Cyprus-Forum.com

[cypezokyli]

I am tired of reading in some foreign newspapers that "Greek Cypriots rejected a plan to unify Cyprus" and how hardliner is Papadopoulos and all that. I think it was a mistake that we accepted for the Annan plan to be in a referendum. Foreigners don't care to read the plan. They just think "there was a unification plan and GC rejected it. So it means GCs don't want unification".

you raised a number of points sotos.
tpap hardliner.
firtsly , let me remind you that the international media ,the EU , the UN etc did say that denktash was a herdliner when he was in power. when ever denktash blew any attempt of negotiations , it was often mentioned whose fault it was. now , that they changed their opinion we called them biased. i am not saying that they are unbiased. but if we accept that they are biased , that in short means that accusing denktash was also biased.... or ?
in short try to avoid seeing conspiracies everywhere.

the foreign media dont like erdogan that much any more. does that mean than now they became unbiased ?

now on your statement :

I think it was a mistake that we accepted for the Annan plan to be in a referendum

this we can only answer we hindsight unfortunately. even though it is an interesting question. one should pause and consider it : would it be better if tpap , (like denktash all these years) had refused to accept the referendum procedure and taken the "blame" on him rather than having the "blame" on the gc community ?

it is an interesting question but there is no real way of finding an answer.

we can ask a number of questions like that : "what would have happened if.... " but noone can never know

if we really want to be honest , tpap (and the whole national council ) was trapped in NY , but if we are ever going to learn from our mistakes , we should accept that tpap (and the rest) didnot go there prepared. and thats sad. the first should not stop us learning from the second.

[Sotos]

So what is the opposite of hardliner? Softliner? Somebody that has principles and he doesn't change them is a hardliner?

this we can only answer we hindsight unfortunately. even though it is an interesting question. one should pause and consider it : would it be better if tpap , (like denktash all these years) had refused to accept the referendum procedure and taken the "blame" on him rather than having the "blame" on the gc community ?

I think the referendum was a bad choice because they knew what the result would be and they made it just to blame us.

[cypezokyli]

So what is the opposite of hardliner? Softliner? Somebody that has principles and he doesn't change them is a hardliner?

denktash had also principles and he didnot change them. its just a matter on how "principles" are defined.
the question is very simple : do we accept international critisism only when it is directed to the other side ?

this we can only answer we hindsight unfortunately. even though it is an interesting question. one should pause and consider it : would it be better if tpap , (like denktash all these years) had refused to accept the referendum procedure and taken the "blame" on him rather than having the "blame" on the gc community ?

I think the referendum was a bad choice because they knew what the result would be and they made it just to blame us.

why did they then call us and threatened us to accept it ? if their purpose was to put the blame on us ?

[Sotos]

denktash had also principles and he didnot change them. its just a matter on how "principles" are defined.
the question is very simple : do we accept international critisism only when it is directed to the other side ?

So what are the principles of a hardliner? For you Papadopoulos and Denktash are the same?

why did they then call us and threatened us to accept it ? if their purpose was to put the blame on us ?

So to make us more mad and make sure that we would reject it?

[michalis5354]

The A plan Vesrion 5 was the plan that Papadopoulos have delivered. Having negotiated the plan in good faith and responsible attitude the plan would not look like this! This is my opionion of course! There were 5 vesrions of the plan before coming to the 5th vesrion!

No serious negotiations have taken place in Switserland to improve the plan and to make it more likely to be passed inthe referendum.

Papadopoulos had a hidden agenda in Switserland that is ,not negotiating the plan in order for the plan not to be passed in the referendum! This is Papadopoulos and you tell me to trust this man !

[Piratis]

The A plan Vesrion 5 was the plan that Papadopoulos have delivered.

Soon you will tell us that the Annan plan should be called the Papadopoulos plan. Come on!

Papadopoulos had demanded many things but the Turks did not agree. And why should they agree when they knew that Annan would give to them everything they demanded in the end anyways?

[reportfromcyprus]

I don't "simply live in Cyprus". If you read my post carefully, you would see that I am Cypriot and come from here. You don't have a monopoly on this country, Piratis, it's time you realised this.

I watched the whole process of negotiations for the UN plan. I read it for myself. There were some pros and cons, as in any proposal. What I disapproved of was the manipulation of people's perceptions through the media.

The demonisation of the UN proposal was completely unnecessary, and provoking people's fears equally unnecessary. Someone made the point that the UN plan took Cyprus by surprise. It might surprise you to know that within 24 hours of the date of the referendum being announced, fliers denouncing the UN plan were being distributed in Cyprus' streets. Not such a surprise, then.

We have a long way to go before we can think for ourselves as consumers of information. It wasn't just a NO that the government campaigned for, it was a NO WAY IN HELL that it wanted.

Can you be sure that your perceptions are truly clear? Did you read the plan for yourself? Why do you approach the Annan plan as if it's a symbol of a conspiracy to destroy Cyprus? Hundreds of people worked on that proposal, from UN to EU experts in constitutional law and other areas of relevant knowledge.

Now it's demonised, discredited, and would never be approved by the GC community.

[reportfromcyprus]

In response to Kifeas's post - yes, our government DID contribute to the UN plan through negotiations prior to the present administration.

Why would you deny this? Are you trying to say that we are a helpless victim? That we are to be crucified? That the UN is a vampire that should be killed with a stake through the heart?

Our government had every chance to negotiate, and there were many rounds of negotiations.

How many do you see going on now? 0, nil, nul, mithen.

[Kifeas]

In response to Kifeas's post - yes, our government DID contribute to the UN plan through negotiations prior to the present administration.

Why would you deny this? Are you trying to say that we are a helpless victim? That we are to be crucified? That the UN is a vampire that should be killed with a stake through the heart?

Our government had every chance to negotiate, and there were many rounds of negotiations.

How many do you see going on now? 0, nil, nul, mithen.

Of course our side contributed to the assembling of the whole package of the 900 pages! All the laws necessary for the functioning of the federal government were provided by our side, as they were harmonized with the EU aqui. This is not the issue though! The issue is the actual foundation agreement and the constitution, or better the philosophy of the plan and some of the parameters which were based on this philosophy. And if you do not know this fact, it is good to know it. There was a change in the philosophy of the plan between the one of versions 1-3, and the one of versions 4-5.

The philosophy of the last version -the one sent to the referendums, was that of two legitimately pre-existing states and two separate people (not communities forming one people,) coming together and forming a bond between them in the middle, in a confederative fashion. Bi-zonality and bi-communality were equated and identified with each other, to the extent that they could be used interchangeably, instead of being two separate and complementary notions. The T/C community was equated with the north part of Cyprus, in a natural, historical and existential sense, and the G/C community with the south part of Cyprus in the same way. The T/C community was equated with the T/C constituent state, as if it was the historical owner of this part of Cyprus and it should stay as such indefinitely. This notion jeopardized any natural, cultural and historical rights of the G/C community in this part of Cyprus. This is something clearly outside what we have ever meant to be ready to accept, when agreed with a solution on the basis of the Bi-zonal and bi-communal federation, and it is something secretly imposed on the philosophy of the plan by the Anglo-Americans, upon insistence of the Turkish and T/C side so that they could accept arbitration and to also put the plan to a referendum. This approach is no much different than the perennial Denktash approach which we have never agreed and accepted to accommodate.

The mistake our side committed was to trust and accept in NY to allow Kofi Annan to conduct a free arbitration on his plan and then put it to a referendum, without anticipating that Annan, (actually de' Sotto upon pressure form the Anglo-Americans,) would have made such changes that would have affected the core philosophy of the previous plans and bring it closer to the Turkish positions. Once this occurred, it was impossible to negortiate anything with them, because they were acting from an "advantageous" position.

[reportfromcyprus]

Kifeas, with respect, I disagree with your definition of 'negotiate'.

You always have the choice to walk away and specify a future date for further negotiations. For example, Denktash flatly refused to appear at the negotiations at some stage, that way he signalled he didn't agree with what was on the table.

Pleading that the other side had an 'advantageous' position after the fact is not good negotiation, it's just going back on what was agreed at the table with the mediators.

I fully understand your point and agree with you that there was a different philosophy in the final UN plan, and that a 900 page document would not be easily understood by everyone it would affect. The government didn't go out of its way to make it any easier to understand, either.

My point here is regarding the media and government control of people's perceptions. We have to think freely, not in the narrow channels they pre-program us to follow.

At least then we have the chance of making an informed decision. It was a mistake to put the UN plan to referendum because we would never have had a real chance to understand it clearly given the misinformation and distortion of facts handed out on a daily basis by the government controlled media.

They can't help having the bias, it's inevitable, and in their favour, I do think they genuinely believe they are serving national interests by giving us our opinions on a platter.