Dear Mr. Pruden:
 The extreme diplomatic pressure administered by the Clinton Administration
and the State Department to the Cypriot government leading to the December
30, 1998 decision of President Clerides not to deploy the defensive S-300
missile system on the island of Cyprus is a tragedy. The official government
of the island of Cyprus has a 10,000 man army, a 2 patrol boat navy, no air
force and no other effective air defense to defend against a threatening
Turkish government which has already invaded Cyprus illegally occupying 1/3
of the island with 30,000 troops(470,000 more available if needed), hundreds
of tanks, 240 F16 aircraft and 70 F4 fighter aircraft at their disposal.
This leaves Cyprus at a more than slight disadvantage militarily. Yet when
the Cypriot government tried to acquire the S-300 defense system which it so
desperately needs and the Turkish government made the ridiculous claim that
these surface to air missiles may be used to attack the Turkish mainland,
the Clinton administration, again, became Turkey's yes man. The State
Department's heavy diplomatic pressure persuaded European countries to leave
the path of logic and threaten Cyprus by saying they will make it difficult
for Cyprus to attain European Union status if the missiles are deployed.
They claimed that these missiles would increase tension in the area even
though the origin of this tension comes from the government of Turkey.
 The State Department claims that steps must be made to keep good relations
with Turkey because Turkey is of "geopolitical importance." However a if
logical person weighs location-location-location against the turmoil which
Turkey has caused in that part of the world, that person may beg to differ:
 1) Turkey has invaded the northern 1/3 of the country of Cyprus under the
pretense of thwarting a coup by the then dictatorship of Greece. The problem
with this story is that this coup was already thwarted by Cypriot troops.
During and after this invasion there were massive atrocities to civilians
including rape, murder, torture and harassment. Turkey has occupied Cyprus
since, despite numerous UN resolutions calling for Turkey's withdrawal and
despite the 1963 Treaty of Guarantee which Turkey signed that specifically
states that the intervention into Cyprus by Turkey, Greece or Britain must
be for the "sole aim" of restoring the government of the 1960 treaty. That
government is the presently recognized government of Cyprus. Furthermore,
although Turkey has tried to change the demographics of Cyprus by inviting
Turkish settlers to live in occupied Cyprus, there is a large number of
Turkish Cypriots who have voiced the desire for enosis with their Greek
Cypriot neighbors. Many of these voices, however, have been muffled by the
Turkish leadership . . . permanently.
 2)Turkey has a history of massive violations and disregard of international
law. This includes daily infringements of Greek and Cypriot airspace by
military aircraft, constant threats, invasions and infringements of
internationally recognized sovereign territories of Greece (Imia for
example), the disregarding of international treaties(Treaty of Lussane,
Treaty of Guarantee) and the refusing to take disputes to the International
Court at the Hague.
 3) Turkey has hideous human rights record. To be honest, the actual numbers
innocent men, women and children viciously killed by the Turkish government
may be largely underestimated. In Turkey there isn't and never was a free
press. For this reason it can be sometimes difficult to prove accurate
numbers. For example, if one is a journalist in Turkey and prints or
broadcasts something other than that of the desire of the Turkish
government, that journalist is surely jailed, most likely tortured, and many
times even killed. It has been estimated by various sources that just in the
years between 1912 and 1925, at least 3 million innocent civilian Armenians,
Greeks, and Kurds residing in Turkey were massacred by the Turkish military.
It has been the same throughout this century. There were, however, no
Nuremberg Trails.
 In the last 14 years the situation has gone unchanged. The so-called
western-style secular government of Turkey still murders innocent Turkish
Kurds without remorse of any kind. Only excuses. In addition, up until
recently, Kurds have been forbidden to speak Kurdish, sing Kurdish songs or
dance Kurdish dances under penalty of jail time , torture or even death. In
short they are forbidden to be Kurds. So far over 3500 Kurdish villages and
whole Kurdish sections of cities have been leveled by Turkish troops using
U.S. made and U.S. taxpayer paid for weaponry. Over 35,000 Kurds have been
massacred and counting. Pictures of smiling Turkish soldiers holding the
severed heads of Kurdish civilians by the hair have been published and
distributed by the European press. Lawyers in Turkey representing Kurds have
been jailed. Numerous Kurdish politicians have been assassinated.
Journalists in Turkey reporting the Kurdish point of view have been jailed,
tortured and killed. The Turkish government would like you to think that the
Kurdish organization PKK is responsible for all this. While the PKK
responsible for some deaths, the government of Turkey is responsible for the
vast majority of the killing of innocent civilians. The wife of Illinois
Senator Porter has gone to see it for herself. She has seen these atrocities
first hand and has experienced bullets whizzing by her head in the process.
She'll tell you that the Turkish government is responsible and so will human
rights watch groups all over the world. Turkey is a textbook example of a
terrorist state. The Clinton administration has ignored this.
 4) Turkey likes to claim that it is a democratic government. Not so.
Turkish politics are closely watched and regulated by the military. The
military cancels the government at its discretion. The civilian government
is purely cosmetic as are promises by this government to improve its human
rights policies.
 A logical person would come to the conclusion that the government of Turkey
is more similar to that of Saddam Hussien than that of a democratic
government. After all they have both indiscriminately murdered their own
Kurdish population. They have both invaded and occupied a neighboring
country despite numerous UN resolutions calling for their withdrawal. They
have both unlawfully infringed the internationally recognized sovereign
territories of other countries not including the countries they invaded, and
last but not least they are both governed by a ruthless military regime
which is above any law.
 I do believe that we have betrayed a small peaceful country which is trying
to do nothing more than insure its own security. With Cyprus' defensive
S-300 missiles in place it would be extremely risky for a Turkish military
aircraft to take an offensive posture against Cyprus inside the missile's 90
mile radius defensive capability. Because of this, it would contribute to a
balance of power in that part of the world.
 It is obvious why the Turks don't want these missiles. They have no
intention of finding a solution to the Cyprus question and furthermore it
proves that they have designs on the rest of Cyprus. All they need is an
excuse. The S-300 missiles would ruin their dream of including the whole of
Cyprus on a Turkish map or at least make that dream more complicated to achieve.
 If the Clinton administration wants the U.S. military to be the police of
the world, they should do so with a consistent policy. If we hold Bosnians
responsible for killing each other, the Serbs responsible for the deaths of
45 Albanian rebels, and Saddam Hussien responsible for the killing of Iraqi
Kurds, shouldn't we hold Turkey responsible for the murder of more than
35,000 Kurdish civilians and the torture and rape of others? A slap on the
wrist is not enough. Instead we are rewarding them.
 Iran had "geopolitical importance" in the early '70s and we were allies. We
were even once allies with Iraq during the Iraq-Iran war. The next thing we
new, we were at war during desert storm. I guess we will never learn from
history.
 Does "geopolitical importance" outweigh all these atrocities?. I can not
believe that the well informed U.S. citizen would agree. After all, this is
the type of government we fought against in WWII.