MUSEUM OF PEACE AND FREEDOM

This military museum (Barış ve Özgürlük Müzesi) is rather misnamed, as it is dedicated to the Turkish invasion of 1974. Created in the 1980s, it is of course a propaganda tool. But it should be remembered that this operation was greeted with relief by the Turkish Cypriot minority, who feared that they would come under the control of the Greek military junta in power in Athens. The shady alleys of the park are home to a collection of heavy Cypriot National Guard equipment destroyed or captured by the Turkish army during Operation Attila in the summer of 1974. Most of this equipment dates back to the Second World War, including Soviet-made T-34 tanks and M3 half-tracks from American stocks. To the east of the building is a cemetery. The graves of the 70 Turkish soldiers and their colonel killed in the early days of the invasion are lined up facing the sea, guarded by a modernist-style war memorial and framed by the flags of Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Then, in a villa dating from the British period, staff maps, personal weapons, photos, illustrations and period uniforms are brought together. The building is the one in which the colonel who commanded the operation, Halil İbrahim Karaoğlanoğlu, was killed on July 21, 1974. Presented here as a martyr to the Turkish Cypriot cause, his name was given to the nearby commune.