by Bananiot » Sun Sep 26, 2004 12:34 pm
Here is the lead comment of today's Cyprus Mail, one of the few serious newspapaers of the banana republic.
Partition the only solution?
PRESIDENT PAPADOPOULOS’ speech to the UN General Assembly on Thursday must have dispelled some of the confusion his constantly changing and self contradictory statements have given rise to. At least this time he made it as clear as a man for whom legalistic subterfuge is the preferred form of communication could that he considers the Annan plan to have been consigned to the scrap-heap of history. Any small, lingering doubts about his intention to see off the plan for good were finally put to rest on Thursday.
He used the Assembly platform to rubbish the plan one more time, dismissing it as “inadequate” because it “fell short of the minimum expectations from a settlement” of the Greek Cypriots. It was not the product of negotiations “nor did it constitute an agreed solution between the parties”, but its provisions “have been dictated by the interests of third parties.” The people who would have to live with the solution were in the best position to judge what was suitable for them and they had given their verdict on the Annan plan. End of story.
In short, the president has told the international community and the UN that they can forget any idea of bringing back this settlement plan. His speech was also a clear message to his Greek Cypriot critics who wanted to know what changes he wanted to make to the plan in order for him to accept it. As most people had suspected, no amount of changes would make it palatable to him as he objects to its whole philosophy. Ironically his government backers AKEL had been claiming that they were engaged in consultations with the president in order to decide the changes to the plan that they would be seeking in future negotiations.
All these games will have to stop as we now know where the president stands regarding the Annan plan. His stand has also put paid to any idea of a new initiative by the UN in the foreseeable future, as this was conditional on acceptance of the basic philosophy of the plan and only minimal changes being made to it. With the EU unwilling to undertake any initiative – the Commission has repeatedly expressed its support for a solution based on the plan – the maintenance of the status quo appears to be guaranteed. There may be a little trade across the Green Line and people will continue to cross from one side to the other, but the division will remain.
We are back to square one. The solution of the Cyprus problem will once again be consigned to the realm of theoretical abstraction, legalistic discourse and unattainable targets as it had been for the three decades following the invasion. Papadopoulos showed his intentions in his speech by reverting to the meaningless diplomacy of high-principled rhetoric of the past, about international legality and single sovereignty, which leads nowhere. It is the rhetoric of nebulous ideas, of no practical import other than to make mediocre and ineffective politicians look clever and principled to the voters.
For three decades, our political leaders were able to hide behind these lofty principles and the unattainable targets they had set thanks to the Turkish side’s unwillingness to negotiate a solution. On the one occasion there was a settlement proposal it was the Greek Cypriots who rejected it, partly because it was nowhere close to the type of settlement their leaders had been promising, for 30 years, to deliver. And now we will be served the same empty promises about a “European solution” and the restoration of human rights for another 30 years. Cyprus problem rhetoric is a big industry and has helped advance the careers of all our leading politicians.
Admittedly, the politicians peddle the cost-free, theoretical dimension of the national problem that leads nowhere because the majority of Greek Cypriots, contrary to what Papadopoulos told the UN General Assembly, are not keen on re-unification and sharing power with the Turkish Cypriots. Neither is Papadopoulos, for whom the main condition for a solution must be the preservation of the Republic of Cyprus in its present form, because he was given a state and will not hand over a community. With EU membership, the legal status of the Republic was guaranteed, which was why we should be looking for a different type of settlement, he concluded and invited Turkey to join him in finding a solution based on this new reality.
This is a big gamble, based on the hope that Turkey would have to make more concessions on a Cyprus solution during its accession negotiations with the EU. Hope is the main basis of the gamble, which is in keeping with the policy followed on the Cyprus problem for the last 30 years. This would allow our politicians to continue taking principled stands in international forums and give lessons to the rest of the world about double standards and respect for human rights. It might eventually yield a solution, but there is a big possibility that it would be partition. This may be the solution that the Greek Cypriot people -- not to mention our politicians who, until then, could churn out familiar, high-sounding rhetoric -- would be happiest with.
