BirKibrisli wrote:Kikapu wrote:BirKibrisli wrote:Time for us all to put on our thinking caps...
In 2004 Turkish Cypriots voted by an overwhelming majority of 65% FOR a solution to reunite Cyprus...In 2010 they voted,albeit by a slim majority,FOR a President who is well known for his wish for a 2 state solution...So,what happened,or what did not happen,during the ensuing 6 years to bring about such a different result??? Please spend at least a couple of minutes seriously pondering this issue before putting fingers to keyboard...Thanks...
Hi Bir,
Sorry to have come late for the "party" of your thread, but to answer your question in just a few words, there is really NO difference between 2004 and the present time votes. The votes and the reasons for voting were and are the same. It only looks different when one reads your question to mean such as
"voting for a solution in 2004" and
"voting for a 2 state partition today".
Some people say
"Tamato" and some people say
"Tomato". It is the same damn thing, just said it differently by different people, that's all.!!
Hi,Kikapu...Where have you been? I was getting worried about you...
So,you belong to the same school which says the AP was a partitionist plan...That may be the case,but the TCs who voted in that referandum in 2004 did not believe it was a partitionist plan...They were voting for reunification....Cypriots are emotional people as you know...They wear it on their sleeve and they wear it in their votes...The rejection by the GCs was a terrible slap from which the TCs have not recovered,in my opinion...
The percieved betrayal of the EU (re the isolations and direct trade etc) was considered another slap...There were a lot of other reasons,but the main one I believe is still the manipulation of the settlers vote by Erdogan...You are right there...No country should allow their numbers to be overtaken by foreigners with voting rights,Recognised or Unrecognised...I do feel sorry for the decent,moral,saltofthearth TCs,as they must now feel insignificant pieces on a geopolitical chess board played by the big boys...
Hi,Kikapu...Where have you been? I was getting worried about you...
Had family visitors who were "stranded" here in Switzerland for additional 7 days than the planned 6 days trip, due to the "no-fly" rules in Europe. For them, it was an surprised added fun and games, but for me, was to play host to them that much longer, which kept me off the computer and put me in the kitchen and playing the tour guide.! It was fun for me also, if the truth to be told.!
So,you belong to the same school which says the AP was a partitionist plan...That may be the case,but the TCs who voted in that referandum in 2004 did not believe it was a partitionist plan...They were voting for reunification....Cypriots are emotional people as you know...They wear it on their sleeve and they wear it in their votes...The rejection by the GCs was a terrible slap from which the TCs have not recovered,in my opinion...
You make it sound like the disguised partition plan of the Annan Plan was a myth, but then you answered your own question by stating this,
"So,you belong to the same school which says the AP was a partitionist plan...That may be the case".
First of all Bir, and I ask this question with due respect, but how the hell do you know what the TCs knew what they were voting for and also did not know what they were voting for. Why do you want to make an assumption that they voted for unification and not for disguised partition. Is it because the AP was packaged as a "Unification" and not as a "Disguised Partition". Are these the only criteria you are going by.??
Lets look at what the TCs voted on. In fact, I'm very shocked that ONLY 65% voted YES on the AP and not 100%. What an earth were the other 35% waiting for. Just how much better did they want the AP to be.??
Just what did the TCs had to lose by voting on the AP. Nothing. They had everything to gain and nothing to lose.????
1. They were to have veto power and a rotating President
2. Their own state in the form of a Confederation based on "virgin birth, founding states" concept
3. RoC would seize to exits
4. Only few thousand GC would be allowed to live in the TC state, with no political rights, can't get government jobs without speaking Turkish and giving their allegiance to Atatürk
5. The GCs were to be the only people in the Turkish State who would not be allowed to pass on their properties to their heirs, or even buy property, and if they sold their properties, to be sold to a TC. Any foreigner in the north would have had more rights than the GCs.
6. The settlers were to be given citizenship to 45,000 registered voters, which meant a single voter could have a wife/husband and 2 children would amount to 200,000 in no time. The rest of the settlers were going to stay through one back door or another. The only ones that were going to be sent back, were the ones who came to Cyprus on the "last boat" as it were. Even then, as a Confederate state, they would have issued citizenship's to who ever they wanted, as the case is here in Switzerland. Citizenship's are not issued by the Central Government, but by individual Cantons and individual villages.
7. Turkish Troops withdrawal was going to be in the hands of Turkey and no one else's. Any kind of a problem could have been started deliberately to maintain them on the island. Who was going to make them leave.??
8. The Turkish state was going to be 29%
9. Almost all of the cost was going to come from the defunct RoC state to pay for the properties of the GCs at 1974 prices through some bond issues over 20+ years. The TCs would get their properties right away.
10. Using Nikitas's term, "the TCs were going to be masters in the north and partners in the south". Not a bad deal.!
........................and the list goes on and on.!
And what were the GCs to get in return by giving up everything they had then with the EU membership just few days away ..........................an additional 8% of land. Now, I'm no Rocket Scientist, but even a layman on the street can see that the scale was way, way, way too much tipping in the TCs favour, as for the reason why the GCs said OXI to such a "deal".
But lets put all that aside and talk about why it was a disguised partition.
The whole plan would have started as an Apartheid system from day one, then it would have become very clear soon thereafter that this system was not going to work, therefore tensions would have erupted. With the Turkish army still on the ground, the Turkish State, now a full member under United Cyprus would have asked for a Independence from the Union based on "irreconcilable differences" and would want to seek their own self determination. The EU would have had a very hard time denying the TC state to maintain their full EU membership. In the meantime, Turkey would have maintained their presence on the island as a guarantor power, because the GCs had already agreed for them to stay in the AP. Turkey would have had control of the south as well as the north. The AP was a masterpiece plan. It would have made the 1959 Zurich Agreements a child's play in comparison. Why do you think Talat and Turkey wanted to bring back the AP back for the recent talks. Why do you think all our NeoPartitionists friends on this forum talk about the AP as it were the second coming of Christ. The only thing that stood in the way of further catastrophe for Cyprus as a country was the 76% of the GC voters who said OXI to such a destructive partition plan
Most of the 9,000+ pages of the AP was not known to the average individual, TCs or GCs. One could hide an elephant in such a pile of paper and not find it until it was too late. But what was not hidden, was the fact that the whole AP was based on Racist, undemocratic, Human Rights and International Law violations. Add all this to the TCs veto power rights which would have made the AP far better than what the TCs had with the 1960 constitution. Unless you want to tell me that the TCs were stupid and could not figure out that was was going to be beneficial to them and what was not by voting on the AP. We TCs knew what we had in 1960, so surely we had figured it out that the AP was going to be much better, or else, why say YES.? Surely it was not to be for the sake of unification at our loss. So what would have the TCs lost by saying YES to the AP, Bir, because I would really like to know.?? Did we not have everything to gain and not much to lose. Voting YES was a no brainer for all the benefits I gave above.
But lets for the sake of argument I want to go along with you, just because I like you, and say that the TCs did not see the above benefits the AP had for them and that they were ignorant to the fact that they believed in their hearts to be a unification plan and not a disguised partition plan, then why is it, after 6 years when we know all the details of the AP where it was a Racist, Apartheid, Partition Plan, the TCs still voted in Erouglu who openly seek a 2 states which is a partition plan. If you want to excuse the TCs for being ignorant to the facts of the AP in 2004, what is the excuse today. ? You would think they would in fact do the opposite and say to Eroglu. "NO, your kind tried to fool us in 2004 and we will not vote for you", but instead, he was voted. What possible explanation is there, other than the fact, that the average TCs knew exactly what the AP was all about, and voted accordingly. I cannot buy into your theory that the TCs were so distraught for the GCs not saying YES to the "unification plan" as the TCs understood it at the time and are now voting for a partition leader to guide them. I feel somewhat insulted that we TCs are so fragile that if we had good intentions to find peace in what we thought was an honest peace plan with the AP, and just because the GCs said NO, we were going top make a 180° turn, and become all Partitionist. I'm sorry my friend, but I really can't buy that as being the reason. A lot of the reasons why Eroglu is in there has to do with all the illegal Alien voters and Turkey. I still believe there are many decent TCs who would like to have a Fair & Just settlement with the GCs, but NeoPartitionists will remain as such.
Bir, the below statement is from Perry Anderson's
"The Division of Cyprus".
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n08/perry-ande ... -of-cyprus
I think it pretty much covers everything I have written above. Why don't you give it a read........again.!
"When votes were counted, the results said everything: 65 per cent of Turkish Cypriots accepted it, 76 per cent of Greek Cypriots rejected it. What political scientist, without needing to know anything about the plan, could for an instant doubt whom it favoured?"
