests of those who need us, to those objectives and if we fail to stress these issues, we will achieve nothing. ‘It goes in one ear and out the other’. What is the sensitive spot of our ‘allies’ right now, whether they are the European Union or NATO? Their sensitive spot is that right now they are trying to construct their own edifice. We are the good guys, we contribute, we are the first ones to contribute to the construction of what they want constructed and I wonder if, instead of being so willing in everything, we set down all these things in one or two cases and we tied them to one another, I believe that they would consider it more seriously to keep equal distances in issues which are evident. The Americans or the Europeans do not need Turkey infinitely. Right now their interests are being served, however I do not know what is going to happen in the long run. These things are being planned. What is of interest to them now is to control this region. And this region can only be controlled through Greece and through Turkey. This is the reality. If we set things down in that direction, I believe that they will seek conciliatory solutions, which will not only take into consideration Turkey’s interests. This is such a period. The initiatives concerning the relations between Greece and Turkey are in progress. Whey, indeed, the issue we are discussing today cannot find a place inside those packages we hear so much about?

I believe that they could and that they should, if we wish to have negotiating assets in a discussion where we are forced, despite our declarations, to say that we are not going to discuss the issues in their entirety. The people who enjoy power at a universal level speak clearly. We must assess what we hear. A phrase regarding a solutions package does not escape the lips of the President of the United States. This is not something that occurred to him just then. Of course, those who are familiar with these issues attempt to round up things with regard to parallel procedures and what else. The reality is that today these issues are at the discussing table not at the negotiating table. This issue could be part of those discussions. However, no one raises that question.

We believe that the time has come, if the Hellenic Government does not act, for the people to act. We cannot keep saying ‘yes men’. We need to say ‘no’ at some point, in order to protect our interests.

SPYRIDON DANELLIS (Special Speaker representing Synaspismos): Mr.Chairman, I believe that there is no one who could convincingly maintain that there has not been a multitude of violations and that the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne are not still violated by the Turkish Governments. All this of course referred to and still refer to the policies of ethnic purging, which are some of the main policies characterizing the course of Turkish affairs during this century.

Mr.Chairman, dear colleagues, dear guests, I believe that there is no doubt, based on what we have experienced and what we are experiencing, as well as on what was heard here today, that not only the Treaty of Lausanne but other International Treaties and Conventions as well are constantly violated and infringed by the Turkish Government. The Turkish effort is continuous, to the end of destroying everything in Constantinople belonging to any non-Turkish community. This is the Turkish tactics, which is foreign to Western Communities and foreign to what applies today with regard to human rights.

This is a fact. Turkish violations and infringements are a reality. The question is: Does today’s conversation aim to make a historic review, does it aim to remind us of past events, does it aim to recall dramatic times, or does it aim to do something else? Is there an aim and an objective for something more?

If there is such an aim, in order for something to be restituted, if possible, we must see and seek and resolve on how to act, in order for that something to be restituted.

I believe personally that we should aim at the future. Given that we are talking about Hellenism, about Constantinople, I believe that this is an opportunity for us to act accordingly and not to simply add another date in the long martyrdom records of the Greeks of Constantinople. There is a need for us to act and take action within the existing procedures. To initiate the proceedings within the international framework, to bring charges and to make known internationally all these crimes.

I am under the impression, ladies and gentlemen, Members of Parliament and guests, that up to now we have not done what we could have done. And this was not only because we did not address ourselves to deaf ears and to places were expediencies take control, so that we could say we were not heard, but we have not done what we could have done, I repeat, in those places where we should and could have acted.

We must finally realize that we are improvising. Constant improvisation should cease. We should proceed with a clear knowledge of what we want.

We see the steps taken continuously by Ecumenical Patriarch Vartholomeos. We all realize the way he sees things, the way we should act in order to achieve our aim.

Dear colleagues, dear guests, I am charged with personal emotions. I was born in Heraclion, Crete, by parents who were both refugees. I, therefore, have a personal understanding of what it is to be a refugee, to be uprooted, to live without a country.

What is being said that we are going to find our rights with the birth of a grand idea or within a grand ideal, which is now in the process of being formed, aims elsewhere.

SPILIOS SPILIOTOPOULOS: Turkey is a poverty-stricken people, at the beck and call of the military authority, seeing its rights constantly violated. The political leadership of Turkey sets long-term national targets, which historically it has been proven to achieve, and even though it knows itself to be irrational, still it pursues more in order to achieve less.

The Greek people have adopted a long time ago the ideology of accommodating themselves and remains passive with regard to the events, while the political leaderships are liable for taking advantage of them in order to become better established, for exercising foreign politics for internal consumption and for not remaining orientated towards the national objective targets. A recent example was the Imia tragedy. After the incident, our foreign politics were completely disorganized. I am not acting as the opposition now; I consider that I too am to blame for these tactics. I do not wish what happened after the Committee meeting on Imvros and Tenedos repeated, when some conclusions were reached, some proposals were made and finally nothing was done.

Thus, I propose, in addition to the common front against the Turks abroad, the establishment of a Committee, pursuant to Article 44 of the Rules of Procedure of the Greek Parliament, upon a motion made by the government or the leader of a parliamentary group, to examine the national issues raised here today, in the presence and after hearing the reports of the representatives of the Greek minority in Turkey, and to propose solutions in connection with the problems, which will be finally placed under the government’s consideration in order to be implemented.

JOSEPH MICHELOYIANNIS: I was born in Crete, but the Greek people is one people and the rights of the Greeks of Constantinople and Asia Minor are the rights of all Greeks.

It is impossible to discuss the Treaty of Lausanne, which the Turks are trying to amend, and not refer to the giant of Greek politics, Eleftherios Venizelos, who reformed the Greek army, so that Greece could appear on an equal standing with Turkey at the Treaty of Lausanne, so that the minority rights, the rights of Hellenism could be protected in the Aegean and everywhere. Eleftherios Venizelos began as the representative of a fully defeated State and signed the Treaty of Lausanne as the representative of a State at war. Now the Turks blame Kemal for that Treaty.

I do not anticipate any improvement in the Greco-Turkish relations in the near future, given that Turkey faces huge financial and social problems, as well as human rights problems, for instance with the Kurds.

I remember that when I went to the meeting of the Association of the Black Sea countries with WEU, I said that there are in this region problems which are not only financial, but also human rights problems. We then discussed the Kurdish issue. Greek politicians have achieved a lot in international forums against Turkey, when Turkey appears not to respect International Law and the International Conventions.

Turkey tried to enter the West European Union, unsuccessfully, given that it does not meet the prerequisites. Recently, in the Council of Europe, in the committee for migrants and political refugees, after an enormous effort which lasted months, and thanks to the majority of the Committee, we passed a resolution against Turkey with regard to the Kurdish issue, which will be presented to the Plenary Session of the Council of Europe in June, while Turkey will do whatever it can to oppose this resolution, which refers to the ousting of millions of Kurds from their homes, the murders of thousands of Kurds, the violation of human rights and the criminal behaviour of the Turkish army.

When we discussed the issue raised by the Turks, meaning the Muslim minority of the Greek Thrace and I dared to mention the crimes perpetrated in Constantinople, Imvros, Tenedos and Asia Minor, the chairman interrupted me, saying that this issue was different and that if we wanted to discuss it we should raise the matter of the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople before the Council of Europe. I repeated this to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a proposal. The Ministry does not disagree and Deputy Minister George Papandreou believes that, with the concurrent opinion of the Societies, Greece should bring that matter there. In addition to the Black Book, we should examine the current politics and our presence in the international forums.

I believe that these issues pertaining to Hellenism should be raised before the Council of Europe, with the Societies’ consent.

KYRIAKOS SPIRIOUNIS: Our communication with the Societies and the Association was very useful. Our nation is deeply conscious that Turkey manifested its intentions already as of the day following the date of the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne. These intentions were the same, which later became acts and are still being planned up to this date. The intentions were that no ethnic Greek or other minority should remain in Turkey, Kemal’s ethnic purging, and that an incessant ottoman expansionism should be established and the Muslim community of Thrace should become organized. Turkey tirelessly pursued in every possible way, until WWII, by way of its demands to both Hitler and Churchill, its expansionist designs against our country.

The eternal objective in Turkey’s demands was a sad memory, Cyprus. Whenever in our history we retreated before Turkey, all we achieved was to kindle its greediness and to make its aspirations more threatening. The Treaty of Lausanne left two issues pending. The property issue and the exchangeable populations. We must assume our responsibilities, because every 6 months we changed the respective member of the three-member committee – we changed 5-6 times Nikos Politis.

Venizelos with his visions and his realism decided in 1930 to end the Turkish provocativeness and entered the Ankara Agreements.

We paid approximately 425,000 Pounds to Turkey, while we should have been paid approximately 2 million British Pounds for the purposes of counterbalancing the lost properties. Venizelos paid, aware that he was being unfair to the Greek side, with the hope of giving an end. He furthermore agreed that 150 members of the clergy, followers of the Sultan, should leave Western Thrace and go to Egypt. Thus, the Muslim minority remained at the mercy of the Kemalic schemes. All this happened with the Ankara Agreement.

We agree to promote the representation to the consular level in Komotini, without asking for the respective establishment of a Consulate in Imvros. The following day, Turkey multiplied its complaints against us.

Greece should determine its policy on the basis of its historic conscience and undoubtedly the prevailing conjunction of circumstances, with a dynamic assessment of these conjunctions and the nation’s constant alertness. An alertness able to avert and rebut. Furthermore, it is indisputable that an escalation of the tension and an antagonistic attitude will only make us drift inside Turkey’s game.

In an immoral world, which hasn’t found yet a trace of ecumenical justice, where all charters are violated as if they were nothing but paper by those ruling the world, our fatherland must be particularly careful. It must not be led to defeatism. This is another big chapter for our people. We must be aware not to adopt a stand diametrically opposite, not to place our country in dangers which we are unable or unprepared to handle. I say this as a soldier too, because of the comparative image of the operational environment, as determined by geography, by numerical and material superiority and by initiative – the latter being a particularly interesting strategic point of comparison between the two sides – we must not let ourselves fall into Turkey’s traps and pay again with lost fatherlands.

CHRISTOS KIPOUROS: I am sorry that today’s joint meeting did not take place last week, because we would then have the chance to stress this great historic fax pas on the part of Panteion University, with UNESCO being also responsible, given that it sponsored the three-day symposium on socio-political sciences and historiography in Turkey, with the participation of more than 20 Kemalist professors and intellectuals from the neighbour country. With this opportunity I would like to say that no European university, which respects itself, would invite during a dictatorship professors of the type of ‘Tsakonas’, on a date in particular which has been characterized as cursed day, a day on which everyone is silent.

In retrospect, we asked and found out that Mr.Rahmi Koc invited, through the Chamber of Constantinople, the Industrialists of Northern Greece in Constantinople in September.

If one puts this information in order and combines it with Riva-Gut and the State Orchestra of Athens, one comprehends the new Ottoman architecture. The only newspaper in Athens covering the event had to admit in the end that the proceedings of the symposium left it with a bitter taste.

When we had endorsed Haralambides’ proposal to invite Oçalan in Athens, about 180 MPs, we had addressed ourselves to Panteion and the rector’s office, due to its specialization in this discipline.

These initiatives really upset us. In addition, we had to state through our delegation, as a member of UNESCO, that this organization must promote, not distort world culture. If UNESCO wanted to take an initiative, there was a great choice. The two great monuments in Thrace, relatively speaking, are Haghia Sofia and the Bayiezid Mosque. A joint restoration initiative could have been undertaken.

All this should make us stop being dramatic and move on to politics. Politics means, what is our plan, as the Greeks of Thrace in general. It is to request that this procedure does not end here. The Committee of Foreign Affairs and Defense must submit the dossier with the proceedings to the Speaker of the Parliament, in the first place, asking him to take it to the Plenary Session. Meaning that the issue should be discussed by the Plenary Session and the following proposal, which is essentially the key, should be made: To seek recourse in the International Court of Justice. The existing scientific opinions, which do not require an agreement to refer the dispute to arbitrators, are known. When I discussed the matter with the Prime Minister and Mr.Pangalos, they told me to examine this point. Was an agreement to refer to arbitration required? No, it is not required. This is today the opinion of other professors as well. Thus, this is the route to seek the administration of justice. But his must happen with the responsibility of all the political institutions. I believe that emotional charging, antagonism and distinctions between the Pontus Greeks and the Thrace Greeks are stupid and frivolous. Whether from Thrace or Pontus, we are united today and historically and no one can force us apart. Retrospectively, certain unionist sensitivities, which aim to promote other issues pertaining to other genocides, should be escalated in a politically clever manner. Otherwise we will only confirm a great decline. I believe that the key in the case of the Greeks of Imvros, Tenedos and Constantinople is a political application to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. It is better to talk of Imvros than of Imia!

CHRISTOS VYZOVITIS: Mr.Chairman, I had attended the funeral of Patriarch Dimitrios and asked a priest something, commenting that that day the Greeks of Asia Minor were accompanying their spiritual leader to the grave. He had answered me, ‘what Greeks? It only those you see in the church, and you came from Greece’. and he had continued, ‘This is the great question. Did you let any Greeks remain in Asia Minor?’

This is the most significant point for all of us. Meaning that if that is a fact, and sadly it is, we must all tell what is going on, we must all tell the truth, and fight for it.

Because finally what are we doing? We had a very nice informational meeting today. We thank all our guests for their presence. But that is not enough. In a week, I fear, we will have forgotten this meeting. I do congratulate the Committee officers for this initiative. But that is not enough. What happens next?

Mr.Chairman, I agree with Mr.Kipouros’ proposal, always in consultation with the Speaker of the Parliament, that this discussion should take place in the Plenary Session, with all networks open and with a delegation of three representatives among our friends and brothers from Constantinople, in order for all the world to learn about these facts. Unfortunately, no one will learn anything with today’s meeting. It will be reported in the back pages of the newspapers, and no one will talk again about this issue.

Thus, if we want to help Greece in general, we must give it a voice, with emphasis on the historic facts.

CHRISTOS ROKOPHYLLOS: I too would like to thank in my turn the hunted Greeks of Constantinople and Asia minor, who gave us to day specific facts. Turkey literally exhausted Hellenism, not only in Constantinople but in Imvros and Tenedos as well.

In the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, up until a year and a half ago, the Turks tried every time to create an issue with regard to the alleged violation of the rights of the Muslim minority in Western Thrace. And every time we replied that we are going to refer to the violations they commit in Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos. This was enough to discourage them, so that they either did not submit or withdrew their official petition. Lately, however, they have not been deterred, they proceeded and the Council of Europe examines their charges about the human rights of the Western Thrace Muslims.

One has to wonder why the Hellenic State has not taken all these years the same initiative, to proceed to the main issue, meaning to bring charges with regard to the outrageous, both legally and actually, violations which have taken place in Turkey. The secret decree of 1964, which remained in force in Turkey until 1988, remains unparalleled in the world and is still going on in a reduced yet essential way until today. This is the ‘political death’ of a certain minority. The reason is that Turkey and we were the countries refusing the sign the protocol on minority rights, which was processed and voted by the Council of Europe.

Finally, the current Hellenic Government fortunately signed this protocol. I believe that we have now a more decent standing in bringing charges against what is happening in Turkey. There are only a few ethnic Greeks still living in Turkey who would be willing to testify as witnesses. However, the testimonies of our fellow human beings, who were forced to come here, would suffice to persuade any parliamentary body, such as the Council of Europe or OSCE, which are the two suitable instruments to examine such issues. This of course is of no particular concern to the Turks, given their mass violations of the human rights of the Kurds, the members of the left wing in Turkey etc. They have after all been found guilty repeatedly – once unanimously – by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe and by the Court of Human Rights in Strasburg. Regardless of this, Turkey has not been subjected to any practical sanctions, given the absence of any enforcement mechanisms. In other words, there are still no process servers in international law.

Turkey behaves pachydermically and does not stand to lose a lot, even if it is convicted of all these violations. Of course I agree to seek recourse, not in the International Court of Justice, because even if it does have jurisdiction it does not achieve a lot. There are more dynamic institutions, such as the Council of Europe, OSCE, the Court of Human Rights etc.

Now that in Greece the rights of any minorities have been settled, we would be more presentable in bringing charges about what has happened in Turkey.

ELEFTHERIOS VERYVAKIS: I would like to express some of my thoughts, under my capacity as a Member of Parliament, not as the Chairman of the Committee, given that these thoughts need not be binding on the Chairman and the Officers.

My first thought regards the fact that I welcome the declaration with regard to the freedom of this forum taking place today, even if it may not meet the approval of governments and political parties. I think that such acts and steps contribute exactly to the purpose, which we want to achieve, to the benefit of Greeks all over the world and to the benefit of our country. After all, we are here in order to disagree whenever we see fit and to agree when we must, and not to pursue disputes, which are not true, and to approve pre-agreed situations.

Dear colleagues, I will not address the many and hideous crimes, which we know to have been and to be perpetrated against the Hellenism of Turkey. I attach a great significance to today’s meeting and I propose – I will exercise my relevant rights as Chairman – the whole proceedings of today’s meeting to be sent to the Officers of the Parliament, with the request for a continuation procedure in regard to this and other associated issues.

Truly, a Black Book. However, we must admit that in the years that have lapsed, and these are 75, the governments either did not stress the facts they should have stressed, or did not act as they should have acted, or did not follow what they should have followed, or followed other directions, motivated by other expediencies.

The second thing I want to emphasize is that today we have been armed with all these means, which we must use in all the international forums.

The third thing I want to emphasize is that we must proceed as necessary in all the international courts.

I agree with colleague Mr.Rokophyllos that Turkey has begun to change its attitude lately. And while the Greek side does make steps and did establish a committee, Turkey established three similar committees.

These are points to be noticed both by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the Ministry of Defense, which even though invited did not attend these proceedings.

I would like to tell them that we have the means in the arsenal of the Greek side for the climate, which both Greeks and Greece need, to be promoted and established. I believe, dear colleagues, that our Committee opens a chapter, which can and must be useful both to Greece as well as to the whole of Europe, where Greece will proudly take part exercising its rights, instead of feeling incomplete without its child!

We must move to that direction and on that basis, irrespective of whether we agree or disagree, for some reasons, which are sometimes understandable. These reasons should not carry us away, should not make us forget the main problem, the specific objective and our national ideals and interests!

Institutional framework for the protection of the Greek minority in Turkey (document pertaining to the address of Dr.Stamatis Georgoulis,

Article 14. The islands of Imvros and Tenedos, remaining under Turkish sovereignty, shall enjoy a special administrative organization composed of local elements and furnishing every guarantee to the native non-Muslim population in so far as concerns local administration and the protection of persons and property.

Article 37. Turkey undertakes that the stipulations contained in the Articles of this Treaty shall be recognized as fundamental laws.

Article 38. The Turkish Government undertakes to assure full and complete protection of life and liberty to all inhabitants of Turkey without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion.

Article 39. Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslim minorities will enjoy the same civil and political rights as Muslims.

Article 40. Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslim minorities shall enjoy the same treatment and security in law and in fact as other Turkish nationals. They shall have an equal right to establish, manage and control any charitable, religious and social institutions, any schools and other establishments for instruction and education, with the right to use their own language and to exercise their own religion freely therein.

Article 41. Facilities for the public education and instruction of non-Muslim Turkish nationals through the medium of their own language, with public funds.

Article 42. Measures for the protection of the family law or personal status of the non-Muslim minorities in Turkey and in the case of divergence referral of the matter to the Council of the League of Nations. Protection to churches, synagogues, cemeteries, and other religious and charitable institutions and granting of the necessary facilities and authorization for the formation of new private institutions of that nature.

Article 43. Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslim minorities shall not be compelled to perform any act which constitutes a violation of their faith or religious observances, and shall not be placed under any disability by reason of their refusal to attend Courts of Law or to perform any legal business on their weekly day of rest.

Article 44. Turkey agrees that, in so far as the preceding Articles of this Section affect non-Moslem nationals of Turkey, these provisions constitute obligations of international concern and shall be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not be modified without the assent of the majority of this Organization, while the British Empire, France, Italy and Japan agree not to withhold their assent to any modification in the Treaty articles.

Article 45. The rights conferred on the non-Muslim minorities of Turkey will be similarly conferred by Greece on the Muslim minority in its territory.

1) The United Nations Charter, in Article 1 para.3 and Article 55 guarantees universal respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to sex, race, language and religion.

2) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 establishes the principle of non-discrimination as a fundamental guarantee for the protection of minorities.

3) The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966 establishes and obligation for the States not to impede the members of minorities from using their own language and developing their cultural identity.

4) The UNESCO Convention (Article 5 para.1) recognizes the right of ethnic minorities to carry on their own educational activities (establish schools, obligation of public financing, teaching of mother tongue).

5) The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Articles 1 and 2) establishes the equal standing of minority and majority.

6) The UN Declaration of December 18, 1992 establishes the rights of persons belonging in national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities.

1) The Final Act of the Helsinki Conference, 1975 (Seventh Principle) imposes the protection and establishment of the suitable circumstances for the promotion of the ethnic, political, linguistic and religious identity of national minorities.

2) The Copenhagen Conference (June 1990). The fourth chapter affords substantial protection to the members of national minorities and the minority’s right to self-determination, free use of their mother tongue (para.32.1), freedom of education (para.32.2), prohibition of assimilation (para.32.2), religious freedom (para.32.3 and 32.4), full equality before the law (para.31.1), the right to establish associations (para.32.6).

3) The documents of the Geneva meeting of 1991 on national minorities repeats some points made at the Copenhagen Conference, adding new facts, such as: international status of the minorities’ rights to protection, their right to participate in public life, adoption of measures for the elimination of discriminations, presence of observers in elections, local administrations with elements of autonomy, autonomy in the determination of the identity of the minority, cooperation across international frontiers, mechanisms for the protection of minorities.

4) The Helsinki document 1992 and the Helsinki Meeting-II (March-July 1992), which established the institution of the High Commissioner on National Minorities.

1) The European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Article 1) of 1950 and the First Protocol of 1952 guarantee for all persons belonging to the jurisdiction of the contracting states equal protection in the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in the Convention. Article 14 refers to minorities, guaranteeing the exercise of rights without discrimination on any grounds, including the association with a national minority.

2) The draft of the Charter on regional or minority languages in Europe, adopted within the framework of the Standing Committee of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe.

3) The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of February 1, 1995 of the Council of Europe.

The violations of the Treaty of Lausanne by the Turkish Republic, in chronological order, from 1923 to 1998

1) In October 1923 Turks restrict the civil and political rights of Greeks living there.

Banks, civil services of all kinds and categories as well as big multinational companies and enterprises are forced to dismiss from their employ all Greeks.

2) In the same period, the political affiliations of the Greek teachers in Constantinople become the object of the investigation conducted by Salih Zeki, General Director of the Turkish Ministry of Education. Of course, this was the occasion of the dismissal of 104 teachers of Greek descent and 52 Greek teachers, who were characterized as ‘unfit’ to teach in minority schools.

(Violation of Articles 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne – The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

3) In 1923 Turkey, aiming to restrict the Greek presence in Constantinople, arbitrarily characterized as personae non gratae 40,000 Greeks, who had found temporary refuge for reasons of safety outside Turkey, prior to the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne, removed their Turkish citizenship and proceeded to the mass confiscation of their properties. The occasion, as declared by Ankara, was that these people, despite being settled in Turkey before 1918, and thus not exchangeable under the terms of the Treaty on the exchange of populations, were not registered in the municipal roll of Constantinople – which is something that was not required by the Treaty for the exchange of populations. The Greek view was justified two years later, on February 21, 1925, by the International Court of Justice, but the Turks had already achieved their objective.

(Violation of Article 2 of the Treaty on the exchange of populations, which was incorporated in the Treaty of Lausanne).

4) Turkey, in the framework of its strategic undermining and degradation of the Ecumenical seat of the Orthodox faith, gave its full support in September 1923 to the establishment of the so-called ‘Turkish Orthodox Church’, which was founded by father Efthym Karahisarides Erenerol, a priest from Keskin, Anatolia, who was the blind instrument of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Young Turks’ leader. In October 1923, father Efthym attempted to occupy the Patriarchal Palace, causing grave incidents, while the Turkish authorities did not stir an eyelid.

(Violation of Articles 38, 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

5) By virtue of Decree No 1092/06.12.1923, Turkey downgraded the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople to a simple Turkish institution and determined that the Patriarch would be elected by clergymen who were Turkish nationals and were already serving in Turkey. The fact that Turkey was unable to unilaterally evict the Ecumenical Patriarchate from Constantinople, which is what it would have done for any institution governed by the domestic Turkish law, and was forced by the parties signing the Treaty of Lausanne to accept that the Ecumenical Patriarchate would remain in Constantinople, indicates the extent of the Turkish arbitrariness.

(Violation of Articles 40, 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

6) Immediately after the installation of the Turkish authorities in Imvros and Tenedos, on October 4, 1923, where more than 90% of population was Greek, the Turks completely ignored the special local administration which the two islands, which were offered to them as a gift with the initiative of Breat Britain in the framework of the Treaty of Lausanne, should have enjoyed. The Turks appointed right away a Turkish commander and Turkish officers to the courts, customs houses, police and port authorities, dismissing all the elected local officials. They cut off the Christian leadership characterizing as personae non gratae 1,500 people from Imvros and 64 from Tenedos, who had found temporary refuge in safer places. Their real property was seized.

(Violation of Article 14 of the Treaty of Lausanne and Protocol VIII on amnesty, violation of Articles 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

7) On February 12, 1924 father Efthym burst into the historic church of PanHaghia Kafatiani in Galatas and the church of Sotiras Christos and took possession of them, with the undisguised support of the Turkish authorities. On February 19, 1924 the Patriarchal Holy Synod unfrocked father Efthym, while he had already been excommunicated as an apostate and shameless traitor of the orthodox faith. The Turkish courts rushed with unprecedented eagerness to fine the Ecumenical Patriarch in April 1924 for the mental anguish suffered by father Efthym as a result of his excommunication, while the Turkish State officially conceded to him the churches he had occupied with the violent ‘backing’ of the Turkish mob!

(Violation of Articles 37, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

8) On January 30, 1925, upon the conclusion of the mass for the celebration of the holiday of the three Hierarchs, the Turkish police invaded the premises of the Patriarchate, arrested Ecumenical Patriarch Constantinos VI and after giving him an exchange passport led him to the railway station of Sirketzi and deported him from Turkey.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38, 40, 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

9) In the same year, the Turkish Government decided to shut down the historic Greek Literary Club and the contents of its invaluable library were scattered among the state libraries in Ankara and Suleymaniye and the various Turkish language and Turkish history societies.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

10) The Turkish Government, in order to prevent Greek teachers from teaching in Turkey, required them to pass examinations in the Turkish language in order to be approved a new teaching license. Most courses in the Greek schools had to be taught in the Turkish language. Ethnic Greeks in Constantinople were forced to bear the burden of the double salaries paid to the Turkish teachers teaching in Greek schools, while at the same time they were asked to pay a special education tax, invented for the purpose of draining them. The Zappeion School for Girls had to shut down because there were statues inspired from the Greek mythology in its premises. The Patriarchal Commercial School, the Greek Commercial School in Halki and the Apostolides private school for languages had to shut down.

11) On June 14, 1926 the Turkish Government, in the framework of its strategy of undermining and lowering the status of the Ecumenical Patriatchate, initiated criminal proceedings against the Ecumenical Patriarch and all the Holy Synod, on the grounds that they had convened a meeting at the Halki Seminary and not in Phanare (Fener), the administrative seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

In the same period, the Turkish Government did not allow the organization of a Panorthodox Convention by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

12) The introduction of the Civil Code in Turkey, in October 1926, established for minority institutions an inability to acquire new real estate, either by property transaction or by donation or inheritance, while the Patriarchate’s capacity as a legal entity ceased to be recognized, thus causing huge impediments to the management and representation of the huge Patriarchal estate.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38, 39 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

13) Law 1151, passed by the Turkish National Assembly on June 25, 1927, substantially and officially abolished the self administration status of the islands Imvros and Tenedos, shut down on various pretexts the Greek School, prohibited the instruction of the Greek language and placed Christians under persecution, to their final extinction.

(Violation of Articles 14, 27, 38 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

14) During the year 1930 the Turkish authorities openly intervened in the elections of the administration boards of the minority hospital in Valoukli and the community of Pera (Beyoglou), aiming at the big properties of the minority members.

15) Law 2007, passed by the Turkish National Assembly on June 11, 1932, banned Greeks from the exercise of thirty professions. These professions covered a wide spectrum, indicative of the intentions to indirectly force Greeks to emigrate voluntarily: The professions of itinerant salesman, barber, musician, photographer, carpenter, tailor and waiter were among the first to be prohibited for Greeks by the Turkish authorities. The banning of other professions as well followed later, compelling Greeks to make a painful choice: either remain unemployed, work illegally or emigrate from their land.

(Violation of Article 2, Convention IV, part (a) and Articles 37 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

16) Law 2596, passed by the Turkish National Assembly on December 3, 1934, prohibited all Christian clergymen to don cassocks outside the church. The only exception allowed by the Law manifests the Turkish intention to bring the Ecumenical Patriarch down to the level of the pseudo-priest Efthym Karahisarides Erenerol, the Young Turks agent, since it set forth that only the Patriarch and pseudo-priest Efthym, under his capacity as self-declared head and leader of the Turkish Orthodox Church, were allowed to wear cassocks outside the church.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38, 40 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

17) In the same year, Law 2525, under which all Turkish nationals should take on a surname, forced Greeks to Turkify their last names, because those last names with Greek roots were not accepted by the Turkish authorities. At the same time, a racist campaign was launched under the slogan ‘Citizens speak Turkish’, with the result that anyone daring to speak his mother tongue in the streets was abused and fined.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

18) Law 2762 on Vakuf, passed by the Turkish National Assembly on June 5, 1935, placed minority communities under the control and supervision of the General Directorate of Charitable Foundations (Vakuf) and required them to submit statements as to their income and their properties. The management of minority institutions and schools was assigned to a commissioner, appointed by the Turkish authorities.

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

19) On July 26, 1934, a new decree in implementation of Law 2007/1932, banned the Christian population holding the Greek nationality from the exercise of more professions, which resulted to the mass exodus of no less than 10,000 Christians with Greek nationality from Turkey.

(Violation of Article 2, Convention IV, part (a), and Articles 37 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

20) In the two years 1936-1937, Greek minority schools became the Turkish Government’s target. All the courses had to be taught in Turkish, with the exception of the Greek course. The military education course was added, taught by an officer of the Turkish army. A Turkish deputy-principal was appointed to each minority school, answerable to the Turkish Ministry of Education, who gradually became the sole and dominant power in minority schools.

(Violation of Articles 39, 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

21) In the same period, pursuant to Law 2762/1925, the Turkish authorities appointed the infamous Zihni Ozdamar, who was pseudo-priest Efthym’s right arm, as commissioner to the Valoukli Charitable Foundation, causing an uproar in the Greek minority.

(Violation of Article 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

22) In 1939 all minority sports clubs were required to merge with Turkish sports clubs, so that they progressively shrank and lost their Greek identity.

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

23) During WWII Turkey During WWII, Turkey found a wonderful opportunity, from the safety of its neutrality, to strike heavy blows on the ethnic Greeks of Turkey, taking advantage of the weakness of Greece, which was struggling for the ideals of freedom and justice, at the side of the Allied forces. Thus in May 1941 the Turkish Government mobilized the prefectures in Eastern Thrace, starting from the prefecture of Constantinople. The enlistment offices were ordered, by way of a ciphered footnote under the mobilization decision, to summon selectively the reservists from the Greek, Armenian and Jewish minorities. This way, all Christians aged 20 to 45 were dragged to the army and were scattered in the depths of Asia Minor to construct roads and military buildings under the most adverse circumstances.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

24) On September 21, 1941 ‘unknown’ arsonists threw on the wooden roof of the Ecumenical Patriarchate rags which they had immersed in gasoline and put on fire. The Patriarchal Building burnt to ashes, taking with it records, paintings of Patriarchs and valuable relics of the Greek population.

(Violation of Articles 38 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

25) On November 11, 1942, the Turkish Government with its Law 4305, using as criteria religion and ethnicity, imposed an enormous emergency property tax, which aimed at the financial extinction of Christians in Turkey. The Law, which came to be known as Varlik Vergisi, required the payment of the tax arbitrarily imposed by the tax inspector within 15 days, and without the right to appeal. Four weeks after the imposition of the tax, failure to pay resulted to the confiscation of the taxpayer’s property, his arrest and displacement to forced labour camps in Askale, the Turkish Siberia. In total, 1,869 illustrious members of the minority population saw their properties suddenly confiscated and themselves exiled to the Askale Siberia, where they built roads in order to settle their debt to the Turkish State. Their daily wages were 2 Turkish pounds, out of which one was deducted for the rudimentary meals they were given and the other one deducted with regard to their debt to the Turkish State. Most of them, in order to settle the debt arbitrarily imposed on them, would have to work from 200 to 300 years!

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

26) In January 1943 the Turkish Government confiscated the properties of the Holy Monasteries of Athos Megisti Lavra and Koutloumousi in Imvros and started to relocate settlers from Asia Minor to the island. The Mayor and three Community chairmen who dared to protest were banished in Asia Minor. The same destiny awaited two of the most important members of the Holy Synod: Metropolite Maximos of Chalcedon, who later became Ecumenical Patriarch, and Metropolite Dorotheos of Prussa.

(Violation of Articles 14, 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

27) On September 6, 1955 the Turkish Government, in a cold-blooded and preplanned manner, launched an organized pogrom against Christians in Constantinople. Within the space of six hours seventy-three churches, two monasteries, eight holy water fountains, thirty-six Greek schools, four thousand three hundred and forty shops belonging to Greeks, two thousand six hundred and forty houses belonging to Christians and twenty-one factories belonging to Greeks were destroyed, looted or set on fire. The tombs of the Patriarchs were destroyed and the Greek cemetery in Sisli was the target of a frenzied attack by the organized mob. The Turks were possessed with a cannibal-like mania and they ruined tombs, opened the more recent ones, unburied corpses, which they knifed and tore to pieces. During this night of terror for the Greeks of Constantinople, no less than seventeen deaths, dozens of injuries and two hundred rapes took place, while icons and religious paintings of priceless historic and archeological value were destroyed or stolen.

Only three days after the events, Ismet Inonu, head of the Turkish opposition, stated with provocative explicitness at the center of the Popular party, which he headed: ‘It is a good thing that our party was not involved in the events, however these acts were very well organized and aiming to clear our country from the Greek element, which is a burden!”

(Violation of Articles 38, 39, 40 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

28) On September 16, 1955 the Turkish authorities interdicted the publication of the minority newspaper ‘Eleftheri Phoni’ and arrested its publisher Andreas Lambikis, whom they imprisoned without a warrant or official charges for a period of three months in the military jail of Harbiyie.

(Violation of Articles 37 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

29) In November 1956, the Turkish authorities arrested twelve members of the Greek Association of Constantinople, which they dissolved by court decision in April 1958, allegedly for espionage for Greece and for financing the struggle of the organization EOKA in Cyprus.

(Violation of Articles 38, 39, 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne – Violation of Convention IV of the Treaty).

30) From early 1957 to 1959 the Turkish authorities deported 57 personalities of the Christian minority in Constantinople, including reporter Dimitrios Kaloumenos, who had captured with his camera the vandalisms of September 6, 1955, offering invaluable material to history about that St.Bartholomew’s massacre for the Greeks of Constantinople.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

31) During the same period, the Turkish authorities with a campaign levered mainly be students-members of Anti-Greek organizations and societies, used psychological pressure on consumers, forcing them not to buy products from shops owned by Greeks. To that end, they distributed propagandist leaflets in front of the Christian shops, with the slogan ‘Bu dukkan gavurlarin malidir. Yiankina girin, cunku Turk tur’ (This shop belongs to an infidel. Prefer the shop next door, it belongs to a Turk). This campaign, combined with the other one asking people to speak only Turkish – the relevant slogan ‘Vatandas Turkce konus’ was everywhere – maintained the unbearable feeling of terror, which surrounded the Christians of Constantinople.

(Violation of Articles 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

32) New restriction measures with regard to the exercise of various professions by Greeks in Constantinople were announced by the Turkish authorities in 1960, in implementation of Law 2007/1932.

(Violation of Article 2, Convention IV, part (a) and Articles 37 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

33) That same year, the Turkish authorities abolished the three central Greek Orthodox boards of Stavrodromion (Beyoglu), Halkidona(Kadikoy) and Galatas (Karakoy), which coordinated the ethnic Greek institutions. That way, the real estate belonging to the institutions was led, through the progressive procedure of the physical wear of the members of the Greek institutions, to the Turkish State.

34) Law 222 of 1961 arbitrarily brought minority schools under the jurisdiction of the Turkish Ministry of Education, for the purpose of circumventing the obligations undertaken by Turkey under the Treaty of Lausanne.

(Violation of Articles 37, 39, 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

35) In 1962 an application for the reconstruction of the Patriarchal Palace, after the damages it had suffered from the fire of 1941, was rejected. Similar applications for the maintenance of other buildings belonging to the minority, such as the Principos Orphanage (Buyuk Ada), the Metropolis at Derkon and the Tatavla (Kurtulus) School were also rejected. In the same year the plot of the church of Haghios Georgios in Therapia (Tarabya) was arbitrarily occupied for the purposes of developing a big tourist complex, without any attention paid to the protests of the Christians.

(Violation of Articles 38, 39, 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

36) In 1963 the church of Sotiras Christos, which in 1924 had been forcefully occupied by pseudo-priest Efthym, was torn down by the Turkish authorities. This church, 12 years after it had been occupied by coup by the pseudo-priest, had been returned to the Christians after a long struggle in the courts. In 1955 it had been completely destroyed by the organized demonstrators – contrary to the church of Panaghia Kafatiani, which had remained under the control of the pseudo-priest and which was left untouched during the night of the events. After it was torn down, the Turkish authorities awarded damages to pseudo-priest Efthym!

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

37) In 1964 the Turkish authorities implemented a coordinated wave of persecutions, aiming at the complete extinction of the Christian minority of Constantinople:

The year began with the authorities setting the proper climate, with the stoning of the Patriarchate. This was followed, on January 10, 1964, by the stoning of the Sinaitic Monastery of Haghios Ioannis in Phanare (Fener). Then the wave of persecutions assumed torrential dimensions. Three principals of Greek High Schools and eleven Greek teachers were dismissed. Orthodox clergymen were forbidden entry in Greek schools by virtue of Circular No 410/16/26.03.1964. On April 1, 1964 Emilianos, Metropolite of Seleukia and Iakovos, Metropolite of Philadelphia, were deported from Turkey and were deprived of the Turkish nationality. Nine days later, on April 10, 1964, the Patriarchal printing office, which had been in operation since 1927, was shut down and the publication of the ecclesiastical publications ‘Apostolos Andreas’ and ‘Orthodoxy’ was forbidden. The handling of Greek books, whatever their form, in minority schools, the teaching of the religious education course and the celebration of the religious holidays of Easter, Christmas and New Year’s Day were forbidden by virtue of Circular No 3385, issued on September 15, 1964. On September 20, 1964, the community cemetery of Kouskoutzouki (Kuskuncuk) was desecrated and on the following day, on September 21, 1964, the church of PanHaghia in Exi Marmara was stoned. Between October 4 and 9 the Patriarchate was blockaded by a mass of organized ‘demonstrators’. Morning prayers were forbidden for Greek students in minority schools by virtue of Circular No 8459, issued on December 18, 1964. Students were also forbidden to use the Greek language, even during the breaks. At the same time, the historic Greek Orphanage in Principos (Buyuk Ada) was shut down, when the building was forcefully occupied by the Turkish authorities.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne – The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

38) In March 1964 the Turkish Government began the mass expulsion of Greeks from Constantinople in the most provocative, flagrant and blatant violation of the Treaty of Lausanne, given that there was absolutely no question that Greek nationals settled in Constantinople prior to 1918 were not exchangeable. The mass persecution of the Greeks, which took place in the form of inhuman and summary proceedings, was the last blow to the wounded and bled Hellenism of Constantinople. The expulsion was suddenly announced in the press, accompanied by the simultaneous seizure of the moveable property and confiscation of the real property of the deportees, forcing them to leave the country with only what they could fit inside the suitcase they carried. The Turkish authorities were so eager to uproot the ethnic Greeks of Constantinople, that in the lists they published with the names of the Greeks to be deported, allegedly on the grounds of being dangerous to the safety of Turkey, they included the names of people with mental or physical disabilities, hundreds of elderly persons who could only move around with difficulty as well as at least six …… dead people!

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

39) On November 2, 1964, the Turkish Government by virtue of its secret decree which acquired the reference number 6/3801, proceeded to the methodical looting of the huge Christian properties, make illegal the transfer of property titles to persons of Greek nationality and blocking the collection of all amounts due, all proceeds, incomes and bank accounts. This unprecedented plundering was kept secret and implemented faithfully for decades, until it was uncovered twenty-four years later.

(Violation of Articles 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

40) In 1964 the notorious eritme programi was implemented in the islands of Imvros and Tenedos. This was the plan for breaking down the islands and giving them a Turkish identity. The operation licenses were removed from the Greek schools, which were shut down and their properties were confiscated. The arable lands of the islands were expropriated for next to nothing. Fishing, which was an important means of livelihood for the residents, was prohibited. The Metropolite and elders of Imvros were exiled to Asia Minor. Gendarmerie camps were established and settlers were transferred from Pontus and Bulgaria. The area was declared ‘supervised zone’ and all Greek and foreign visitors had to secure a special permit from the Dardanelles’(Canakkale) Prefect. Some time later, open prisons for long-term convicts were relocated to the island, in order to terrify the residents, whose only way out was that, which the Turkish authorities systematically methodized: to leave their ancestral hearths.

(Violations of Articles 14, 37, 38, 39 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

41) In September 1965, pseudo-priest Efthym occupied by force, with the undisguised support of the Turkish authorities, the holy churches of Haghios Ioannis in Hion and Haghios Nikolaos in Galatas(Karakoy). The Turkish authorities rushed to offer to him the Greek institutions in the area, including 2 schools and 52 properties. Since then, all the legal efforts for the return of the churches and institutions have been met with legalistic problems, which have resulted to the continuous side die adjournment of the relevant proceedings!

(Violation of Articles 38, 40, 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

42) In 1965 Andreas Lambikis, publisher of ‘Eleftheri Phoni’, the minority newspaper, was arrested and imprisoned. The newspaper, printing presses and the premises owned by him were seized, and the publisher was ousted from Turkey with the charge of ‘insult to Turkism’.

(Violation of Articles 38, 39 and 40 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

43) The persecutions in minority schools went on, despite the rapid decline in the number of students. In 1967 another 39 teachers were dismissed and 6 Greek elementary schools were shut down. Children whose identity bore the indication ‘Christian’ instead of ‘Rum’ (Greek Orthodox) were not allowed entry in minority schools, and were forced to attend Turkish elementary schools.

(Violation of Articles 38, 39, 40 and 41 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

44) Law 903/1967 imposed a 5% tax on the annual gross Vakuf income. The acquisition of any real property in excess of that stated in 1936 was prohibited. The establishment of new minority institutions was prohibited.

(Violation of Articles 37, 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

45) On July 9, 1971 the Turkish Government, in an effort to strangle the nursery of Orthodox clergymen, discontinued the operation of the Seminary of Halki. In the 127 years from its foundation, 930 clergymen had graduated from the Seminary, including 12 Ecumenical Patriarchs, 2 Patriarchs of Antiochy, 4 Archbishops of Athens and 1 Archbishop of Tirana. At the same time, all Greek minority schools were required to open courses with the Turkish oath beginning with the words ‘I am a Turk’ and ending with the phrase ‘ne mutlu Turkum diyene’, which means ‘How happy I am to have been born a Turk!”

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

46) In September 1974 the Turkish authorities turned to mosques the Byzantine monastery of Akatalyptos Maria Diakonissa, which was built in 582, the monastery of Myreleo and the church of Haghia Theodora.

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

47) In the islands of Imvros and Tenedos, the heroic Christian residents who had lived through persecutions and terrorism, now had to suffer more tribulations. The year after Stelios Kavalieros was murdered by ‘unknown’ parties in Panaghia, Imvros in 1973, the Mayor of Imvros, together with 20 eminent islanders, were put in prison in the Dardanelles. On the night of the Turkish invasion in Cyprus, in July 1974, the old Metropolitan Church of Imvros was looted and the cemetery of the village Castro on the island was desecrated. In the following summer Styliani Zouni, mother of two, was raped and murdered by a Turkish soldier in the village of Ayii Theodori, Imvros. Finally, in the two-year period 1975-1976 more lands, from what little had remained in the hands of the Christian residents, were expropriated for next to nothing, as usual.

(Violation of Articles 14, 37, 38, 39, 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

48) The Turkish authorities, with Law 502/1978 managed to shrink the community property of the Valoukli Hospital to what it was in 1936, annulling all transfers of moveable and real properties which had taken place by virtue of donations, bequests etc.

49) The 1980s were the coup de grace for the Christians of Imvros and Tenedos, in the form of new ‘unsolved’ murders. In July 1980 George Viglis was massacred in Schinoudi, supposedly by ‘unknown’ parties. In 1984 Efstratios Stylianidis was murdered in Schinoudi and Nikos Ladas in PanHaghia. A few years later Zaphiris Deliconstantis was murdered in the village of Glyky. In 1984 the Turkish Government, bringing to a conclusion the infamous ‘eritme programi’, meaning the plan for the complete Turkification of the Greek islands of Imvros and Tenedos, proceeded to seize the last remaining 956 thousand square meters, prohibiting cattle breeding and characterizing all remaining pastures as forestland or lands to be reforested and national parks.

(Violation of Articles 14, 37, 38 and 39 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

50) On May 29, 1985, on a symbolic date, the Turkish authorities proceeded to an also symbolic act: They tore down the whole front of the holy church of Haghios Georgios in Makrochori (Bakirkoy).

(Violation of Articles 40 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

51) The current decade is characterized by the increased intensity of the Turkish provocations, not only against the remnants of the Greek properties in the unforgettable fatherlands of Asia Minor, which are the fixed target of the Young Turks, but also against the inanimate witnesses of the great Greek presence and the huge Christian estates. After a period of 20 years from the last permitted elections in the Greek communities of Constantinople, it was only in March 1991 that the elections were repeated. However, the procedure permitted was only a parody, since the members of the appointed returning committee were also the only candidates! A Greek woman, who dared to protest, was found abused in her home, after having received the ‘visit’ of unknown parties who had tried to ‘bring her to her senses’.

52) In the same year, the Turkish authorities took arbitrary occupation of the building of the Greek community of Tzivali (Cibali) and the Community building of Haghios Phocas in Mesochori (Ortakoy), Bosphorus. In both cases, the Turkish State paid the expenses for the restoration of the occupied buildings.

53) In August 25, 1991, perfectly organized demonstrators, with not only the tolerance but also the open support of the Turkish authorities, besieged, under the sounds of epic songs of the janissaries, the premises of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which they blocked off for four days and nights in a row. When they had the pleasure to leave, they kept trumpeting forth their intention to return and install a Turkish patriarch in the premises of the Patriarchate!

(Violations of Articles 38, 40, 42 and 43 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

54) In April 1992, four churches and one holy water spring were the targets of attacks: The church of Evangelistria, at the foot of Tatavla (Kurtulus), the church of Haghios Georgios in Edirne-Capi, the church of Haghios Ignatios in Halkidona (Kadikoy) and the holy water spring of Prophitis Ilias in Mega Revma (Arnavutkoy). In all these cases, the culprits removed undisturbed icons and religious vessels of great historic and archaeological value, without of course getting arrested.

55) In August 1993, ‘unknown’ parties entered the Christian cemetery of Neochori (Yenikoy), Constantinople, and opened and looted 30 tombs. At that time, the church in the cemetery of Prophitis Ilias was broken into and robbed, while at the holy water spring of Parthenos Maria in Gioksuyu, bold culprits opened a great hole on the wall of the building, destroyed the premises and the holy water’s taps.

56) On June 12, 1993, ‘unknown’ parties as usual, catapulted an improvised Molotov bomb onto the building of the newly built, with great trouble and expenses, Patriarchal House in Phanare (Fener). The fire was extinguished by the clergymen, because the Fire Department was unable to intervene!

57) In early August 1993, one more incident shocked the Christian minority of Constantinople. A twelve-year old girl, Petroula Syrigou, was dragged by force inside a black Mercedes by three ‘unknown’ parties, in front of the eyes of a large number of witnesses. The poor girl was found a little while later naked and molested in a state of aphasia, which lasted three whole days. On the third day, Petroula Syrigou died and was buried in the Christian cemetery of Neochori (Yenikoy), Bosphorus. A few days later, on August 24, 1993, vandals broke into the same cemetery and after breaking the tomb marbles, scattered the bones of the dead and unburied a corpse from its shroud in order to tear it apart!

(Violation of Articles 38 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

58) On September 28, 1993 eight ‘unknown’ persons entered the premises of the Ioakimion School for Girls in Fener, used a tank of gas and started a fire and then disappeared. The fire was extinguished by the local residents, because the Fire Department did not deem it necessary to make an appearance. The following month, in October 1993, a big rock was thrown inside the premises of the Patriarchate from the neighbouring hill, a regular army bomb was placed in the church of Panagia ton Ouranon, in an old quarter of Constantinople, which fortunately did not explode, while the fire started by ‘unknown’ parties at the Monastery of Haghios George in Principos (Buyuk Ada) ruined a significant part of the building. In November 1993 ‘unknown’ parties threw two bombs inside the precinct of the church of Panagia in Egri-Kapi and disappeared.

59) On March 30, 1994, three improvised incendiary Molotov bombs were catapulted from the northern wall of the Patriarchal House in Fener and twelve days later, on April 12, 1994 Molotov bombs were thrown inside the yard of the Greek Grand National School in Fener.

On the night of April 30, 1994 ‘unknown’ parties broke into the church of Metamorphosis in the Sisli cemetery, stole 7 icons of great value, four gold candle-stands and ruined various religious vessels. Immediately after that, they broke into the neighbouring chapel of the Apostles Petros and Pavlos, and desecrated the grounds.

On the night of August 1, 1994 ‘unknown’ parties entered into the chapel of Haghios Ioannis Prodromos in the cemetery of Makrochori (Bakirkoy), stealing innumerable icons and desecrating the grounds. In September 1994 the Turkish authorities, in a characteristic insult to the religious sentiment of Christians, make available the old Byzantine church of Haghia Irini for the conduct of an international …… beauty contest!

60) In April 1995 the house of BBC correspondent Alkis Kourkoulas was broken into and valuable documents were stolen. In June of the same year ‘unknown’ parties broke into the church of Haghios Ignatios in Halkidona (Kadikoy), stealing icons and five silver candle-holders and into the Holy Water Spring of Parthenos Maria in Gioksuyu, ruining furniture. On October 4, 1994 ‘unknown’ parties murdered and robbed the elderly Christina Frangopoulou in Principos (Buyukada).

(Violation of Articles 38 and 42 of the Treaty of Lausanne - The League of Nations has guaranteed the implementation of said Articles, as set forth in Article 44 of the Treaty of Lausanne).

61) On March 3, 1966 the church of Panagia ton Ouranon became again the target of the known ‘unknown’ perpetrators. A powerful remote-controlled explosive device was discovered by the church attendant and disposed of at the last minute by the Turkish police. On September 16, 1996 two bombs went off almost simultaneously, one in the Byzantine church of Panagia in Mouchli (Fener) and the other in the now shut down building of the Ioakeimion School for Girls in Fener. Thirteen days later, on September 29, 1996 a grenade was catapulted onto the roof of the Patriarchal Church of Haghios Georgios, causing damages to the building.

62) The bomb attacks in Fener went on under the impassive indifference of the Turkish Government. Thus, on December 2, 1997 a fresh bomb attack at the seat of the Ecumenical Patriarchate resulted to the serious injury of deacon Nectarios from Rethymnon, Crete and to extensive damages in the Holy Church of Haghios Georgios. On January 13, 1998 the same always ‘unknown’ parties entered at two o’clock in the afternoon into the holy water spring of Haghios Therapon near Haghia Sofia, murdered the 73-year old keeper Haviaropoulos, threw his corpse into a well, grabbed valuable icons and set the place on fire in order to cover their tracks!

63) On the night of March 30-31, 1998 vandals entered the cemetery in Tatavla, near the center of Constantinople, ruined 51 tombs and pillaged undisturbed the grounds.

64) In early November 1998, the Turkish Government arbitrarily removed the supervisory committee returning of the Seminary in Halki, on the grounds of their alleged ‘mismanagement’ and ‘propaganda against the Turkish State’, condemning in fact the whole Institution to shut down.

After a brief listing of only some of the incidents against the Greeks of Constantinople, Imvros and Tenedos, the population shrinkage of the ethnic Greeks in Turkey is easily understood.

The comparison between the Turkish policy with regard to Christians and the Greek policy with regard to Muslims in the 75 years from the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne, using the language of numbers, is catalytic:

The Mixed Commission in charge of the Exchange of Populations issued, in performance of the 1923 Agreement issued 111,200 certificates of exception from the exchange to ethnic Greeks in Turkey and 86,000 to Muslims remaining in Western Thrace. Today, 75 years later, the number of Muslim residents in Western Thrace is at least 120,000 persons while the number of Greeks in Turkey has shrunk to no more than 2,000 as a result of a planned and systematic violation of the obligations undertaken by Turkey upon signing the Treaty of Lausanne.

1. Denunciation of the Turkish Republic before the International Organizations (UNO, OSCE, European Parliament, Council of Europe), all the members of the European and US Parliamentary Bodies with regard to the flagrant violations of the Treaty of Lausanne and other more recent Agreements.

2. A commanding demand that Turkey respect all of its obligations under its conventional commitments to the Greeks remaining in Turkey, with the abolishment and legal quashing of all the legal decrees and decisions of the Turkish authorities involving them and violating their freedoms and human rights.

3. More effective protection and guarantee of the required conditions for the unhindered operation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which is the revered crown of Orthodoxy, towards the performance of its high ecumenical mission.

4. A demand for damages in regard to the properties of the Greeks of Turkey, who were forced to flee as a result of the anti-Greek measures adopted in 1964.

5. A demand for the protection of the lives and properties of the Greeks still remaining in their hearths and the salvage of the huge community property.

6. The salvage and preservation intact of the invaluable cultural heritage of Hellenism.

Furthermore, the immediate adoption of decisions by the competent State instruments with regard to the following, is deemed absolutely necessary:

1. Recognition of September the 6^th as a day of remembrance of the uprooting of the Greeks of Constantinople.

2. Recognition of the refugee status of the Greeks of Turkey who were forced to leave their hearths in the last decades.

3. Naturalization of the Greeks of Turkish nationality who wish to acquire the Greek nationality.

1. Leschi ton Neon Ellinon, ‘The Treaty of Lausanne’, Papazissis Editions, Athens, 1994.

2. Alexis Alexandris, Thanos Varemis, Panos Kazakos, Vangelis Koufoudakis, Christos Rozakis, George Tsitsopoulos, ‘The Greek-Turkish Relations, 1923-1987’, Gnossi Editions, Athens, 1988.

3. Association of Imvrians, Constantinopolitans, Tenedians, Eastern Thracians, “The Struggle for Vindication’, ÉÊÔÁÈ Editions, Komotini, 1997.

4. The Constantinopolitan Studies Society, ‘Memorandum on the Position of the Greek Orthodox Minority in Turkey’, Athens 1947.

6. Issues of the Constantinopolitan newspaper ‘O Politis’, issued in Athens.

8. Dimitrios Kaloumenos, ‘The Crucifixion of Hellenism’, Third Self-Financed Edition, Athens 1991.

9. Leonidas Koumakis, ‘Glances at the Roots of Hellenism’, Self-Edition, Athens, 1997.

· In 1941, after the ‘Friendship and Cooperation’ covenant was signed with Nazi Germany, Turkey from the safety of the supposedly ‘neutral’ position it adopted during WWII, selectively mobilized twenty ages of Christians from 25 to 45 years old, and send them to forced labour camps. The photograph presents the grounds where the conscripts stayed in Gonen (Archives of Ioannis Rodokanakis).

· In 1942, when Greece was bleeding at the side of the West, serving the ideals of Freedom and Democracy, Turkey grasped the opportunity to impose an extra property ‘tax’ (Varlik Vergisi – Law 4305/12.11.1942), on the basis of criteria which were purely racist, on Greeks, Armenians and Jews, plundering their huge properties. Those unable to pay within the suffocating fifteen-day time limit, were led to forced labour camps (Photograph).

· In 1955 the Turkish Government unleashed an incredible and perfectly organized pogrom against the Christian population of Constantinople. As a result, no less than 20 people died, hundreds were wounded, 200 rapes took place, 73 churches, 4,360 shops belonging to Greeks, 2,600 Christian houses, 26 minority schools and the premises of all the Greek newspapers issued there were destroyed or looted. In the photograph the Turkish mob in frenzy, on the night of September 6-7, 1955.

· In March 1964 Turkey proceeded to the arbitrary expulsion of the Greeks living in Constantinople. With summary proceedings, approximately 48,000 Greeks were forced – directly or indirectly – to abandon their homes in an unbearable climate of terror. The Turkish Government issued on November 6, 1964 its Secret Decree No 6/3801 for the purposes of plundering their properties, which prohibited the transfer of ownership of the real properties belonging to Greeks, while a few years later the prohibition was extended to cover the Greeks’ rights to succession. The photograph shows blind and invalid Greek Constantinopolitan G.Syggros at the time of his expulsion on the grounds that he was deemed to be, along with the other deported Greeks, ‘dangerous to the safety of Turkey’.

· Under Articles 20 and 21 of the Treaty of Lausanne Turkey declared its waiver from any and all rights to Cyprus. However, 51 years later on July 21, 1974 it invaded the island setting new unrivalled records of barbarity: 5,000 dead, 1,639 missing and 200,000 Cypriots refugees on their own island! The photographs are a small sample of the propagandist material used by Turkey at the time of its invasion in Cyprus – revealing its expansionistic intentions in contrast to the official position adopted by Ankara in its relations with the West, which still is that ‘the Turkish invasion in Cyprus brought peace to the island!”

· At the time of the signature of the Treaty of Lausanne the population of the islands of Imvros and Tenedos was 93% Greek, and for that reason Turkey, upon receiving the islands, was forced under Article 14 of the Treaty of Lausanne to implement extended self administration. Today only 1% of the islanders are Greek, as a result of the orgy of violations of the Treaty of Lausanne by Turkey. In the 1980s the ‘mysterious’ and ‘unsolved’ murders of Christians led the few remaining Christians to abandon the islands, while the destruction of symbols of the Christian religion in the two islands was incessant (photograph from the destruction of the Church of Haghia Anna in Agridia).

*1 Member of Parliament for PASOK, Chairman of the Standing Committee for National Defence and Foreign Affairs of the Greek Parliament.

*2 Professor of International Law at the Hellenic Cadets School.

*3 Professor of Sociology at the Panteion University of Athens. Born in Constantinople.

*4 Chairman of the Constantinopolitan Society, established in Athens in 1928, after the Asia Minor catastrophe. Born in Constantinople.

*5 Writer, born in Constantinople, came to Greece in 1964 with the expulsions.

*6 Chemist, born in Constantinople.

ATHENS, 1999

THE CONSTANTINOPOLITAN SOCIETY

Established in 1928

Page: 3

75 YEARS AFTER THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

APPENDIX III

Introduction & Reports