By Nicos A. Rolandis
CYPRUS HAS been the classic case of a country whose leadership in recent years, with some exceptions, was not characterised by political acumen.
Our big “feat” in the past six decades was to break up Cyprus into two parts. I recall what Constantinos Karamanlis, then Prime Minister of Greece told us in 1978 with a lot of bitterness, at his plain apartment at Herodes Atticus street, Athens.
“The Greek Cypriots started a struggle in 1955 for the union of Cyprus with Greece, while the Turks were fighting at the same time for partition. It appears that at the end of the day the Turks will achieve their objective”. Wise words thrown into the vacuum of the irresponsibility which surrounds us.
The dove and the branch of olive tree have been our emblem since 1960. Still, even prior to the elevation of the dove to the pinnacle of our statehood, we started clipping its feathers.
The mere recording of the proposals we had over the years for the solution of our problem and the negative outcome (we rejected all of them) causes sheer awe. I set out the various instances with no comment:
1) 1948 Consultative Assembly: We rejected it
2) 1955-56: Harding proposals: We rejected them
3) 1956: Ratcliffe Constitution: We rejected it
4) 1958: Macmillan Plan: We rejected it
5) 1959-60: Zurich-London Agreements: We rejected them in 1963 (through the efforts to amend the Constitution) although we initially accepted them
6) 1964: Acheson Plan: We rejected it
7) 1972: Agreement of Clerides-Denktash: We rejected it
1975: Bicommunal Arrangement: We rejected it
9) 1978: Anglo-American Canadian Plan: We rejected it
10) 1981: Evaluation of Waldheim: We rejected it
11) 1983: Indicators of Cuelliar: We rejected them
12) 1985-86: Consolidated Documents of Cuelliar: We rejected them
13) 1992: Set of Ideas, Ghali: We rejected them in 1993
14) 1997: Annan’s Proposals at Troutbeck-Glion: They could not go through
15) 2002-2004: Annan Plan: We rejected it
I do not record the stance of the Turkish side. What matters is our position, because we have been the weak link in this game. We have been the party in need to recover lost territories, lost dreams, lost hopes. We should therefore possess more acumen and more courage in order to avoid partition.
I do not allege that the above initiatives were good. In the circumstances prevailing in Cyprus the “good” and the “very good” are utopian. Cyprus and Hellenism never had the way to fight off the various interests which are sprawling in the area. To this weakness of ours we have added our blunders, our omissions and our sins and we created a chaotic imbroglio.
Even Greece has opted to stay away. She simply gradually builds her relations with Turkey in all sectors. For those who can read between the lines Greece’s message to us is: “Once you are not interested in a solution, why should we bother?”.
All the above initiatives were rejected by Tassos Papadopoulos with the exception of the Consultative Assembly, which he could not “slaughter” because at that time he was a young student at the Gymnasium.
Tassos was one of those who had rejected in 1960 the Zurich-London Agreements as well, according to his own confession. He also admitted that 45 years later, in the year 2005, he realised that those Agreements constituted a good solution!
But in 1963, together with others, he dealt a coup de grace on the Agreements. The feathers of the dove were clipped at that time. The branch of the olive tree fell to the ground. Peace evaporated and Cyprus went down on her knees. And I have no doubt that if humans had an unusual longevity, Tassos, in the slow way in which he apparently reacts, would have realised in the year 2050 that the Annan Plan might be, after all, an acceptable solution.
I saw Mr Papadopoulos the other day on television stating that he wants a solution. “But the question is what such a solution will be,” he concluded. However the question is not “what such a solution will be”. The question is whether 60 years after 1948 – after we rejected all the opportunities offered to us and in the wake of the disastrous handling of our problem in the past five years – Mr Papadopoulos anticipates that the skies will open up. We are expected to believe that the ideal solution will emerge, acceptable to all of us, including the Turkish Cypriots and Ankara, so that Papadopoulos and the Archbishop will manage to go to Kyrenia next year and throw the holy cross into the waters of the harbour, as they told us recently.
Has Tassos been to Kyrenia? Has he visited the territories of the north? Has he ever witnessed what is happening there? Has he seen the thousands of shops, the places of business, the houses, the hotels, the large and small installations, which all bear the Turkish stamp?
He has not been there. Because if he had been there he should tell us how he proposes to demolish the “Constantinople” and the “Smyrna” we have created in the north, through our stupidity of the past 60 years, for which he bears a lot of responsibility. Had he been there he would have shed many tears. Not like last time during his television appearance. He would cry privately, in silence…
When you cast your vote in a few days, dear fellow countryman, think very cautiously what sort of future you predetermine for Cyprus. All of us who believed in the past in the Liberal Party and its credos will vote for Kasoulides. He is a correct, honest, affable, modest person of absolute integrity. He has very good access to Europe and to the international community. He has full knowledge of the predicament of Cyprus today and he will take corrective measures.
I shall add nothing more. I shall simply remind you of what the political patriarch of Cyprus, Glafcos Clerides wrote in the last page (383) of his recent book Documents of an Era:
“The postponement of the solution of the Cyprus problem to the remote future will have only one consequence: The recognition of the legal entity of the de facto regime, even without any sovereignty, so that its isolation will be lifted.
“In such a case the fruitless lapse of time will lead to the solution which Denktash and Turkey were unsuccessfully targeting for 33 years, namely, the partition of Cyprus into two sovereign states”.
