(b) The structure of the state
149. The next important point of divergence between the parties concerns the structure of the independent State. On the one hand, the Greek-Cypriot leadership insists upon a unitary form of government based on the principle of majority rule with protection for the minority. On the other hand, the Turkish-Cypriots envisage a federal system within which there would exist autonomous Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot States, the conditions for whose existence would be created by the geographical separation, which they insistently demand of the two communities.
150. It is essential to be clear what this proposal implies. To refer to it simply as "federation" is to oversimplify the matter. What is involved is not merely to establish a federal form of government but also to secure the geographical separation of the two communities. The establishment of a federal regime requires a territorial basis, and this basis does not exist. In an earlier part of this report, I explained the island-wide intermingling in normal times of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot populations. The events since December 1963 have not basically altered this characteristic; even the enclaves where numbers of Turkish-Cypriots concentrated following the troubles, are widely scattered over the island, while thousands of other Turkish-Cypriots have remained in mixed villages.
151. The reason why the Turkish-Cypriot leadership seeks a geographical separation, which does not now exist, of the two communities should, also be understood. If the fear of Enosis being imposed upon them is the major obstacle to a settlement as seen from the Turkish-Cypriot side, one reason for it is their purported dread of Greek rule. Their leaders claim also, however, that even within the context of an independent Cypriot State, events have proved that the two communities, intermingled as they are now, cannot live peacefully together. They would meet this problem by the drastic means of shifting parts of both communities in order to create two distinct geographical regions, one predominantly of Turkish-Cypriot inhabitants and the other of Greek-Cypriots. They claim that this would now be merely an extension of the process that has been forced on them by events: the greater concentration than usual of their people in certain parts of the island, notably around Nicosia and in the north-west.
152. But the opposition of the Greek-Cypriots to this idea of geographical separation is hardly less strong than the opposition of the Turkish-Cypriots to the imposition of Enosis, and I have felt bound to examine the proposal with as much care as in the case of Enosis. Much has been written and argued on both sides in Cyprus about the economic and social feasibility (or lack of it) of bringing about through the movement of the populations concerned the only possible basis for a federal state. I have studied these arguments and I find it difficult to see how the practical objections to the proposal can be overcome.
153. In the first place, the separation of the communities is utterly unacceptable to the majority community of Cyprus and on present indications could not be imposed except by force. The opposition to it is in part political: Greek-Cypriots see in the proposal a first step towards the partitioning of the island, although this is vigorously denied by the Turkish-Cypriot leadership as well as by the Turkish Government. But to my mind the objections raised also on economic, social and moral grounds are in themselves serious obstacles to the proposition. It would seem to require a compulsory movement of the people concerned -- many thousands on both sides -- contrary to all the enlightened principles of the present time, including those set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, this would be a compulsory movement of a kind that would seem likely to impose severe hard ships on the families involved as it would be impossible for all of them, or perhaps even the majority of them, to obtain an exchange of land or occupation suited to their needs or experience; it would entail also an economic and social disruption which could be such as to render neither part of the country viable. Such a state of affairs would constitute a lasting if not permanent, cause of discontent and unrest.
154. Moreover, the proposed federated States would be separated by an artificial line cutting through interdependent parts of homogeneous areas including, according to the Turkish-Cypriot proposals, the cities of Nicosia and Famagusta. Would not such a line of division inevitably create many administrative difficulties and constitute a constant cause of friction between two mutually suspicious populations? In fact, the arguments for the geographical separation of the two communities under a federal system of government have not convinced me that it would not inevitably lead to partition and thus risk creating a new national frontier between Greece and Turkey, a frontier of a highly provocative nature, through highly volatile peoples who would not hesitate to allow their local differences to risk involving the two home countries in conflict and consequently endangering international peace and security.
155. Again, if the purpose of a settlement of the Cyprus question is to be the preservation rather than the destruction of the State, and if it is to foster rather than to militate against the development of a peacefully united people, I cannot help wondering whether the physical division of the minority from the majority should not be considered a desperate step in the wrong direction. I am reluctant to believe, as the Turkish-Cypriot leadership claims, in the "impossibility" of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots learning to live together again in peace. In those parts of the country where movement controls have been relaxed and tensions reduced, they are already proving other- wise.
http://www.cyprus-conflict.net/galo%20p ... pt%203.htm
This was written a whole ten years before the invasion and subsequent division of the Island...
