Cyprus-Forum.com

[Piratis]

As far as Piratis goes I have tremendous respect for his beliefs and his intricate knowledge of the Cyprus problem. He has always referred to the Turkish Cypriots as our compatriots , where we differ is the issue of majority rule on which most of his posts are based on. I understand the concept of one man one vote and majority rule as it applies throughout the civilized world. Cyprus however is , to say the least , somewhat unique in having 40 thousand occupation troops on its soil and the prospect of permanent partition staring us in the face.
One man one vote will come to Cyprus in the future when political parties are formulated based on manifestos and not on ethnic divides , and when these parties embrace all Cypriots then we can have one man one vote.It is inconceivable to insist that the 18% minority have no voice in Cyprus , since they are governed by the majority.
The Turkish Cypriots will never accept this and the Turkish Troops will remain on Our soil for ever. The efforts of our government must be intensified in order to come up with proposals that will be seen by the Greek and Turkish Cypriot majorities as constructive towards a permanent solution.

The above was posted in another thread but since this is a different topic I will reply here.


One person one vote is the basis of democracy and it exists in ALL democratic countries, including the multi-ethnic ones (including the multi-ethnic ones that the different ethnicities used to have conflicts in the past).

Unfortunately some people twist this basic democratic principle and demonize it. They equate “one person one vote” principle with “Majority rules” which for them then translates into “Greek Cypriot rule”.
This is of course incorrect.

For example women are the majority in Cyprus. Do women rule?

Also the Greek Cypriots choose Papadopoulos as their president in last presidential elections. If the 18% of Turkish Cypriots was participating in those elections would the one that the majority of Greek Cypriots wanted to be the president (Papadopoulos) be elected if the great majority of Turkish Cypriots didn’t vote for him? (the answer is no)

Beyond that, the government that is democratically elected is obligated to serve the whole population and not only the ones that voted for them. The government is also obligated to take all decisions based on the human rights and EU principles, which means that no citizen can be discriminated against regardless of what he is and what he voted. This is how good democracies work around the world.

Therefore one person one vote means that Cypriots rule, without racist discriminations. Racist discrimination is something we have last seen in South Africa with the apartheid and I hope nobody is asking for such thing for Cyprus anymore.

This issue is not only a fundamental principle for a democratic country, it is also a fundamental requirement for unity. You can not split your population along racist and ethnic lines and then call the result of this a “united” country.


Now many Turkish Cypriots do not accept the basic democratic principle. There are 2 main reasons for this:
1) A justified concern that Greek Cypriots might use their larger numbers to push them in the corner and discriminate against them

2) Greediness which is part of human nature. If you can take more why settle for what proportionately belongs to you? The majority of Greek Cypriots, and the majority of human beings in general, would have thought in the same way. I don’t blame TCs for acting in a natural way.

So how do we solve this issues?

Solving the first one about the justified concerns of Turkish Cypriots is easier:

1) First of all the transition from the current status to a truly united and democratic Cyprus will not happen overnight. We can agree on some decades of transitional periods were unity and democracy along with trust and the creation of a Cypriot identity will be created gradually.

2) Several quotas and Affirmative actions should be in place, to guarantee that the TC community will never be under-represented in the government or anything else. This could be even taken to the higher level, requiring that at least 1 every 5 presidents should be a Turkish Cypriot.

3) Veto power of the TC community for the change of critical issues, such as the modification of the constitution.

4) Anything else that can be done to accommodate any concerns of the TC and the GC community as long as it is within the limits of the democratic principles and it does not violate the human rights of anybody.

Solving the issue of “why settle for what proportionately belongs to you if you can gain more” is much harder. I am not a sociologist, but to me it seems obvious that the only way to make a group of people accept what proportionately belongs to them without demanding for more on the loss of others is to make them understand that taking what proportionately belongs to them is the ONLY option available, and that insisting on anything beyond that will have the exact opposite result: get less.

Unfortunately with Turkey brainwashing the Turkish Cypriots day and night they made them believe that it is their right to demand things that are undemocratic and against the human rights of others. When the TC started realizing the lies that Turkey was feeding to them, the Annan plan came along to save Turkey and renew the belief among Turkish Cypriots that they can in fact gain more than what proportionately belongs to them.

Cyprus however is , to say the least , somewhat unique in having 40 thousand occupation troops on its soil and the prospect of permanent partition staring us in the face.
One man one vote will come to Cyprus in the future when political parties are formulated based on manifestos and not on ethnic divides , and when these parties embrace all Cypriots then we can have one man one vote

I gave the answer to this in another thread some days ago:

I agree that it will take time to achieve true unity. This is why I always talk about long transitional periods. I do not expect everything to change within a day.
Where i disagree is that something unfair and racist can develop into something good in the future without any force. How many people do you know that would voluntarily give up super privileges for the good of people as a whole?
Unfortunately such people are the rare exception. In reality if some group of people is given something more, then they will never voluntarily give it up.

Once GCs sign away their rights and TCs would now legally have a ton more super privileges then there is no way that TCs will ever want to give them up. Also there is no way that GCs will accept such discriminations for long. So where will that lead us? To something better, or to another conflict with many victims? I believe it would be the second.


Therefore I believe that “solving” the Cyprus problem by legalizing human rights violations and having un undemocratic system, not only it will not be the solution, it will make the problem in Cyprus even worst and more complicated and even more bloodshed will be inevitable.

The solution can not be racist separations/discriminations and 2 communities with conflicting interests. The solution is having in Cyprus equal Cypriot citizens with common interests, democracy and human rights. If the solution is not achievable now due to insistence of Turkey and some others that would hate to see a truly independent and democratic Cyprus, then the only alternative we have is to keep working in the right direction, and not to accept whatever they want to force on us as a “solution” and become accomplice to yet another crime committed against our island.

[Viewpoint]

Interesting post Piratis, well done.

[miltiades]

Well posted Piratis , the major obstacle is the lack of trust between the two communities. If more of us made it our purpose in life to build bridges of trust between us then perhaps the issue of majority / minority will not matter. We need a united Cyprus and we need the help of our compatriots the Turkish Cypriots , who incidentally is the only force that can remove the 40 thousand troops from our land. We need to convince them of our intentions . The people who simply disregard the Turkish Cypriots rights to be equals in their country are either short sighted or simply , they live in a fools paradise.

[Piratis]

the major obstacle is the lack of trust between the two communities

Thats one of the major obstacles in the TC/GC relations. However the solution of the Cyprus problem has other obstacles some of which are beyond Cypriots.

If more of us made it our purpose in life to build bridges of trust between us then perhaps the issue of majority / minority will not matter. We need a united Cyprus and we need the help of our compatriots the Turkish Cypriots , who incidentally is the only force that can remove the 40 thousand troops from our land. We need to convince them of our intentions . The people who simply disregard the Turkish Cypriots rights to be equals in their country are either short sighted or simply , they live in a fools paradise.

I agree with you that we need to build bridges so that TCs and GCs will start trusting each other again. This, along with concrete measures to guarantee the representation of TCs in a united Cyprus should solve the "justified concern" issue.
But only this will not be enough to convince TCs I am afraid.

I trust the woman than cleans my house (if we assume I had one) but I wouldn't give her half of what I believe belongs to me for the sake of equality and fairness. As I said above people are greedy by nature.
TCs are made to believe that they own northern Cyprus and that they should always have super privileges. How can we "convince" them that this is wrong?
Would you be convinced that it is wrong that you have 2 cars, lots of money and luxuries, while in Africa children die from hunger? Even if you were convinced, would you admit it and actually go and share your property with them? Or you would rather find some convenient excuse?

[despo]

Hi, I am new. I have ocassionally lurked in the past, but reading some of the comments posted on this site by my fellow Greek-Cypriots (I was born in Varossi, grew up in north London) make me despair that we will have a settlement for many years to come. Up until 2003/4 I believed that Turkey was the main block to a settlement. Since April 2004, it is quite clear that it is the Greek-Cypriots who are blocking a settlement. Greek-Cypriots do not want a bizonal, bicommunal federation - despite having claimed this for 30 years - and do not want to share power on the island with the Turkish Cypriots. The best "metaphor" I can think of to illustrate what I am saying is that Cyprus is a house. The Greek-Cypriots think of themselves as the master of the house, and see the Turkish-Cypriots simply as our household pet and not as our house-mate, the person we share the house with.

Anyway, Piratis has made a lot of comments, most of which I feel show how he has misunderstood the issue and is pretty ignorant about voting systems.

Firstly, the proposed UN settlement, which you are so critical of, foresaw an electoral system of one person-one vote. If you dispute this, please indicate the actual articles and paragraphs where it suggested that a TC person was to have more votes than a GC person.

Second, a reunified Cyprus is to be a federation. The two federal states would be equal at a federal level, just as they are in all federations and all federal democracies (Germany, the US, for example). This is what we agreed to in 1975 and reiterated again in 1977, this is what a federation is. Anyway, it is hypocritical for GCs pompously to proclaim that the Republic of Cyprus is now a full and equal member of the European Union, when it is only about 0.5% of the total EU population, and at the same time deny the TCs, 18% of the total Cyprus population (far greater than the RoC's 0.5%) the same equality within a reunified, federal Cypriot state that GCs are so proud of having within the EU. (Indeed, it's hypocritical of us to criticise the TC veto foreseen in the Republic of Cyprus constitution but at the same time to bang on pompously about how the RoC now has a veto in the EU and can force the enitre European Union to do as it wishes through the use of this veto).

Third, there is no country in the world where "one person, one vote" means that the governments are chosen simply on the raw number of votes cast. In all democracies, govenments are formed on the basis of how many parliamentary or senate seats each party gains, not on the raw percentage of votes they take. For elections of Presidents, such as in the RoC, it is very rare for there to be one totally popular candidate who will get over 50% of the votes in the first round. So, parties make deals with each other. In the 2003 Presidential election, for example, Tassos Papadopoulos represented a party (DHKO) that got barely 15% of the vote in the previous parliamentary elections.

What I am trying to envisage, therefore, is just how this spurious, anti-Annan argument of "one person, one vote" will actually work in practice, if there is no federal settlement on Cyprus (btw, if there is no federal settlement on Cyprus, there will be no settlement, just division). In this imaginary unitary system, the Turkish Cypriots will most likely actually be the ones who determine which parties form the government and who will be the President. Because, their 18% is enough to make them a very important block vote. The GC political parties (aside, perhaps, from DHSY) have so totally alienated the TCs that no TCs will want to support them. The TCs will, therefore, vote only for TC parties. If the Cypriot electorate is comprised of both the GC and TC populations, then the 30% that goes to AKEL and DHSY will drop to around 20% of the total vote, with a similar proportional drop in the votes for the other, smaller GC parties. We will therefore have the situation where any GC political party wishing to form the government will have to form a coalition with TC political parties. Similarly for the election of the President. So, in effect, if you do not have a federal system, TC political parties will actually play a much larger role in the daily lives of GCs - in the choice of government and President - than if we have two federal states, both taking major responsibility for their internal affairs, yet with a bicommunal federal government at the centre. I can just see AKEL running to the Turkish Cypriot political parties and backing a TC candidate for President of Cyprus just so AKEL can be in the government!

[MR-from-NG]

Welcome to the forum Despo. Excellent post.

[cypezokyli]

welcome to the forum despo

[Piratis]

Greek-Cypriots do not want a bizonal, bicommunal federation - despite having claimed this for 30 years - and do not want to share power on the island with the Turkish Cypriots.

Greek Cypriots accepted as a compromise a federation and not the loose association of 2 mostly independent countries that was proposed in the Annan plan. Greek Cypriots want to share power proportionately while what is rejected is a disproportional power sharing where the 18% of TCs would receive the 50% of the power.

The best "metaphor" I can think of to illustrate what I am saying is that Cyprus is a house. The Greek-Cypriots think of themselves as the master of the house, and see the Turkish-Cypriots simply as our household pet and not as our house-mate, the person we share the house with.

Thats the wrong metaphor. A correct one would be that we share a house with 8 women and 2 men. When decisions are going to be taken for the house the 2 men insist that the opinion of each man should count 5 times more than the opinion of each woman. This is wrong because it is sexist. Giving more power to some citizens than others simply because of the religion they have or the language they speak, would be racist.

Firstly, the proposed UN settlement, which you are so critical of, foresaw an electoral system of one person-one vote. If you dispute this, please indicate the actual articles and paragraphs where it suggested that a TC person was to have more votes than a GC person.

Is there any single election according to the Annan plan were the whole population of Cyprus would vote for president/parliament/anything and all votes would be counted equally?
Not only there was no one-person one vote, the people would be voting separately. If you dispute this indicate to me the actual articles and paragraphs were all Cypriots would vote together for president/parliament etc and each vote would count the same no matter were it comes from.

Second, a reunified Cyprus is to be a federation. The two federal states would be equal at a federal level, just as they are in all federations and all federal democracies (Germany, the US, for example). This is what we agreed to in 1975 and reiterated again in 1977, this is what a federation is.

I am afraid you are the ignorant one. Did you know that the only level were states are equal in the USA is the senate? Did you know that no state has a veto power on just about anything, Did you know that in the election of president each state gets a proportional power according to their population (= not all states are equal).
Also, I hope you know that in USA, Germany, Russia and all other Federations the separation is only geographical. There is no racist separation between the races of those countries, and people are free to move (with full voting rights) to any state they want.
So please don't tell me that the partition plan that was proposed for Cyprus has anything to do with what they have in the USA or Germany. I said it before and I will say it again: I would accept for Cyprus the system of ANY other EU country, and I will even add the USA system in this list if you want.

Anyway, it is hypocritical for GCs pompously to proclaim that the Republic of Cyprus is now a full and equal member of the European Union, when it is only about 0.5% of the total EU population, and at the same time deny the TCs, 18% of the total Cyprus population (far greater than the RoC's 0.5%) the same equality within a reunified, federal Cypriot state that GCs are so proud of having within the EU. (Indeed, it's hypocritical of us to criticise the TC veto foreseen in the Republic of Cyprus constitution but at the same time to bang on pompously about how the RoC now has a veto in the EU and can force the entire European Union to do as it wishes through the use of this veto).

EU is not a country. It is an association of separate and independent countries. This is what you want for Cyprus? 2 separate countries that between them will have the same kind of relationship that Latvia and Malta have? Would you truly call that a "united" Cyprus?? Now that would be hypocritical. You might as well join Turkey in their demands for recognition of the pseudo state of "trnc". Then if it gets recognized it will join the EU and we will have the same kind of "unity" that you propose, the same that we now have with Finland

Third, there is no country in the world where "one person, one vote" means that the governments are chosen simply on the raw number of votes cast. In all democracies, govenments are formed on the basis of how many parliamentary or senate seats each party gains, not on the raw percentage of votes they take.

And were do the parties get their power if not from the people directly? If the seats that a party has is disproportionate to the amount of votes it received then in such a country there is a flow in their system. (like in Turkey were there is a 10% threshold to get a seat in the parliament)

For elections of Presidents, such as in the RoC, it is very rare for there to be one totally popular candidate who will get over 50% of the votes in the first round. So, parties make deals with each other. In the 2003 Presidential election, for example, Tassos Papadopoulos represented a party (DHKO) that got barely 15% of the vote in the previous parliamentary elections.

Parties can make whatever deals they want. In the end it is the people that vote and each person has one and equal vote.

What I am trying to envisage, therefore, is just how this spurious, anti-Annan argument of "one person, one vote" will actually work in practice, if there is no federal settlement on Cyprus (btw, if there is no federal settlement on Cyprus, there will be no settlement, just division). In this imaginary unitary system, the Turkish Cypriots will most likely actually be the ones who determine which parties form the government and who will be the President. Because, their 18% is enough to make them a very important block vote. The GC political parties (aside, perhaps, from DHSY) have so totally alienated the TCs that no TCs will want to support them. The TCs will, therefore, vote only for TC parties. If the Cypriot electorate is comprised of both the GC and TC populations, then the 30% that goes to AKEL and DHSY will drop to around 20% of the total vote, with a similar proportional drop in the votes for the other, smaller GC parties. We will therefore have the situation where any GC political party wishing to form the government will have to form a coalition with TC political parties. Similarly for the election of the President. So, in effect, if you do not have a federal system, TC political parties will actually play a much larger role in the daily lives of GCs - in the choice of government and President - than if we have two federal states, both taking major responsibility for their internal affairs, yet with a bicommunal federal government at the centre. I can just see AKEL running to the Turkish Cypriot political parties and backing a TC candidate for President of Cyprus just so AKEL can be in the government!

And were is the problem with that? Thats how democracy works. People vote without any discriminations and then the parties can form any kind of alliances they want and try to convince the people to vote for them.
If the majority of people would want a TC as president then whats your problem?

Actually as I proposed above we can have a provision were a TC should be president at least once every 5 terms, as part of the quotas that can be given to Turkish Cypriots so they will never feel under-represented.

[despo]

Piratis, you just posted quite a lot of stuff. I'm afraid I can't respond to it all anymore than I already have. In any case, there's a limit to how much I can actually respond to your comments. It's quite clear that you don't understand the Annan Plan, and you certainly have no comprehension of what a federation is.

Just this. You wrote: "Greek Cypriots want to share power proportionately while what is rejected is a disproportional power sharing where the 18% of TCs would receive the 50% of the power."

Basically, what you are saying is that Turkish Cypriots should be a minority on the island. In other words, you do not want a bizonal, bicommunal federation. What you really want is a Greek state with a Turkish minority. If Greek Cypriots continue to think like this and to imagine that this is a reasonable argument, there is not going to be a settlement to the Cyprus problem for a generation - no international organisation, certainly not the EU or the UN, will be prepared to support "negotiations" if these are the GC positions - and the problem will just resolve itself naturally in about 20 years. By that time, most people will have never met anyone from the "other side" and most Greek Cypriots will not be interested in picking up their suitcases to go and live in a tiny house that their grandparents once lived in 50 years before. So, the status quo will be officially recognised.

As I said, you have quite clearly not understood the concept of a federation nor even the basic principles of the UN proposed settlements for the past 30 years now, not just Annan. Indeed, it would be terrible if 18% controlled the existence of 80% or if 80% subjugated 18%. This is why a bizonal, bicommunal federation has been proposed as the solution, and we have agreed to it for 30 years. Bizonal, bicommunal means two different communities in two different zones, i.e. GCs in one zone and TCs in another. If you don't like that idea, then you should be asking Papadopoulos officially to state that Greek Cypriots have abandoned the concepts of bizonality and bicommunaility.

In the proposed bizonal, bicommunal federation, however, each community will look after its internal affairs, and federal decisions will be made jointly (i.e. like in the US Senate, where all states have equal representation regardless of size). Btw, on the proposed federal Presidential Council in the UN settlement that the GCs rejected, there would have been more GC members than TC.

In the Annan Plan the TC state would not have had a veto. That was just another propaganda lie circulated to ensure its rejection.

Keep at it, Piratis, and you will ensure there is no settlement ever. Just eventual de jure recognition of the de facto situation.

[Piratis]

Basically, what you are saying is that Turkish Cypriots should be a minority on the island.

What do you mean "should be"? Turkish Cypriots are the 18% of the population and not the 50%+.

In other words, you do not want a bizonal, bicommunal federation.

bizonal, bicommunal federation, is a federation like the USA made by 2 states instead of 52, and each community is a majority of each state. I accept these parameters, therefore I accept BBF. What I do not accept is your version of BBF, which in fact should be called BBP (P for partition) since it has nothing to do with a federation like it exists in any other other Federation in the world.
The Annan plan was based on the Swiss Confederation and it is made even weaker than that, making it in effect the loose association of two separate countries.

If Greek Cypriots continue to think like this and to imagine that this is a reasonable argument, there is not going to be a settlement to the Cyprus problem for a generation - no international organisation, certainly not the EU or the UN, will be prepared to support "negotiations" if these are the GC positions - and the problem will just resolve itself naturally in about 20 years.

The UN recognize RoC and only RoC in Cyprus, the same with EU. Resolutions exist that call for the withdrawal of all foreign troops and for the illegality of the so called "trnc".
The reason the Cyprus problem is not solved is the insistence of Turkey for illegality, and not that the UN or EU would not agree to a reunited Cyprus based on RoC and the 1960 agreements if Turkey was convinced to obey the UN resolutions.

As I said, you have quite clearly not understood the concept of a federation

Actually you gave me the impression that you have no clue on what a federation is. Do you know how the systems of USA or Russia work? If you did you wouldn't say that the Annan plan resembles those systems.

Indeed, it would be terrible if 18% controlled the existence of 80% or if 80% subjugated 18%. This is why a bizonal, bicommunal federation has been proposed as the solution, and we have agreed to it for 30 years. Bizonal, bicommunal means two different communities in two different zones, i.e. GCs in one zone and TCs in another.

So partition! I was wondering why you would choose the Annan kind of permanent partition with our signature, rather the current status. Form this and your previous posts it became quite clear that you would prefer TCs and GCs to live separately. I had suspected why, and the confirmation came from a post of yours in another thread:

I lost my house in Famagusta in 1974 too, and would really like to reclaim it (what I'd actually do with it is another matter). The problem, however, is that it is unfortunatlely the Greek Cypriots who blocked the possibility of our return, by rejecting the UN settlement in April 2004. If we had not done this, then we would have had the right to go back already from August 2004.

Now it is clear that the Annan kind of partition suited your needs. You would be one of those refugees that would get their land back (who cares about the rest, right?) and since you apparently much prefer TCs and GCs being separated and divided, and probably you live abroad so you wouldn't have to live in the undemocratic country the Annan plan would create, the Annan plan suited your needs just fine!

In the Annan Plan the TC state would not have had a veto. That was just another propaganda lie circulated to ensure its rejection.

The TCs would have veto in several levels in just about everything. For example in the presidential council the TCs could block ANY decision they wanted.

Go read the Annan plan. It is obvious that the only part that interested you is that you would get your own land back and you didn't give a damn about the rest of Cypriots and the rest of the Annan plan parameters.