19 OCTOBER 2004
Cyprus: Objective realities, validity of Greek Cypriot objections to the Annan Plan and the way forward
Part I
Underlying causes of the Cyprus question
Turks and Turkish Cypriots have not yet realized the critical significance of public relations and propaganda. Greek Cypriots and Greeks, on the other hand, are experts in the use of propaganda and lobbying. Although propaganda and lobbying are legitimate, cheating is, to say the least, unethical.
Unfortunately, even the European Union has allowed itself to be misled by the "unethical" propaganda machine of the Greek Cypriot side.
Addressing the European Parliament on April 21, 2004, EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen, for example, recalled that in 1999 the then Greek Cypriot government had promised to do everything possible to secure a settlement in return for which the EU would not make a Cyprus solution a prerequisite for accession. An angry and disappointed Mr. Verheugen stated to the European Parliament that:
"What Mr. Papadopoulos said after the negotiations in Switzerland is the rejection of that notion, and I must draw the conclusion from his words that the government of the Republic of Cyprus opposes the international settlement and proposes the rejection of the Plan. I am going to be very undiplomatic now. I feel cheated by the Greek Cypriot government."
It is unfortunately a fact that in conflict situations the near-irresistible temptation is to focus on surface symptoms, to simplify the task and to search for the fastest way out. In resolving conflict, however, we need to shift the focus beyond the surface approach of treating symptoms to a deeper level, where the addressing of the underlying causes of the conflict is possible. Short-term pain relief should not be confused with long-term cure.
Coming back to the Cyprus question, we need to go beyond the easily available propaganda material and dig out underlying objective facts and causes. The Cyprus conflict is not, for example, the result "of a military invasion and continued occupation of part of the territory of a sovereign state," as the Greek Cypriot leader, Tassos Papadopoulos, chose to present it in his Sept. 23, 2004 statement at the general debate of the 59th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Neither did the conflict start because the Turkish Cypriot people, an equal partner of the 1960 partnership Republic of Cyprus, agitated to secede from that republic.
If "occupation" is the root cause of the Cyprus issue, this is in fact the 41-year-old continued occupation of the seat of government of the once bi-communal partnership Republic of Cyprus by the Greek Cypriot partner since 1963. It is because of this occupation and the resultant conflict between the two equal partners that we have had U.N. peacekeeping forces on the island since 1964. The selective ignoring by Mr. Papadopoulos of the period from 1963 to 1974, together with the reasons for the intervention of Turkey on July 20, 1974, cannot, of course, be attributed to amnesia. The withholding and even denial of certain "selected" facts is rather a devious attempt to obscure the underlying cause of the Cyprus issue in full knowledge of the dictum that cure is directly linked to cause. In other words, the Greek Cypriot side is attempting a cure for Cyprus that will not be based on their hijacking of the 1960 partnership republic.
Returning back to the Greek Cypriot claim that the Cyprus conflict is the result of a military invasion and continued occupation, there is no resolution of the U.N. Security Council that describes the legitimate and justified intervention of Turkey in 1974 as "aggression," "invasion" or "occupation." In fact, in a dramatic statement before the Security Council on July 19, 1974, Archbishop Makarios, the Greek Cypriot president at the time, openly accused Greece, not Turkey, of invading and occupying Cyprus on July 15, 1974.It was this invasion and occupation in order to realize immediate enosis (union of Cyprus with Greece) and the violation of the state of affairs established by the 1960 constitution and treaties that led to the intervention of Turkey in accordance with its rights and obligations under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee.
On the claim that it was the Turkish Cypriot side that agitated to secede from the partnership republic, Archbishop Makarios, the then Greek Cypriot president of the 1960 partnership republic, is on record for repeatedly confessing that the Greek Cypriot struggle and aspiration in Cyprus was the realization of enosis. In a statement to The Times on April 9, 1963, eight months before the hijacking of the partnership state, he said, for example, that:
"The union of Cyprus with Greece is an aspiration always cherished within the hearts of all Greek Cypriots. It is impossible to put an end to this aspiration by establishing a republic."
When the Security Council resolved to send peacekeeping troops to the island, the mandate of these troops as stipulated in resolution 186 (1964) was to prevent a recurrence of the fighting and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions.
Immediately following the endorsement of this resolution in the Security Council, the Turkish Cypriot side applied to the U.N. secretary-general to use his best efforts to restore law and order and help return to normal conditions by upholding the 1960 constitutional order. The then secretary-general turned this request down and replied to the Turkish Cypriot side that this was not the intention of the Security Council in adopting resolution 186.
The admittance in resolution 186 that normal conditions did not exist and the refusal to restore the constitutional order in Cyprus are proof that the 1960 partnership institutions were incapable of functioning as set out in the 1960 Constitution, thus making that republic legally void as of December 1963.
In yet another attempt, the Turkish Cypriot parliamentarians who requested the help of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) to return to the partnership Parliament in July 1965 were told by the then Greek Cypriot president of the House of Representatives, Glafkos Clerides, that they could only do so provided they recognized the Greek Cypriot government as the Cyprus government, that they accepted all the laws enacted by the House of Representatives in their absence, and agreed to abolish Article 78 of the Constitution concerning separate majorities. When the Turkish Cypriot Parliamentarians refused to accept these humiliating conditions, they were instantly blamed by the Greek Cypriot side for withdrawing from the legitimate government. Turkish Cypriot political leaders of the time have repeatedly said that it was this final betrayal that triggered the chain of events that led to the division of the island and the emergence of two separate governments.
In spite of all these facts, the Greek Cypriot side has been successfully hiding behind what is called the "state of necessity" argument and facade since December 1963. Putting aside the role of the Greek Cypriot side in creating the abnormal situation of 1963, the Greek Cypriot refusal to go into a new partnership with Turkish Cypriots and their preference in the April 24, 2004 referendum to maintain "abnormal conditions" unquestionably deprives them from using the "state of necessity" argument any longer, together with the argument that the so-called "Republic of Cyprus" is the legal government of the whole island.
Distortion of facts
Greek Cypriot politicians and officials frequently resort to the tactic of distorting facts in order to make more effective and to dramatize their unethical propaganda attempt. I will give three examples of such distortions.
a. In his letter to the U.N. secretary-general of June 7, 2004, Tassos Papadopoulos claimed that there are 119,000 "illegally implanted Turkish settlers" in North Cyprus. Putting aside the discussion about the unacceptable nature of the choice of the word "settlers," Mr. Papadopoulos argued later on in the same letter that the final version of the U.N. plan would have allowed for the entirety of the "settlers" to remain in Cyprus. This amounts to a gross distortion of the facts in the plan, which limited to 45,000 those who could acquire Cypriot citizenship from each side other than those persons who held Cypriot citizenship on Dec. 31, 1963, their descendants and the spouses of such descendents.
b. In his interview with the Dubai-based Khaleej Times on Sept. 4, 2004 Mr. Papadopoulos openly claimed in response to a question that no Turkish Cypriots were killed between 1963 and 1974. The comment of Loucas G. Charalambous, a prominent Greek Cypriot journalist, to this lie was, "Does the president suffer memory loss?" In his opinion column in the Greek Cypriot English-language daily Cyprus Mail of Sept. 12, 2004, Mr. Charalambous wrote:
"We should resist the temptation to laugh at this response by the president. I will just remind you that during this period (1963-1974), there were bloody clashes in Mansoura-Tylliria, in Lefka-Ambelikou, in Trypimeni, in Arsos, in Mari and in Kophinou-Ayios Theodoros.
In Kophinou alone, UNFICYP had counted 22 corpses of Turkish Cypriots by 10 am on 15 November (1967) as was reported by Brigadier Michael Harbottle in his book 'The Impartial Soldier.' I do not think there is anyone who would consider it wrong to describe the president's claim that no Turkish Cypriots were killed as a blatant lie."
c. Tassos Papadopoulos wrote to the U.N. secretary-general on June 7, 2004 that he once more wanted to "emphatically reiterate" the commitment of the Greek Cypriot people, as well as himself, "to the solution of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation." He repeated this commitment in his statement to the general debate of the 59th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations on Sept. 23, 2004. But in the same statement Mr. Papadopoulos also repeated that the resolution of the land and property issues had to respect the right of return of refugees. Similarly, in his letter of June 7, 2004 to the U.N. secretary-general, Mr. Papadopoulos insisted that "the plan includes a number of pre-conditions for reinstatement of properties, which limits substantially the exercise of the right of Greek Cypriots to reinstatement."
Mr. Papadopoulos's insistence on the right of return and the reinstatement of properties makes a mockery out of the principle of bi-zonality, which is an established pillar for settlement in Cyprus and which Mr. Papadopoulos says he is committed to respect. Obviously, Mr. Papadopoulos cannot support both bi-zonality and full respect for the right of return of refugees. If he really supports bi-zonality, he has to put aside pretences and must start preparing his people to accept restrictions on the right to return in order to facilitate bi-zonality.
Greek Cypriot objections to the secretary-general's plan: Are they real or merely excuses
A. The functionality argument
In his letter of June 7, 2004 to the U.N. secretary-general, Mr. Papadopoulos stressed that functionality covers all the areas of the operation of the state including federal legislation and its practical application, the Central Bank, fiscal and monetary policy, the curtailing of the various transitional periods, the administrative structure and functioning of the federal government, the decision-making process at all levels and the territorial aspect. Mr. Papadopoulos described the objective of functionality as ensuring the viability and smooth operation of the solution.
But, functionality, viability and smooth functioning vary depending on the agreed model of governance. The modalities for smooth functioning and decision-making, for example, vary in the case of a unitary state as compared to the case of a bi-communal partnership/federal state. In the case of the latter, in order to respect and cater to the interests and political equality of the partners, representation and decision-making arrangements cannot allow for one of the parties to dominate or subordinate the other if what is required is the smooth functioning and viability of the partnership.
No doubt all the requirements for a smooth-functioning partnership cannot be legislated and invariably require the building-up of a partnership culture and mutual trust. Partnerships also require strong common interests and interdependence, which, together, will act to hold the partnership together. With the asymmetry that has been allowed to grow in the political and economic powers of the two parties in Cyprus since 1963, coupled with the continuing Greek/Greek Cypriot obsession that Cyprus is part of the Hellenic world and the insistence on patching the Turkish Cypriot people into the Greek Cypriot usurped "Republic of Cyprus," I do not think that the essentials are currently in place for a viable, smooth-functioning and sustainable partnership. There is no doubt that under the functionality argument Greek Cypriot political leaders are trying to introduce majoritarian decision-making and governance arrangements instead of exploring alternative partnership consensus-building mechanisms.
In fact, such mechanisms were explored in the course of the Technical Committee meetings on cooperation agreements and the federal laws. On the subject of the Cooperation Agreement on European Union Relations, which aimed at regulating policy formulation, decision-making, representation and legal actions concerning European Union relations that fall exclusively or predominantly into an area of competence of the constituent states, the formula included in the U.N. secretary-general's plan foresaw the establishment of a coordination group composed of four representatives, two hailing from each constituent state. The group would try to reach decisions by consensus. If consensus could not be achieved, decisions would be reached by special majority that would include at least one member hailing from each constituent state. Unfortunately, even this arrangement, which applied to functions that fall exclusively or predominantly into an area of competence of the constituent states on which they could not be overruled, was not acceptable to Mr. Papadopoulos.
In an article published in the Aug. 29, 2004 issue of the Sunday Mail, Greek Cypriot political analyst Nicos A. Pittas pointed out that:
"On our side, the hard-line successors to Makarios, who, of course, are more Catholic than the pope, pay lip service to federalism but in reality insist on a government structure that is essentially unitary and gives control to the majority Greek Cypriot community in the event of a deadlock. It is exactly the same issue that brought down the Zurich and London Agreements in 1963 and which continues today under its contemporary guise. It is not the flaws of the Annan plan that are the problem. It is the leadership of our governing coalition that is collectively responsible for the continuation of the Cyprus stalemate. ... If our leaders were truly committed to a federal settlement, any practical problems could be surmounted through negotiations after the establishment of the United Cyprus Republic. That, in fact, is the nature and essence of federalism: that it needs to be constantly nurtured and renewed in each generation by the communities that comprise the federation. The reality is that no solution or constitution will be perfect."
B. Security needs of the Greek Cypriot side:
Although Cyprus has never been under Greek rule, Greeks and Greek Cypriots historically (even mythologically) count Cyprus as an integral part of the Hellenic world. It is this belief that has led to the violent collapse of the 1960 partnership state. Because this historic belief is institutionalized in Greek culture (myths, the Church, schools) it is hard to ignore it. Over a period of 10 years between 1963-1974 no amount of diplomacy succeeded in changing this belief and halting the forceful marginalization of Turkish Cypriots and their deprivation of their constitutional and treaty rights. Turkey was forced into intervening in Cyprus in 1974 in order to fulfill an obligation under the 1960 Treaty of Guarantee because the state of affairs created by the 1960 Constitution was continuously violated. In spite of the security protection provided to Turkish Cypriots by the presence of the Turkish army, which has been the sole deterrent for the reoccurrence of violence on the island since 1974, the violation of the 1960 state of affairs is continuing and has over the years led to a chain of events and the emergence of new conditions that have found expression in guideline agreements (1977 and 1979) between the two sides (bi-zonality, bi-communality, federalism). But because the Greek Cypriot side is still obsessed with Hellenism and wishes to maintain the political and economic advantages it has unjustly acquired since 1963, there is no eagerness on their side to step down from their advantageous position and share power with their equal ex-partner in the context of a new comprehensive partnership settlement package.
In spite of the fact that the Turkish army continues to be the one and only security cover for Turkish Cypriots, and the fact that the secretary-general's plan required the substantial reduction of these forces over the initial but very critical seven-year period (allowing for both Turkish and Greek contingents not to exceed 6,000 all ranks until 2011), to be followed by a further reduction to a symbolic 650 by the EU accession of Turkey, or following 2018 (whichever is sooner), both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot majority (through the referenda of April 24, 2004) supported the secretary-general's plan. The plan even contained a provision that provided for a three-yearly review after 2018 with the objective of total withdrawal (Article 8,1,b iii of the Foundation Agreement).
All this did not suffice to satisfy Mr. Papadopoulos, who, in his all-or-nothing approach wrote to the U.N. secretary-general on June 7, 2004 that Greek Cypriot concerns regarding "the crucial issue of security, were to a great extent, ignored." He pointed out in the letter that they "still have serious security concerns as a result of the presence of Turkish occupation troops and Turkish overall behavior." Mr. Papadopoulos claimed that the plan meant that Turkish troops would remain on the island indefinitely.
The underlying logic and calculation behind this "all-or-nothing" stance of Mr. Papadopoulos can be traced to his pre-referenda address of April 7, 2004, in which he also called upon the Greek Cypriot people to give a resounding "no" reply to the U.N. secretary-general's plan:
"What will be the consequences if the people vote 'no' in the referendum? If the sovereign people with their vote reject the plan, within a week the Republic of Cyprus will become a full and equal EU member. We will achieve a strategic goal that we have jointly set to upgrade and politically armor the Republic of Cyprus. The view that this will be the last initiative for a Cyprus solution constitutes dogmatism and indicates ignorance of the rule of international policy. On the contrary, I am saying that the pressure for a solution will be bigger. Turkey's accession course will also continue, thus Ankara will be under continuous evaluation for the adoption and implementation of the acquis communautaire, and Cyprus will be one on of the evaluators."
The position of Mr. Papadopoulos is therefore that they are so strongly positioned vis-a-vis the Turkish Cypriot side and Turkey that they can afford to completely ignore the legitimate concerns and interests of Turkish Cypriots (including security), as well as the 1960 treaty rights of Turkey (while the treaty rights of Britain remain intact). They also conclude on the basis of their calculation that time is working in their favor; therefore, they can afford to wait indefinitely until "total victory" is secured.
This line of thinking, coupled with the vision and obsession of a Hellenic Cyprus, does not leave much room for give-and-take, compromise and a sustainable win-win settlement, or stability, in Cyprus. We need to understand that there cannot be a fair and sustainable settlement in Cyprus that would be based on the political equality of the two sides so long as the Greek Cypriot side is allowed to unilaterally realize all its objectives and so long as the Turkish Cypriot side is made to be seen to be subordinate to Greek Cypriot authority.
In any case, on the subject of security, we must not allow the Greek Cypriot side to forget that it is the rejection of the U.N. secretary-general's plan by them that has prevented settlement in Cyprus, thus halting the kick-starting of the process of demilitarization on the terms of the plan. Mr. Papadopoulos should not now be allowed to complain about the presence of Turkish troops on the island.
THE E.U ASSESMENT OF THE CYPRUS PROBLEM PART 1
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THE E.U ASSESMENT OF THE CYPRUS PROBLEM PART 1
by brother » Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:00 am
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brother - Main Contributor
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by metecyp » Wed Oct 20, 2004 7:23 pm
READ THE ARTICLE WELL THE QUOTES ARE FROM E.U SOURCES AND PUBLISHED BY A TURKISH PAPER.
Who wrote the article? If a Turkish author wrote the article, then this is a Turkish assesment, plain and simple. It doesn't matter if there are quotations from the EU sources. So if I write something that quotes from Shakespeare, does it mean that it was written by Shakespeare or he would like it?
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metecyp - Regular Contributor
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