Cruelty to Cypriots .... 
Voices north of the Green Line
By Habib Toumi, Bahrain Bureau Chief; Tabitha Morgan, The Telegraph Goup Limited, London 2008
Published: February 29, 2008, 00:30
Aren’t you Europeans ashamed of applying double standards in solving identical problems in different parts of the world?” asked Russian President Vladimir Putin at a news conference on February 14 while countering arguments by European nations that Kosovo was a “special case” in seeking independence.
He was referring to Northern Cyprus, which has been a de facto independent republic for 33 years.
“Why then don’t you recognise it?” Putin asked.
His biting criticism of European double standards has brought the division of the Mediterranean’s third largest island into world focus.
In 1974, following a coup attempt by the Greek Cypriots, Turkey invaded Cyprus and took control of the northern third of the country.
Since then, the closest that the country has come to a settlement was the UN-brokered, EU-endorsed Annan plan: a referendum conducted in April 2004 that proposed the creation of the United Cyprus Republic, covering the entire island of Cyprus except for the British Sovereign Base Areas.
This new country was to be a loose confederation of two component states — the Greek Cypriot State and the Turkish Cypriot State — joined by a minimal federal government apparatus. At the referendum, however, while 65 per cent of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of the Annan plan, 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots voted against it.
The Greek Cypriots viewed the plan as too concessionary. They were fiercely against Cyprus becoming a loose confederation of two autonomous communities.
They also said they would not feel secure with Turkey maintaining 10,000 troops on the island — although the figure would only be a quarter of the number (40,000) stationed there at present. Further, the Greek Cypriots resented the part of the plan that allowed about 40,000 settlers from Turkey to remain in Cyprus.
The past defines where the people of Cyprus live today. It also explains the divergent opinions.
Incumbent Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos — who failed in his bid for re-election on February 17 — said that Putin’s comments about Kosovo and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) had been distorted, when in fact the statement had only been rhetorical.
But for Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Talat, Putin’s words on double standards were absolutely correct. “He [Putin] brought up a very important point. We too are suffering from double standards.
"The West has failed to keep any of the promises [The EU had promised to end the economic isolation of Northern Cyprus if it supported the referendum] it made to the Turkish Cypriots. For me, the West is a multi-standards world.”
Gerhard Schroeder’s visit to the TNRC on February 1 lent credence to Talat’s arguments. The former German chancellor’s official tour sent a powerful message to the European Union that it has failed to deliver on its promise to the Turkish Cypriots who had voted in favour of the Annan Plan.
On my first evening in North Cyprus (Kyrenia), I set out to have dinner. It was a Saturday night and people were heading to the tranquil harbour for an evening meal.
On the promenade near the imposing Venetian castle by the harbour, couples were walking, holding hands. There were no intruding hawkers. There was an air of defiant contentment all around. The people and the tourists alike were cheerful — something rarely seen elsewhere.
It was puzzling, as the place is supposed to be suffering after being ‘’severed’’ from the outside world.
The charismatic restaurants that line the horseshoe-shaped harbour stand waiting, illuminated with candles, offering a civilised meal in an exquisite setting that has been witness to rich civilisations.
But the evenings are not always glittering for the restaurants here. Often the candles are left to flicker alone in the gentle breeze. There are not enough customers.
About 200,000 tourists visit Cyprus annually and the government is drawing plans for speciality holidays that include nature treks, winter parachuting and tours of religious sites.
The funding requirement is great but foreign investments are slow to materialise because the property guarantees offered by North Cyprus are not internationally accepted. A settlement of the conflict will lead to an influx of capital.
For North Cyprus, settlement is a magical word denoting an elusive dream.
I get into conversation with some young Turkish Cypriots sitting at the table next to mine. They are soft-spoken, their olive eyes sparkling with an intense joie de vivre. They are not the seething masses of pent-up frustration and bitter vehemence. I am surprised.
The young people refuse to see themselves as helpless victims. They see the political and commercial embargoes imposed on the country as blatant injustice.
They, too, have their tales of atrocities to tell — pictures of desecrated mosques, long lists of missing people and memories of dark anniversaries.
“People keep talking about the Cyprus issue but do they know what the real issue is? Have they ever wondered what we, the other side, think?” asks Ramazan, a driver.
The world has lapsed into the complacent notion that Cyprus is a surface wound that bleeds a little but is not life threatening, so why bother?
“The Cyprus situation is a highly complex issue that cannot be resolved by good feelings and wishful thinking. It should be either properly addressed or definitively dismissed,” Ramazan says.
The same feeling is echoed by Turkish Cypriots in Lefkosa, as they call Nicosia, the last divided capital in the world.
“It is a stalemate. The world thinks it can push the situation forward without genuinely listening to us,” says Fatma, a resident.
“The real devil in the situation,” she says, “is the lack of international sincerity in confronting the issue, in dealing with us as a people. It is much better to leave the situation as it is. At least there is no violence, no brutal deaths.”
I ask her if her sentiments are sincere, particularly because she was not even born when the dramatic events she speaks about led to the establishment of the Green Line — a cease- fire line between the Republic of Cyprus and the TRNC.
“My parents view Greek Cypriots with deep suspicion. To me, they are complete strangers with whom we have nothing in common, not even language,” says the young woman who works as a secretary.
“The denial of Greek Cypriots and their invariable use of words such as ‘so-called’ or ‘illegal’, when referring to anything about Northern Cyprus, is amazing. I don’t see why people love to bury their heads in the sand so much.”
I ask her what she feels about the wall — the concrete barrier dividing the city. “To people in North Cyprus, the wall is not a wound. It is a fortress against terrorism, a protection against aggression,” she says.
“We are finally safe and secure. To the outside world, safety, stability and security are simple words, maybe distant connotations, but to us, they are the essence of our lives. We are happy here and the only thing missing is international recognition.”
We had been walking towards the buffer zone. It is now right in front of us — a heartbeat away. But the hearts of 65,000 people on the Greek side and 40,000 on the Turkish side do not beat in unison.
“Symbols, institutions and visions are too distant to be shared,” Fatma explains.
We reach the Green Line. The presence of soldiers so close, along either edge of the zone, makes the conflict amazingly intimate. Military positions match each other, post for post, the fluttering red-crescent flags of the Turks almost touching the blue-and-white stripes of the Greeks.
I walk up to the barrier. There is no buffer zone here. I look through the fence at the “South cars” speeding over the “Southern” roads. Another city. Another country.
Taking pictures is not allowed, making telephone calls is impossible — but shouting across the division is easy and foolishly tempting.
I am fascinated by the no-man’s land that slices the city in two. Crumbling mud-brick buildings, split sandbags and sentry boxes line either side. Ugly reminders of the senseless onslaught on conviviality.
The fence is impenetrable. An ugly scar, it widens at Omorphita, a mixed suburb where, in December 1963, inhabitants were burnt and their homes looted.
Today, 37 years later, Omorphita is long-forgotten and will most probably remain a ruin. The walls of oil drums —put up as temporary barricades during the inter-communal clashes — stand ravaged by time.
They are a bitter testament to a physical and psychological fissure that seem to mutely declare that reunification of the two parts of the city is impossible.
Like most people of North Cyprus, Fatma has no vision of things being any different.
“We live in our own world and have grown accustomed to the quality of life that we have. We do not think about the sandbags and the walls anymore,” she says.
She has plans to get married and start a family. Where will you go on your honeymoon, I ask. “Maybe Istanbul. It is a city for lovers.”
But will she have enough money?
“Inshallah! My fiancé and I are working hard to raise enough money for the wedding and the trip.” Normal dreams, shared by millions of people all over the world.
Does she ever yearn to go southwards? “Not really. I would like to see the birthplace of my mother, but it is not an obsession,” Fatma says.
Last Bayram (Eid), she had asked her mother, who was born in Larnaca, to apply for permission to visit Hala Sultan, a festive town in the south. Her mother refused. “Too many terrible memories,” Fatma explains.
Like most Turkish Cypriots, her mother is deeply entrenched, pleased with the status quo and content with her peaceful life.
We traverse the centre of the city. A bit crowded, mostly with baby-faced Turkish soldiers wearing olive green fatigues, queuing up to withdraw money from ATMs or just talking animatedly.
Divided opulence
As we head towards the city centre, Fatma tells me that she cannot understand why I keep talking about the Green Line. “You are incredibly interested in the fence, maybe obsessed with it, but we are not. We have been living with it for so many years. Our interest is how to make our city better, more attractive.”
I go back to the Saray Hotel. From the rooftop, I have a general view of the city. The entire city, and not just one half. It looks like any other capital.
My eyes scan the horizon and gradually focus on the river of Turkish, UN and Greek flags flowing in the middle of the city. The two halves of one city.
Or is it a tragic tale of two cities? The transition from the minarets of mosques to the domes of churches is striking. Beyond the flags, more to the south, the buildings are newer, whiter and higher — symbols of wealth. The north, on the other hand, is dotted by heritage buildings.
I leave the city behind and drive eastwards amid splendid green carpets of wheat fields. A sense of awe engulfs me as I contemplate the beauty and fecundity of the land.
The pine-scented Besparmak (Five Fingers) mountains ahead of me forms a fascinating backdrop to this idyll while the unspoilt coast and the glistening expanse of water festooned with birds, to my right, evoke a sense of romantic mystery, blissfully oblivious to time.
The lush countryside stubbornly refuses to allow its generous geography to crumble under the onslaught of its history. It is wonderfully serene.
I had been warned that the rural areas would be teeming with soldiers — checking vehicles and screening passengers. But I am pleasantly surprised. There is no army check point. Even traffic police are absent.
I head towards Karpas peninsula, the easternmost part of Cyprus which the British call the Panhandle. A serpentine road takes me through villages cruelly marked by history.
The derelict buildings and bullet-riddled walls tell tales of the events that have unfolded before them over the years.
I spot a cemetery and decide to take a closer look. It seemed no more forbidding than any other graveyard until I spotted the epitaphs bearing the names and ages of the dead — villagers who were killed and buried in a ditch by members of EOKA-B the Greek Cypriot right-wing paramilitary organisation that had attempted the coup in 1974.
When the bodies of the inhabitants of Maratha and Sandalaris were unearthed from this mass grave, 89 corpses were counted.
The location is now a sombre reminder of yet another shocking act of terror.
I drive on and reach the Abostolos Andreas Manastiri. The monastery is the island’s main Christian’s destination, attracting pilgrims from the all over the region.
A friendly policeman welcomes me and offers tea. “About 50 people visit this place every day, but on Sundays, it gets a bit crowded with about 350 visitors, mainly Turks but also Greeks and, of course, tourists,” he says.
I go down the stairs and enter the church. An elderly woman, clad in black, reverently offers me a Greek candle to light. The interior is slightly dark. Christian Orthodox icons are everywhere and I can discern beeswax effigies of babies, afflicted feet and houses sent to the monastery with hopeful prayers. But none of the prayers is political.
According to local legend, St Andrew was passing the cape on his voyage to Palestine, his homeland, when his ship ran out of water.
Thereupon, the saint is said to have counselled the one-eyed captain of the ship to put ashore and in this seemingly arid region they found water.
When brought aboard, the water cured the captain of his blindness. On his next voyage, the grateful captain erected a shrine near the well from which the miracle water had originated and installed an icon of the saint inside it.
North Cyprus does need another miracle to get out of its political impasse.
I drive the remaining five kilometers to the tip of the island and arrive in Zafer Burnu, where the land tapers into a thin strip that stretches towards Turkey. On a clear day, the coast of Syria is visible from this point.
I look at the clusters of rock in the limpid waters — a true paradise for divers and beach lovers, a remarkably serene region that belies the political fissures in the divided country, a perfect postcard that contrasts sharply with the ground realities.
On the way back, I drive through Dipkarpaz, one of the few villages where Turkish and Greek Cypriots still live together, defying the odds. The village mosque is located metres from the church. I walk into a restaurant. Dipkarpaz’s mayor Arif Özbayrak is there, having a cup of tea with his friends. They invite me and I pull up a chair.
“There are 350 Greeks and 1,650 Turks in Dipkarpaz,” the mayor says, dutifully adding that the inhabitants are not particularly close but get along well. The two communities live their separate lives and only intra-communal marriages used to be celebrated till six years ago.
About the freedom of religion in the village, the mayor said: “Earlier this morning, the Greeks celebrated their feast in peace and serenity. Nobody bothered them.”
In spite of all the setbacks, Özbayrak says, there is now greater hope here for both communities.
“The conditions today are better than before and we are more optimistic,” he said, adding that the village will certainly benefit from a probable settlement.
Baki Abbas, the former mayor of Dipkarpaz, however, does not share his friend’s enthusiasm.
“There is no real hope because the intentions are not as clear as they should be. Too many people from too many organisations are involved in this issue. The religious dimension of the conflict should not be overlooked.”
Comparing the situation with the conflicts in Bosnia and the Balkans, he said: “It is the same thing. We call it ethnic cleansing. In the Balkans, the situation was remedied in time, but here, nobody seems to care.”
Baki is obviously bitter. “I fail to understand why the Greeks in this village have been getting assistance from several quarters, including the UN, whereas the Turks, who need greater assistance, receive nothing. It is simply not fair,” he says. “Of course I respect my Greek neighbours, but I cannot bring myself to deepening my relations with them.”
On my return journey, I stop at Karaman, a village placidly nestling in the foothills of the Besparmak and where retired Europeans, mainly from Britain and Germany, draw heavily on their passion to restore cottages that now offer a relaxed charm.
The village has its own small shops and a community centre. It also offers unique views, over the green hills, to the shimmering Mediterranean. Its old Greek Orthodox Church is now a museum that opens on Sundays.
Back in Kyrenia, I walk into El Haj Music, a shop near the Dome hotel that sells computers and music CDs and rents sound and light systems. Its Arabic-sounding name had intrigued me.
The language of communication switches from English to Arabic when nationalities are revealed. Halit, who now owns the shop, says he had established the business along with his brother, Mohammad, in July 1997. Mohammad died in 2004.
The brothers had cut several albums and played in many bands. In 1998, their instrumental piece, Son Bahar Büyüsü (Magic of Autumn) won the Best Music Award of the year in the country.
Paradigm of integration
Theirs is a wonderful story of integration — of two Palestinians who were born in Beirut and had moved with their families to North Cyprus 28 years ago.
Now they hold Turkish Cypriot nationality. “People are so friendly here. There is no racism, no xenophobia. There is no notion of being a foreigner,” Halit says.
“Palestinians are well-treated. There are about 1,000 Palestinians at the university and whenever they celebrate any religious or national occasion, local officials invariably attend and share the joy,” he says, breaking into a smile. Jordanian and Sudanese students have also a sizable presence at the university, he says.
Halit is proud to talk about how his small country has been extraordinarily helpful to his family.
“You know, the university helped me and my brother set up the shop by providing financial grants. It is a success story and we are proud to be here. We have much more freedom than in the other countries in the region,” he says.
He is so satisfied with his living conditions that he does not consider leaving the country that warmly welcomed him and his family.
“Foreigners are still welcome in Turkish Cyprus. They can even receive passports after spending five years in the country, and the period is even shortened to one year if the foreigner takes a local spouse,” he says.
President-elect Christofias aims to heal divide
One of Europe’s oldest conflicts took a step towards resolution when Greek Cypriots elected a new president committed to negotiations with the Turkish North.
Dimitris Christofias, leader of the Communist party, defeated a Right-wing candidate, Ioannis Kasoulides, with 54 per cent of the vote. This historic election ended the career of Cyprus’s hardline president, Tassos Papadopoulos, who was beaten in the first round last Sunday.
In 2004, he urged a “no” vote in a referendum on a United Nations plan designed to reunite Cyprus, which has been divided between the Greek South and the Turkish North since 1974.
Greek Cypriots duly rejected the plan by a three to one margin. By contrast, Christofias, has promised immediate talks with Mehmet Ali Talat, the president of the self-styled Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
After casting his vote, Christofias said: “I want to send a message of friendship to ordinary Turkish Cypriots, a message of a common fight to reunite our homeland.”
Christofias, 61, is a builder’s son who was educated in the Soviet Union. Almost uniquely among Greek Cypriot politicians, he has previously crossed the “Green Line” to visit the Turkish North.
During the campaign, Christofias urged a solution to the Cyprus conflict that would “reunite the state, the people, the institutions and the economy”. But future negotiations may not go smoothly.
In 2004, Christofias also opposed the UN plan to reunite the island. Niazi Kizilurek, a Turkish Cypriot academic who lives in the mainly Greek Cypriot south, said this had “created considerable disappointment” amongst Turkish Cypriots.
The new president has promised to request immediate meetings with Talat and Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general.
However, to win Sunday’s vote, Christofias made an alliance with the hardline party of Papadopoulos, promising to make one of its leading figures foreign minister.
Moreover, the issues at stake are immensely sensitive. They include the return of property to Greek and Turkish Cypriot refugees, the presence of 35,000 Turkish troops in the North, and the island’s constitution.
Hubert Faustman, from Nicosia University, said that Christofias “has to sell any solution to a population that considers the rejected plan to be unjust, unfair and one-sided in favour of the Turkish Cypriots. He has to come up with something substantially different.”
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A divided island
Cyprus has about one million people, 750,000 Greeks and 250,000 Turks.
The island has been divided since 1974. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognised by no one save Turkey, covers 38 per cent of its area.
The official government of Cyprus, which elected a new president last Sunday, rules the rest of the island.
The crisis erupted when Greek generals mounted a coup designed to unite Cyprus and Greece.
Turkey responded by sending troops, supposedly to protect the island’s Turkish inhabitants. The Greeks say this was an “invasion” and the Turkish North is now “occupied territory”.
These events caused the island’s partition. A “Green Line” policed by the United Nations has divided Cyprus and its capital, Nicosia, ever since.
Any peace agreement would abolish the “Green Line”, reunite Cyprus as a federation and begin power-sharing between Greeks and Turks. The last attempt to achieve this collapsed in 2004.
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