Red carpet treatment sends man from Dikomo into a spin
Tales from the coffeeshop
I WOULD like to apologise in advance, because I plan to copy the state broadcaster and bore you senseless with an extended report about comrade presidente’s emotional return to his ideological homeland, which proved a personal triumph of epic proportions, but a bit of a fiasco for the country.
After New York, London, Brussels and Beijing it was the turn of Moscow to fall under the mesmerising spell of the charismatic Dikomo statesman whose embarrassing lack of style, sophistication and cool has won Kyproulla so many strategic allies, we now have a problem of not knowing what to do with them. But we’ll worry about that later.
It’s anyone’s guess what the altruistic Russians made of the visit – it did not get as much coverage in the their media as it did in ours – but they proved gracious hosts, ignoring our presidente’s continuous, nostalgic references to the totalitarian Soviet regime and the Soviet Communist Party to which, he said, he was eternally grateful, for giving him his big break in life (he will excuse us, I hope, for not sharing his gratitude).
Not all his hosts were prepared to ignore his unrelenting praise of Soviet Communism and his insistence on meeting Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, who threw a big dinner in his honour. Russia’s strongman, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is thought to have snubbed comrade presidente because of his contacts with Zyuganov.
The comrade’s meeting with Putin was part of the official itinerary, but was cancelled on the dubious pretext that the PM was too busy dealing with his party’s extraordinary congress. Sure, and he could not have spared 15 minutes for our presidente, if he wanted to. Christofias said he fully understood that Putin had a very busy schedule and they would meet at a later date.
THE REAL problem was that our presidente was in no position to understand what was going on as he went through the trip in what could only be described as drunken daze. This was not caused by the consumption of vodka, but by the red carpet treatment he received at the Kremlin which went straight to his head.
Here was the poor village boy from Dikomo, being treated like royalty by the Russian government – inspecting guards of honour, spending time with the Russian president, staying at palatial premises in the Kremlin and the Moscow roads being closed especially for his cavalcade to pass.
Not even in his wildest dreams, as an impoverished student in Moscow, would he have thought that one day he would be waltzing around the Kremlin, with uniformed minders and having discussions with the Russian president. The treatment intoxicated him, which was why he exhibited the main symptoms of drunkenness – verbal incontinence and lack of touch with your surroundings.
How else could you explain his insistence on heaping praise on Soviet communism, while sitting under a portrait of Tsar Nicholas II? He was too intoxicated to realize that this might offend his hosts who considered the Soviet era as a black mark on Russia’s history, hence the portrait of the last Tsar in a state building. The same applied to his misguided decision to meet Zyuganov and his continuous expressions of admiration for the Soviet dictatorship.
A great statesman he may be, but he has still to master the basic principles of diplomatic behaviour, let alone good manners. You just do not go as a guest into someone’s house and keep reminding them that the previous owners kept it tidier. Especially when everybody knows what a bunch of ruthlessly repressive monsters the previous owners were.
THE VERBAL incontinence is guaranteed to have pissed off many of our EU partners as well, especially the attack on NATO, which was totally unnecessary. It was bad enough that he took on the role of salesman of the Russian government’s proposal for the re-drafting of Europe’s security system, which is far from popular in the EU.
But did he have to disparage NATO, which most former Eastern Bloc countries joined in order to have some protection from Russia? The intoxication boosted his delusions of grandeur, mouthing off against NATO and defiantly supporting a security system that none of his EU partners are remotely interested in.
And when challenged about going against his partners, he joked that he was proud to be the ‘red sheep’ of the Union. This comes as additional confirmation of what our establishment had written a few weeks ago – that our deluded presidente is grossly over-estimating his influence on the international stage, and getting ideas way above his station.
It also adds weight to what the Haravghi editor wrote, not so long ago – “Cyprus is fortunate to have Demetris Christofias as its president.”
COMRADE red sheep’s fawning praise of the Russian government’s “altruistic support” for Cyprus, “based on principles”, should also be blamed on the intoxicating effect of the VIP treatment. What altruism was he talking about?
Not only did he go to Moscow looking to buy €200 million worth of tanks and missiles, he also agreed to be the EU agent of its European security proposal and to lead the effort to abolish the visa requirement for Russians traveling to the EU.
And all this in exchange for what? A meaningless joint declaration about the Cyprob, the only positive point of which was that it angered Talat, and a vague promise that Russia would support our positions at the UN Security Council, as long as it does not cause a fall-out with one of its leading trading partners – Turkey.
Incidentally, while the red sheep was in Moscow bleating about our principled allies, the Russian defence minister was in Ankara negotiating the sale to the Turks of five weapon systems worth a billion bucks. The Turks did not ask for support of their positions in the Security Council as a deal sweetener, because they knew Russia’s stands at the UN are guided exclusively by principles and she would never back a country which invades an independent state.
THE ALTRUISTIC support was strengthened by a meeting of our commerce minister with representatives of Gazprom, the biggest supplier of LNG in the world, about the possibility of Cyprus buying LNG from Russia. To encourage Russia’s altruistic support even further, the comrade also made it clear during one of his news conferences, that Russia would have a good chance of landing the contracts for desalination plants.
There is nothing wrong with all this, considering the huge contribution of Russian capital to the Kyproulla economy, but to suggest that Moscow’s support is altruistic and based on principle, is a bit far-fetched, whichever way you look at it.
RUSSIA ROUND-UP: the first time ever that a President of Russia had had meetings with a Cyprus president, totaling four hours reported the CyBC confirming the delusions of grandeur.
What none of the hacks in covering our record-breaking, red sheep’s trip to Moscow reported was that he was accompanied, apart from his wife, by the red lamb of the family, his son, Christos. His visit was kept a secret as he had contacts with Russian workers’ and farmers’ organizations about the revolution to overthrow their bourgeois rulers.
On Thurday night, a reception was given at the Cyprus embassy in Moscow to mark our independence day. It featured a music recital organized by Pharos Trust. The highest profile Russian guest at the reception was the ultra-nationalist leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, but the CyBC did not considering it worth reporting.
SOCIALIST windbag Dr Faustus Lyssarides’ attention-seeking letter outlining his concerns about the comrade red sheep’s handling of the Cyprob, worked a treat. After it was published, he was on the radio and TV shows telling us about his anguish over the big concessions made to the Turks during the talks, for three days running.
He even got a direct response from the red sheep himself, which gave the letter even greater legitimacy. In his appearance on Antenna, the presenter asked him how he thought we could secure the European solution that has been his rallying cry. His response was the following:
“We should go to the European Union and say that we demand a European solution. Are they going to tell us we can’t have one?” Dr Lyssarides is 88 years old, but has not yet been burdened with the wisdom that comes with old age.
ANOTHER uber-patriotic hard-liner managed to get on to the news this week – Ethnarch Junior, Nicholas. He got a lot of air-time after complaining that people who express disagreement over the comrade’s handling of the Cyprob, were subjected to “intellectual terror”. When his dad was Ethnarch there was much greater tolerance to people who expressed disagreements with his Cyprob handling. They may have been routinely labeled Turkish agents, but their views were respected.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Petros Clerides was not in the best of moods on Friday when he addressed a three-day conference in Nicosia about human trafficking. He was constantly snapping at people who had the audacity to ask questions about the delays in the passing of legislation on the issue and became very defensive when Kyproulla’s low ranking in the anti-trafficking league was brought up.
At one point, while he was unconvincingly answering a question about the low rate of trafficking prosecutions, a participant coughed, and he automatically took this as a form of barracking. Clerides stopped his speech and said to his audience: “Right, if anyone coughs again I am leaving.”
STAYING on the subject of trafficking you have to take your hat off to the Turkish Cypriot man who decided to send two cabaret artistes to his son’s secondary school in the north, to join in the celebrations for the boy’s election to the school council.
The kids had organized a victory party and the proud dad sent two artistes to the school who joined in the celebrations engaging in a strip-dance. But before they had a chance to remove all their clothing, some kill-joy teachers arrived and stopped them.
This has become a big issue in the north, which, is a tad more entertaining than our obsession with the distortion of the history books.
WHEN IT comes to idiotic stories, nobody could beat Phil, which on Friday reported a “satanic plan to steal hand-bags and wallets” on its front page. According to the report, a group of criminals sold a woman one of those odour things that you put in a car to make it smell like a freshly cleaned toilet.
But the contraption was giving out an odour that caused dizziness and drowsiness. After driving for a few minutes, according to the report, the woman felt drowsy and stopped her car, which had been followed by the accomplices of the seller of the odour trinket. One of the accomplices, “grabbed her hand-bag and vanished” reported the Phil news-hound adding:
“One possibility being investigated was that the woman suffered the drowsiness because she was allergic to something.” So it was not such a satanic plan after all as the cause of drowsiness could have been an allergic reaction to something.
He added: “The case has not been reported to the police, for personal reasons, but it is known to the authorities.” So who was investigating the possibility that the cause of the drowsiness was an allergy? Phil’s reporter? And what were the personal reasons that stopped the victim from reporting this satanic plan to the police?
A story very similar to the authoritative paper’s front-page report had been circulating by e-mail since May 2007 and was regarded as a spoof. The only difference was that in the spoof report the satanic plan was supposed to have taken place in Paphos. Phil’s story took place outside a Lefkosia supermarket.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008
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