By Mehmet Sukru Guzel
An International Recognized National Liberation Movement – TMT
We are releasing this in 6 parts, you can find the full release HERE
The legality of the use of force of the Turkish Cypriot community against the Greek Cypriot government is the key issue to define the legal status of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus within the United Nations law system. If the Turkish Cypriots have a legal right to use force against the so-called Greek Cypriot government within the system of decolonization of the United Nations, then the so-called Greek Cypriots government thesis against the Turkish Cypriots on defining the situation in Cyprus as belligerency of the Turkish Cypriots against the government will be eliminated. The situation in Cyprus will change and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus can become a member of the United Nations within the United Nations decolonization system.
The Cyprus conflict celebrates its 71st anniversary in 2019 while negotiations are still going on between the Turkish and the Greek Cypriots on a different ground today than when it had first politically started in 1948. In 1948, Fazıl Küçük, the communal leader of the Turkish Cypriots, sent a telegram to the president and prime minister of Turkey on their opposition of the Greek Cypriots policy on Enosis in the name of self-determination under the British colonial rule. This telegram was the critical date that is the date of the crystallization of the conflict on two different approaches on the right to self-determination of the two communities in the island for the implementation of the Article 73 of the UN Charter.
The origin of the ongoing conflict is the demand of the Greek Cypriot`s unification of Cyprus with Greece in the name of right to self-determination which had created its counter-argument from the Turkish Cypriots as their demand for Taksim, partition of the island between the two communities as two different states at the time of independence from the colonial administration.
The Greek Cypriots today try to define the conflict as a belligerency issue against the so-called legal government of Cyprus after they proposed amendments to the constitution, known as the “Thirteen Points” that entailed usurping the rights of the Turkish Cypriots and degrading their equal co-founder status to that of a minority on the island and at the same time the Greek Cypriots do not accept the Turkish community’s recognized equal right to self-determination under Article 73 of the UN Charter within the Cyprus Republic in 1960. The Greek Cypriot’s definition of belligerency for the Turkish Cypriots means illegal use of force under the UN system.
Traditional international law distinguishes between three categories, or indeed, stages, of challenges to established state authority as 1. rebellion, 2. insurgency and 3. belligerency. The act of belligerency is clearly defined in international law pointing out certain material conditions to be fulfilled first in order for a case of belligerency to be present; (1) the existence of an armed conflict; (2) occupation by the insurgents of a significant part of the national territory;(3) an internal organization exercising sovereignty on that part of territory; (4) the same organization is keen on conducting the armed conflict in accordance with International Humanitarian Law; and (5) circumstances which
make it necessary for outside States to define their attitude by means of recognition of belligerency. A state of belligerency can only be recognized if the conflict takes on the characteristics of war, such recognition means simply the recognition of the existence of a war. However, the recognition of belligerency rarely took place (Jadarian, 2008, p.13-15).
Other than rebellion, insurgency, and belligerency, there exists another internationally accepted armed conflict with a right to use of force: the wars of national liberations. Jus ad Bellum refers to the conditions under which States may resort to war or to the use of armed force in general. The prohibition against the use of force among States and the exceptions to it, the self-defense and the authorization by the UN Security Council as set out in the United Nations Charter, are the core ingredients of Jus ad Bellum (ICRC, 2019).
The United Nations defines the struggle to the alien domination, colonizer and racist states as a right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter and legitimizes the use of force by the national liberation movements against the against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right to self-determination.
To find a legal solution for the ongoing Cyprus conflict for decades under the UN Charter, in fact, can be very simple by asking a very simple question. The question is: “Does the ongoing the military resistance of the Turkish community after 1964 against the Greek Cypriot Government under the definition of Jus ad Bellum, that is a legal right to resort use of force in the UN system?”. If the answer of the question is yes then the answer yes leads us to another. The new question is “Does the military organization of the Turkish Cypriots under the definition of a national movement or not?”. The answers to these two questions are the legal solution to the Cyprus conflict under the UN law system. The answers of these two questions lays on the legality of the use of force by the Turkish Cypriots before the establishment of the Cyprus republic during the colonial administration era.
Before the independence of Cyprus from colonial rule, the two communities had their own political leaders and military organizations. Greek Cypriots had military organization EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston or the National Organisation of Cypriot Combatants) and the Turkish Cypriots had, Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı (TMT). EOKA is defined as a national liberation
movement by the Greek Cypriot government for his military struggle before the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus. The Greek Cypriot government defines the resort to use of force of EOKA as Jus ad Bellum. If the Turkish Cypriots military organization TMT, is under the definition of a national liberation movement, which gives right to use of force as Jus ad Bellum as EOKA before the establishment of the Cyprus Republic than, there exists no belligerency statue of the Turkish Cypriots when they first resisted by TMT their inherent right to use of force for self-defense for protecting the life of their nation when they resisted the amendments to the constitution known as the “Thirteen Points” which was the meaning of taking their inalienable right to self-determination from them by a racist regime.
This article examines the national liberation movements and the legality of using force in the first part and examines the decolonization of Cyprus and the two different national liberation movements in the second part. In the conclusion, the article is believed to prove that TMT is a recognized national liberation movement by the constitution of Cyprus that means that TMT is a recognized national liberation movement by the UN when Cyprus was admitted to the UN as a member state with the constitution, UN recognized the international legal personality of the Turkish Cypriot as a result of the Jus ad Bellum use of force of TMT.
We are releasing this in 6 parts, you can find the full release HERE
