Cyprus-Forum.com

[B25]

In 1990 a major development was an initiative by the Secretary-General to provide a more elaborate definition of the concept of bi-zonality in his 8 March 1990 report to the Council. In it he also raised the concept of political equality. (The report was subsequently endorsed by the Council in resolution 716 of 11 October 1991.) It said:

“The political equality of the two communities in and the bi-communal nature of the federation need to be acknowledged. While political equality does not mean equal numerical participation in all federal government branches and administration, it should be reflected inter alia in various ways: in the requirement that the federal constitution of the State of Cyprus be approved or amended with the concurrence of both communities; in the effective participation of both communities in all organs and decisions of the federal Government in safeguards to ensure that the federal Government will not be empowered to adopt any measures against the interests of one community; and in the equality and identical powers and functions of the two federated States.” “The bi-zonality of the federation should be clearly brought out by the fact that each federated State will be administered by one community which will be firmly guaranteed a clear majority of the population and of the land ownership in its area.” (S/21183, Annex I)

http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.glKWLeMTIsG/b.4474149/k.DEB5/Special_Research_Report_No_3brCyprus_New_hope_after_45_years_on_the_Security_Council_agendabr4_September_2008.htm


Do you agree that what described above as "political equality of 2 communities" is what you have in your minds as "political equality of 2 communities"?

If no, please explain what you have in your mind as a realistic and viable alternative to the one described above...

When you have afforded the Kurds the same demands you make of us, we will think about it then, otherwise you can roll it up into a cylindrical shape and put it you know where.

[Nikitas]

That might have been a definition that was valid in 1990, it is not valid since accession to the EU which grants all its citizens the rights of residence, establishment, employment anywhere in the EU. It would be a little confusing to insist that the Cypriot communities have majority in their constituent state against each other but not against all other nationalities of the EU.

The above ie obviously clear to the TC side hence the push to have any Cyprus agreement accepted as a permanent DEVIATION from the EU prevailing legal order. You do not build countries on deviations.

The settlers are a TC problem, created by Turkey and tolerated by the TCs. They will have to deal with it. And the problem will surface more vividly after a settlement when the plush jobs in the federal government will become available. It will be interesting to see how TCs react to the possibility of a major share of these jobs going to settlers.

[BirKibrisli]

Leaving aside questions of land ownership ratio for a mo don't have a problem with the SG's interpretation of BBF above in the OP.... BUT in the 30 years since, this interpretation has been modified and modified on several occasions, to such an extent that today the minority population, people like the Born Again Turkish Nationalists Halil and Bir, both keen to hang on to all the spoils of war, are wet-dreaming that BBF is now a confederation where the partitionist apartheid ways of the past 36 years can continue and indeed be legitimised.

WTF...Since when have I become a Turkish nationalist...????I know you don't want to hear sensible TC voices telling you things as they see them,but these intimidation tactics will not work for me...I want a solution which will reunite our troubled island,and soon,before the status quo becomes permanent and the settlers become de facto Turkish Cypriots noone can move...Bloody hell...You guys insist on everything being your way,sitting pretty in your comfortable homes in England,preaching your newfound high ideals,feeling self satisfied in your own imagined moral high ground,while Turkey's hold on Cyprus gets stronger and stronger...

Shit on all your collective psuedo-wisdom,you wankers...You make me sick...

[CopperLine]

I share Bir's sense of frustration. The facts on the ground are these :

1. Whatever the shortcomings of Annan, the only plan in town was rejected. A historic opportunity was missed.
2. That rejection combined with Cyprus' EU accession change the balance of power decisively : it removed any serious incentives for GCs to compromise with TCs, and it confirmed TC and T nationalist prejudices.
3. TCs have been pushed into still deeper dependency on Turkey and the demographic (and subsequent political) balance has (a) massively weakened TCs and (b) strengthened political patronage of Turkisn nationalists.
4. Progressive TCs i.e, those who do not wish to be under the Turkish yoke, are European citizens, and who share a wish for island-wide unification, have been systematically marginalised.
5. Regrettably, partitionists on both sides have got the upper hand, and the ultras on this forum and elsewhere are helping them.


I can't help thinking, in the light of the Saville Inquiry, that the civil rights issue of the 1960s and 1970s which had been resolved in virtually all European countries by the mid/late 1990s, cannot even be spoken about in Cyprus without risking denounciation as 'traitor' or worse.

[DT.]

I share Bir's sense of frustration. The facts on the ground are these :

1. Whatever the shortcomings of Annan, the only plan in town was rejected. A historic opportunity was missed.
2. That rejection combined with Cyprus' EU accession change the balance of power decisively : it removed any serious incentives for GCs to compromise with TCs, and it confirmed TC and T nationalist prejudices.
3. TCs have been pushed into still deeper dependency on Turkey and the demographic (and subsequent political) balance has (a) massively weakened TCs and (b) strengthened political patronage of Turkisn nationalists.
4. Progressive TCs i.e, those who do not wish to be under the Turkish yoke, are European citizens, and who share a wish for island-wide unification, have been systematically marginalised.
5. Regrettably, partitionists on both sides have got the upper hand, and the ultras on this forum and elsewhere are helping them.


I can't help thinking, in the light of the Saville Inquiry, that the civil rights issue of the 1960s and 1970s which had been resolved in virtually all European countries by the mid/late 1990s, cannot even be spoken about in Cyprus without risking denounciation as 'traitor' or worse.

Its funny how no one ever complained before about the balance of power of NATO's 2nd largest armies against the government of Cyprus and yet this assumed shift of balance after the EU entry is a situation worth criticising because Cypriots finally were given some hint of leverage.

The fact that people are dissapointed that a one-sided plan such as the Annan plan was rejected shows me how distant these people are from the situation on the ground here in Cyprus.

As for the farce called the Saville report, although I'm all for reconcilliatory committees and truth finding committees of the islands darkest hours, the English are not the ones we should be attempting to immitate.

[B25]

I share Bir's sense of frustration. The facts on the ground are these :

Bir is just a stupid wanker who is upset he is not getting his way, don't you be drawn into his web.

1. Whatever the shortcomings of Annan, the only plan in town was rejected. A historic opportunity was missed. Good job too, otherwise we would be at war again by now.
2. That rejection combined with Cyprus' EU accession change the balance of power decisively : it removed any serious incentives for GCs to compromise with TCs, and it confirmed TC and T nationalist prejudices.
No, Copper, if anything this would have given the TCs an even bigger incentive to unify, a way out, away to release from momma Turkey.
3. TCs have been pushed into still deeper dependency on Turkey and the demographic (and subsequent political) balance has (a) massively weakened TCs and (b) strengthened political patronage of Turkisn nationalists.
This is the TCs own choosing, they had, still have the option to join the rest of Cyprus, to unify under the EU umberella, but sadly some TCs here just want what they want and it is they that are pushing the majority of the TCs away.
4. Progressive TCs i.e, those who do not wish to be under the Turkish yoke, are European citizens, and who share a wish for island-wide unification, have been systematically marginalised.
Yeah right, so this 'progressive' TCs have no voice huh? Well seems to me that they like what is going on here otherwise they would have something to say about it. Wankers like Bir just paint a picture of TCs as being incompetant good for nothing nobodies, I am sure they are not.
5. Regrettably, partitionists on both sides have got the upper hand, and the ultras on this forum and elsewhere are helping them.
Only partionists here are the TCs, for it is only they that desire to split this nation. Why would a GC want to split his country?? Partionists exist only on the TC side. The GCs are fighting for their country back.

I can't help thinking, in the light of the Saville Inquiry, that the civil rights issue of the 1960s and 1970s which had been resolved in virtually all European countries by the mid/late 1990s, cannot even be spoken about in Cyprus without risking denounciation as 'traitor' or worse.

[Me Ed]

The reality of a BBF is that it is can only ever be a temporary solution because you can't stop GCs buying up land and property in a TC administered area and TCs buying land and property in a GC administered area.

Eventually the GCs will probably own enough land and property in a TC administered area to start influencing local policy.

This is the true challenge for TCs, but one would hope that by the time that happens all the mis-trust between the two communities wil be gone and a normal one-man one-vote system will exist in Cyprus.

[Piratis]

I know you don't want to hear sensible TC voices telling you things as they see them

Only a partitionist would call "sensible" the position of other partitionists. You agree with them and therefore you are one and the same with them - an enemy of Cyprus.

[Piratis]

I share Bir's sense of frustration.

No surprises here.

1. Whatever the shortcomings of Annan, the only plan in town was rejected. A historic opportunity was missed.
2. That rejection combined with Cyprus' EU accession change the balance of power decisively : it removed any serious incentives for GCs to compromise with TCs, and it confirmed TC and T nationalist prejudices.
3. TCs have been pushed into still deeper dependency on Turkey and the demographic (and subsequent political) balance has (a) massively weakened TCs and (b) strengthened political patronage of Turkisn nationalists.
4. Progressive TCs i.e, those who do not wish to be under the Turkish yoke, are European citizens, and who share a wish for island-wide unification, have been systematically marginalised.
5. Regrettably, partitionists on both sides have got the upper hand, and the ultras on this forum and elsewhere are helping them.


I can't help thinking, in the light of the Saville Inquiry, that the civil rights issue of the 1960s and 1970s which had been resolved in virtually all European countries by the mid/late 1990s, cannot even be spoken about in Cyprus without risking denounciation as 'traitor' or worse.

In addition to what DT. said, partitionists exist only among the Turks/TCs and their buddies. Why any Greek Cypriot not want the liberation of his own island from the foreign invaders? The Annan plan was a partition plan, and this is why it was voted by the TCs and rejected by the TCs.

Give to the Cypriot people the chance to rule democratically their whole island without any kind of borders and division, and then lets see who is going to accept and who is going to reject this.

[CopperLine]

DT,
I said "in the light of the Saville Enquiry" : that is to say I was reading about the enquiry and the reactions to it and there were aspects of the NI history which reminded me of Cyprus, eg civil rights politics. I did not say that England [sic] should be immitated or the enquiry agreed with. Actually I think waiting for 38 years for a conclusion is a disgrace .... now hold on, there's somewhere else and some other civil rights politics which has had to wait at least that long for not-a-conclusion. Where might that be ?


Piratis,
OK so you don't like the Annan Plan. Its partitionist in your view. (I didn't like much of the Annan Plan as well, but I supported it as the least bad/only option available). So what's the option on the table now ? Effectively a variant, or rather development of, the Annan Plan. The parentage is clear. So if not Child of Annan, which you'd also reject, what's your option ? (Not what do you dream, but what is politically viable today).

Those who refuse to compromise or reconciliate contribute to effective partition. The world is made up of sins of commission and sins of omission. You appear to be obsessed with origins and original responsibility which forever is hidden in the murk of history. I'm not really that bothered with 'who started it' (as if that can even be identified) but one thing is clear though, when Cypriots were left to themselves they fucked it up and civil and political rights were not respected. So for me the question is for today : how can we get from a de facto partitioned island (which we don't want) to a political settlement which will respect, protect and promote civil and political rights (and which we do want) ? Some proposals for the latter might actually entrench the former, others will not. Any viable proposal has to address the political realities of today otherwise it is pissing in the wind.

You've been pissing in the partition wind for 40-plus years. If you piss in the wind for another 40 years you've got partition. You can call it "no surrender", you can call it "Cyprus for true Cypriots", you can call it "the Democratic Republic of Free Cyprus," you can call it what the hell you like. But it is partition by any other name.