Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kifeas]

The Constitution was not ammended as you said, ……

No I never suggested that it was amended. It is you that suggested it, that is why I asked you when and how it happened.

You said:

After awhile, if it needs to be changed, then you would go through the process in changing it, and not just impossing it to the citizens.

and then you said:

What would have been the major set back if the Constitution was left as it was?

Both of the above quotations -to the unaware, will suggest -with no uncertain terms, that Makarios did not follow the rules (i.e. did not officially send to all the parties concerned his 13 point amendment proposals, for consideration,) but instead he went ahead and unilaterary amended (did not live it as it was) the constitution and then imposed it to the citizens.

This is how every unfamiliar and unaware third part (and there are plenty here) will read your above comments. Don’t you agree?

Anyway, will you please answer these questions for me?
1. Since you acknowledged before that indeed several things were quite unfair and discriminatory on the basis of “ethnic” origin in the 1960 constitution, do you believe Makarios had the right to come up with a list of amendment proposals, and to send them to the T/C community and the “guarantor” powers for review and evaluation, and to call upon the T/Cs to comment on and /or discuss them together? Was this something inherently wrong,, both politically and morally?

2. Had the T/C community’s leadership (under Kutchuk and Denktash) have a reaction plan in place, which (plan) upon Makarios proposal to amend the constitution, foresaw and /or envisioned and /or proclaimed violence to erupt, and upon which (eruption of violence,) to withdraw from the RoC, declare its death (RoC,) and declare the establishment of a so-called provisional T/C republic, in which to call all the T/Cs (citizens, civil servants, ministers and MPs) to abide by and recognise it as their only official government and co-operate with it?

3. Had the vice-president of the Roc Dr, Facil Kutchuk -only about a week or so after violence erupted in Nicosia (23rd of December 1963,) and before giving any answer to Makarios on his proposals but also before Makarios or any other G/C leader declare the T/Cs as an unwanted entity in the functioning and /or the institutions of the RoC; gone (Kutchuk) publicly on the newly established bayrak radio and proclaimed the death of the RoC, and declared the establishment of the so-called “provisional T/C republic of Cyprus,” in which he called all the T/Cs (citizens, civil servants, ministers and MPs) to abide from then on by it and to recognise it as their only official government and to co-operate only with it?

Do the above constitute facts, or you are not aware of any of them? can you please enlighten me of what you know of all or any of the above?

[miltiades]

Kifeas , I also do not wish to come to the defence of Bananiot for the same reason that Kikapu stated , that Bananiot is more than cabable of defending his statements. I have to admit that it is not often that I have to read a post more than once to comprehend the message unless of course the contributor was some one of a certain predictability whose name I will not mention , you know the ranter and howler with incoherent views. However Kifeas Im surprised that your post is not only full of contradictions but also inadequacies , on the one hand you call Bananiots ideas as perverted yet on the other hand you are stating that "we are all equal individual Cypriot citizens with each other on a 1:1 basis. " Precisely what Bananiot has said !! Forgive me for stating that your comments on the equally deplorable notion of partition , and your perception of bringing such an event to a speedy end beggars belief . Class me as a loser if it makes you feel better but let me just say what I want for my Cyprus. Cyprus as one nation , indivisible and belonging to all Cypriots. YOUR WORDS ! Now Sir , this what you also want, so lets abort the mostly unconstractive historical lessons that take us back to medieval times sometimes , and lets not allow Cyprus's opportunity to go ahead be trampled on by too many ancient events.And please dont call me a non- Greek , what else could I be with a name like Miltiades. If a political party existed in Cyprus embracing Cypriots from all communities my vote would go to the Cypriot best suited to serve the interests of my Cyprus , would not overeact in horror if that Cypriot was a Turkish Cypriot , any more than my English wife would overeact if Gordon Brown (Scotish ) -God help us - was to succed the Englishman we currently have.
With all my respect Sir, your fellow Cypriot Miltiades

[Kikapu]

We are ready to accept that the two types of political equality, the community and the individual one, will equally and mutually constitute the corner stone basis of a future constitution.

could you explain the above please ?
i am not sure i understood what you mean.

is there a way to design a system where both communal rights and individual rights (always in terms of voting ) are preserved ?
up to now i thought that it is either the one or the other.
thank you.

I think that means we change the name from ROC to United States of Cyprus with two Independent States with each it's own Constitution and National guards. Central government will only enforce foreign policy and other foreign related maters. This might work.

[Kifeas]

Kifeas,
Once the agreement was reached then, one has to belive they were all in this together and that they would together make Cyprus work, therefore they were all equal in the eyes of the Constitution, which would have been the glue to kept the GC's and the TC's together. Just because we may not agree was was in it now, 46 years later, those at the time saw it differently, unless it was just a ploy to get the British out, and now we are where we are.

Kikapu, I am not sure on what issue and /or question of mine you are replying. Can you please quote first the particular paragraph based on which you are going to comment, so that I will understand what you /we are talking about? This is a general comment.

On the above.
1. Are you aware of the way the 1960 agreements were reached? Do you believe that G/C leadership accepted the above agreements entirely on its own free will? The truth is that the G/C leadership was blackmailed severely in ordered to be compelled (forced) to agree to them.

Nevertheless, this only as a historical side information on your above insinuation /suggestion that the agreements were the product of the free will of all the parties concerned, something which was not entirelly the case.

2. What do you mean by saying “one has to believe they were all in this together and that they would together make Cyprus work, therefore they were all equal in the eyes of the Constitution?” Do you accept that the 1960 constitution had many deficiencies and serious departures from what constitutes a universal principle to treat all citizens equally, and without unfair discriminations on peoples rights due to their “ethnic” group belonging or on any other basis, or you do not? My impression is that you acknowledged this fact already. Now you seem to have a different view?

3. What do you mean by saying that “Just because we may not agree was in it now, 46 years later, those at the time saw it differently, unless it was just a ploy to get the British out, and now we are where we are?” What makes you believe that we see only now the constitution differently (i.e. to be unfair,) and those at the time did not see it this way? Which those at the time then do you have in mind, the T/Cs only, or both the two communities? Do you believe that the average people back in 1960 were less intelligent to see the discrepancies and the unjust provisions?

[Kifeas]

Kifeas , I also do not wish to come to the defence of Bananiot for the same reason that Kikapu stated , that Bananiot is more than cabable of defending his statements. I have to admit that it is not often that I have to read a post more than once to comprehend the message unless of course the contributor was some one of a certain predictability whose name I will not mention , you know the ranter and howler with incoherent views. However Kifeas Im surprised that your post is not only full of contradictions but also inadequacies , on the one hand you call Bananiots ideas as perverted yet on the other hand you are stating that "we are all equal individual Cypriot citizens with each other on a 1:1 basis. " Precisely what Bananiot has said !!

I will only accept and comment on your above paragraph, should you substantiate -sentence by sentence, quotation by quotation, where and which the contradictions and the inconsistencies are, likewise I do my self with everyone’s comments and posts. You cannot just abstractly declare my post(s) to be full of inconsistencies and contradictions, if at the same time you do not show where the contradictions are, words by word. This tactic is very unconstructive and irritating, so please go ahead and consolidate what you are claiming.

As to what I have said, versus what Bananiot has said, and which you claimed to essentially be the same, let’s see it in practice.

Bananiot said:

Either we recognise the Turkish Cypriots as equal political partners in a new Cyprus where equality of the communities will be the corner stone, and not mere equality of individuals, or partition and forever loss of the northern part of Cyprus to Turkey. These are the two options and anyone can blow his head off with patriotic slogans but these do not help Cyprus.

and I said:

….. none of the remaining 99% of G/Cs is prepared to recognise as the corner stone of the political future of Cyprus, the equality of one “ethnic” group constituting the 18%(-) of the Cypriots with that of another group constituting the 82%(+) of the Cypriot people, simply because we do not live and exist on this island as mere members of the one or the other community, but also as individual Cypriot citizens. We are all prepared to accept the equality of the two communities, only to the extent that the other side (T/Cs) is (equally) prepared to accept that we are not mere members of each one of the two equal communities, but also equal individual Cypriot citizens with each other on a 1:1 basis, and that both political notions should be equally accommodated and reflected in a future constitution, both in it’s letter and it’s spirit!

I suggest you re-read the two paragraphs carefully, as I am sure you will understand that we do not both say the same thing, as you suggested!

Forgive me for stating that your comments on the equally deplorable notion of partition , and your perception of bringing such an event to a speedy end beggars belief .

Miltiades, I am not sure I understand what you are saying here. Which comments on the deplorable notion of partition are you talking about?

Class me as a loser if it makes you feel better but let me just say what I want for my Cyprus. Cyprus as one nation , indivisible and belonging to all Cypriots. YOUR WORDS ! Now Sir , this what you also want, so lets abort the mostly unconstractive historical lessons that take us back to medieval times sometimes , and lets not allow Cyprus's opportunity to go ahead be trampled on by too many ancient events.And please dont call me a non- Greek , what else could I be with a name like Miltiades. If a political party existed in Cyprus embracing Cypriots from all communities my vote would go to the Cypriot best suited to serve the interests of my Cyprus , would not overeact in horror if that Cypriot was a Turkish Cypriot , any more than my English wife would overeact if Gordon Brown (Scotish ) -God help us - was to succed the Englishman we currently have.
With all my respect Sir, your fellow Cypriot Miltiades

You seem to be accusing me of things above, which I do not understand where they come from? Why are you telling all the above, with most of which I happen to agree and I have not said anything to the contrary. Can you please refer to me what you have read that makes you say them?

[Kikapu]

Kifeas,

You want to keep splitting hair with every issue line by line. We are talking in general here as to what happened back in 1960-63. You're determined to justify the 13 proposal to ammend the constitution, but as you know there were 48 articles in the constitution were deemed "unalterable", so some or all 13 proposal by Makarios may have fallen in this catagory. I agree with you, there was nothing wrong in proposing chances if it was agreeable by all parties including Britain, Greece, and Turkey. TC's did not want to alter them. You can call it unjust and I will agree with you, but re-visiting as to exactly what happened is neither going to achieve anything to the present situation. Bottom line is, agreements were made and agreements were not kept. You can point fingers to both sides if you want, one for wanting more than they agreed for and the other not giving some back to keep the peace. We all know that the constitution was not well written, but you make a claim that the GC's were blackmailed into accepting it. What was the conditions of the blackmail, either you accept this as written or else we will ( British) not leave. If that was the case, then a choice was made by the GC's to accept it. Now we are all "crying over spilled milk."

[Kifeas]

We are ready to accept that the two types of political equality, the community and the individual one, will equally and mutually constitute the corner stone basis of a future constitution.

could you explain the above please ?
i am not sure i understood what you mean.

is there a way to design a system where both communal rights and individual rights (always in terms of voting ) are preserved ?
up to now i thought that it is either the one or the other.
thank you.

Of cource there are! Thousands of ways if you so wish!

However, I was not specifically referring the type of voting systems and /or government format as such, but on a more general issue /notion, that of the moral (corner stone as Bananiot described it) on which the constitution will be based, i.e. the central philosophy of the new state of affairs in a more general and conceptual sense.

[miltiades]

Kifeas , paragraph 3 of your post 8.14pm you state " if you believe that the above will mean partition I will go further and say if indeed the ............" Just read your post again. Anyway the fact of the matter is we are not getting anywhere going back to the past and blaming this or that on our present predicament. It doesnt take a bloody genious to see that in order to get ahead and secure the future for our kids and grand kids we have to do a 90 degree turn.Please stop discussing what the constitution of 1960 did or did not do.In 2006 Cyprus is the only European nation with Foreign occupation troops on its soil . How to get them out is by establishing TRUST and show our fellow Cypriots , the Turkish , that they do not need the Turkish army to protect them , neither do they need the mostly illiterate medieval settlers - victims themselves -that they have to put up with.Reach out to our fellow Cypriots with an olive branch , forget the past for god sake , it does sweet FA for Cyprus.Let any Turkish Cypriot come on this forum and rubbish my views and I swear on my Cyprus I will not post another inch .
We have had a belly full of what the 60s agreement did or did not do , or how long we the Greeks have been on the Island .Its irrelevant now . What matters Kifeas is the unification of our country , the peacefull co-existences with all Cypriots .Let this year be the pivotal political year where common sense prevails.
LONG LIVE CYPRUS

[Issy1956]

She's got to be a fraud-no one could possibly be that blind and stupid to the facts. 100% a wind up.

[GreekCypriotGurl_UK]

ISsy your the fraud you thieivng turks are the fraud