..........Except for the small British community and for those smaller groups of Armenians, Maronites and others who have, on the whole, associated themselves with the Greek rather than the Turkish-Cypriot communities, the people of Cyprus are comprised essentially of persons of Greek and Turkish origin, in the ratio of approximately 80 per cent to 18 per cent..........
18.............. Yet it is equally important to understand that these distinctive features of the two communities do not imply that in normal times they have been physically separated from each other. The Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots alike were spread widely over the island - not according to any fixed geographical pattern but rather as a result of the usual factors behind the movement and settlement of people over many generations: for example, the search for farming land and for employment, and other such economic and social motives. Within this island-wide intermingling of the population, there do exist local concentrations of people where one community or the other predominates. Thus, out of 619 villages at the time of the last census, 393 were wholly or predominantly Greek-Cypriot, 120 were Turkish-Cypriot, and 106 were classified as mixed. But the villages themselves are not usually to be found in clusters where one community or the other predominates; the more general pattern in any given area is a mixture of Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot and mixed villages. The capital, Nicosia, and the other main towns such as Famagusta, Limassol and Larnaca, are also mixed in population, the two communities tending, in these towns and also in the mixed villages, to concentrate in separate quarters. Although inter-marriage has been rare - the differences in religion being presumably the main barrier- there is evidence of considerable intermingling of the two communities, more especially in employment and commerce but also to some degree at the social level........
........On the other hand, the Turkish-Cypriots envisage a federal system within which there would exist autonomous Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot States, the conditions for whose existence would be created by the geographical separation, which they insistently demand of the two communities.
150..... It is essential to be clear what this proposal implies. To refer to it simply as "federation" is to oversimplify the matter. What is involved is not merely to establish a federal form of government but also to secure the geographical separation of the two communities. The establishment of a federal regime requires a territorial basis, and this basis does not exist. In an earlier part of this report, I explained the island-wide intermingling in normal times of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot populations. The events since December 1963 have not basically altered this characteristic; even the enclaves where numbers of Turkish-Cypriots concentrated following the troubles, are widely scattered over the island, while thousands of other Turkish-Cypriots have remained in mixed villages.
.......Much has been written and argued on both sides in Cyprus about the economic and social feasibility (or lack of it) of bringing about through the movement of the populations concerned the only possible basis for a federal state. I have studied these arguments and I find it difficult to see how the practical objections to the proposal can be overcome.
153. In the first place, the separation of the communities is utterly unacceptable to the majority community of Cyprus and on present indications could not be imposed except by force. The opposition to it is in part political: Greek-Cypriots see in the proposal a first step towards the partitioning of the island, although this is vigorously denied by the Turkish-Cypriot leadership as well as by the Turkish Government. But to my mind the objections raised also on economic, social and moral grounds are in themselves serious obstacles to the proposition. It would seem to require a compulsory movement of the people concerned -- many thousands on both sides -- contrary to all the enlightened principles of the present time, including those set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, this would be a compulsory movement of a kind that would seem likely to impose severe hard ships on the families involved as it would be impossible for all of them, or perhaps even the majority of them, to obtain an exchange of land or occupation suited to their needs or experience; it would entail also an economic and social disruption which could be such as to render neither part of the country viable. Such a state of affairs would constitute a lasting if not permanent, cause of discontent and unrest.
154. Moreover, the proposed federated States would be separated by an artificial line cutting through interdependent parts of homogeneous areas including, according to the Turkish-Cypriot proposals, the cities of Nicosia and Famagusta. Would not such a line of division inevitably create many administrative difficulties and constitute a constant cause of friction between two mutually suspicious populations? In fact, the arguments for the geographical separation of the two communities under a federal system of government have not convinced me that it would not inevitably lead to partition and thus risk creating a new national frontier between Greece and Turkey, a frontier of a highly provocative nature, through highly volatile peoples who would not hesitate to allow their local differences to risk involving the two home countries in conflict and consequently endangering international peace and security.
155 Again, if the purpose of a settlement of the Cyprus question is to be the preservation rather than the destruction of the State, and if it is to foster rather than to militate against the development of a peacefully united people, I cannot help wondering whether the physical division of the minority from the majority should not be considered a desperate step in the wrong direction. I am reluctant to believe, as the Turkish-Cypriot leadership claims, in the "impossibility" of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots learning to live together again in peace. In those parts of the country where movement controls have been relaxed and tensions reduced, they are already proving other- wise.
Hi, I've put some key points from the Gala PLaza UN Mediation report of 1965...
Peace!
