by Nikos Doukas

Falsifying history the self-called "descendants of crusaders" continue their tour in the Eastern Mediterranean. Their tour is sponsored by "Orders of Knights", who consider the Greek islands of Rhodes and Cyprus their fieves. Of course the "descendants" arrive late, 900 years after the crusades. But what is most irritating is that they visit only Muslim countries and apologize to irrelevant persons.

Recently they visited the Turkish-Cypriot butcher Denktas, and apologized (!!) to him for the crimes committed by their "ancestors" against the people of Cyprus. Their president David Lags stressed: "God asked from people not to kill each other, but to live in love with each other". Denktas replied that "no Turk hates the Christians. I hope the friends from the other side (he means the Greeks) will receive my message". It is well known that the Turkish-Cypriot Rauf Denktas, according to his own statement, had ordered the execution of 1618 Greek POWs in 1974.

Of course, during the crusades Cyprus belonged to the Greek Byzantine Empire and the people of Cyprus were only Greeks. So the actions of the "descendants of crusaders" give the impression that the Turks (!!) carry on the Byzantine Empire. Instead of apologizing to Denktas, they should apologize to the Greeks, who were hit by the crusades. Especially in the 4th crusade at 1204 Hellenism was irreparably destroyed: Constantinople, the Greek capital, was pillaged, the Byzantine Empire was carved up and thousands of Greeks were sold as slaves in the slave-markets of the West. What is more, instead of simply apologizing, they should proceed to more practical actions: they should return to Greece all booty from the 4th crusade, e.g. the marble cluster of 4 horses from Constantinople's racecourse which is now at Venice.