The communist movement demanded at the beginning of 1924 the stop of
the payments of the poor villagers to their loans, the establishment of an
Agricultural Bank and betterment of the working conditions of the workers by
enforcement of a progressive law, reducing the daily working hours from 12-14
hours to 8 hours.
THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CYPRUS AND THE TURKISH CYPRIOTS
The Pirsos newspaper declared itself in January 1924 as the official
organ of the Communist Party of Cyprus (KKK) which was about to be established.
The communists started to publish the fortnightly newspaper “Neos Anthropos”
staring from 1 January 1925 and they declared on 16 August 1926 the foundation
of the KKK officially after a secret meeting.
The KKK mentioned the T/C in its first programme and demanded the
strengthening of the unity of action and the cooperation against imperialism
which it defined as the common enemy of the whole people of the island, the
Greeks, the Turks and the Armenians alike and it demanded to reduce the ethnic
chauvinism.
According the information we know, the relations of the KKK with the
T/C were limited. There were differences of view between the KKK, which
demanded first the independence and then autonomy for Cyprus and the G/C
nationalists who demanded the union of the island with Greece (enosis). This
situation did not help to the formation of an “anti-imperialist front of unity”
and the relations with the T/C working people could not be developed because of
various reasons. Maybe the most outstanding reason was that there was almost no
publication in the Turkish language for the T/C in order to learn the
scientific socialist ideas. The influence from Turkey through the linguistic
and cultural relations was limited, also because the Communist Party of Turkey
was proscribed since 1923 and the Kemalism was the only valid ideology.
The development
of the political and mostly the economical awareness of the T/C working people
was possible in the later years due to the activities of the Cyprus Turkish
Trade Unions and the Turkish Branch of the PEO. (see Kemal Cankat, The
Influences of the October Revolution on the Political Organization of the Working
Class of Cyprus, Söz newspaper, 6-13 November 1987)
In the beginning of the 1930’s, the T/C workers had organized
themselves in the Construction Workers’ Trade Union and they were active in the
first strikes in Limassol. They took part also in the formation of the
“Limassol Workers’ Centre”. Moreover, one of them, Hasan Hilmi of Gilan
village, was sentenced by the Limassol Court in 1933 because of his “seditious”
activities and making “communist propaganda”. (Hronos, Nicosia, 4.10.1933)
Yannis Lefkis, one of the founders of the KKK and pioneers of socialist ideas
in Cyprus, remembers that a progressive T/C, named Mustafa, who used to work in
the Agency of the Hidieval Postal Lines, had translated the constitution of the
Limassol Workers’ Centre from Greek into Turkish. He later immigrated to Kemal
Ataturk’s Turkey where he worked at the Foreign Ministry. (see Michalis
Michaelides, “Cyprus Turkish Working Class and the Cyprus Labour Movement
1920-1963”, in The Cyprus Review, Fall 1993, Nicosia)
As the drought and poorness in Cyprus and the economic crisis in the
capitalist world were at their highest point, the masses were turning to the
ideas of socialism, the British colonial administration tried to stop the
development of the left movement by banning some books and making some changes
in the criminal law. After the rebellion of the G/C nationalists in October
1931, the political activities were banned and the constitutional order was
ended by abolishing the Legislative Council. In this same year, an article was
published in one of the T/C press organs, Soz newspaper, under the title of
“Those who leave the herd are doomed to be eaten by the wolf”. From there we
understand that there were some left-minded T/C involved in political
activities:
“In the last couple of weeks the communists were issuing leaflets in
Nicosia as well as in other districts and they invited the handycraftsmen to
Bolshevism. We shall not analyse or support the statements issued by the
communists; but we shall only deal with those T/C, who had their names among
the signatures and we shall explain our view and persuation about this… We do
not know them who approached and intermingled with the communists. But whoever
they are, they have made us angry with their behaviour and put us in a very
dangerous situation… If a few illiterate T/C who could not behave themselves
were tempted by the propaganda of the communists and left our togetherness, our
community has no deficiency and fault. If there is a fault, it is on those who
left us and went astray into the dark lane and we have no doubt that they will
be eaten by the wolves because they left the herd.” (13 August 1931)
THE STRUGGLE OF
THE T/C WORKERS IN SEPARATE TRADE UNIONS
When the British colonial administration gave permission again for
the foundation of political parties in 1941, we observe that the KKK which continued
its activities illegal, kept on its work in the legal field under the name of
AKEL (Progressive Party of the Working People) which was formed on 14 April 1941.
In the Second
Congress of the AKEL, at the beginning of 1943, the policy of union of Cyprus
with Greece was adopted and this caused the start of difficulties in the
cooperation with the T/C both in the trade-union and political movements. That
is why, the first T/C Trade Union was already established on 27 December 1942.
This first separate trade union organization on the ethnic basis which started
with the departure of 12 T/C carpenters from the G/C trade union under the
leadership of Niyazi Dagli, widened later by the departure of hundreds of T/C
from the PEO under the leadership of Hasan Sasmaz on 13 August 1944. When we
came to the year 1945, the number of the T/C organized in the T/C Trade Unions
was raised to 843.
The first press organ of the T/C
leftists, called “The Road of the Worker DOES NOT DEVIATE” (İşçinin Yolu
ŞAŞMAZ) was published in October 1947. It had the sub-title “This journal
defends the political and social causes of the arm and brain workers” and it
stopped its publication after the second issue, on the ground that it was “too
ideological”. (see Ahmet An, Examples of our intellectual life in the 1940’s,
in “Articles on the Turkish Cypriot Culture” (Turkish), Nicosia 1999,
p.118)
The
miners’ strike which lasted 125 days from 13 January to 17 May 1948 was a good
example of class solidarity between the G/C and T/C trade unions. Although the
newspapers Halkin Sesi and Hursoz which stood close to the T/C leadership
supported the strike at the beginning, they withdrew their support later and
there was a need to publish a new organ which would raise the voice of the T/C
workers. This endeavour was accomplished with the publication of the “Emekci”
(Toiler) daily newspaper, the first number dated 19 May 1948. This first T/C
workers’ newspaper could appear two days after the end of the strike and it
suspended its publication in 1949 for a while and continued its publication
later as a weekly. “Emekci” was forced to end its publication after a short
while, because of the problems it faced due to its criticisms against the T/C
leadership.
At
the 7th Congress of the AKEL in December 1951, a resolution was
approved saying, “more attention should be given to the Turkish-Cypriot
minority which is still under the influence of the chauvinist T/C bourgeosie
and the landlords.”
PEO
had started to cooperate with the T/C Trade Unions since the summer of 1948 and
in November 1952 decided to open a central bureau for its T/C members. Ahmet
Sadi Erkurt, who was the propriator and one of the writers of the “Emekci”
newspaper and had been a member of the Central Council of the PEO since 1952,
was appointed to the post of its salaried secretary.
Meanwhile the first copies of the
declarations signed by the “AKEL Turkish Branch Administration”
in the Turkish language were distributed
among the T/C workers distant as the Galatia village. (Köylü newspaper, 8
November 1954) We reproduce the Greek translation of this historic document in
full text from the Halkin Sesi newspaper of 20 October 1954 (No.3228)
“Turkish
Cypriot brothers,
As
the AKEL’ist Turks we talk to you for the first time. Thus you hear for the
first time a new voice. This voice that you could not find the chance to hear
up to now is the voice of the reality and justice which helps you to solve the
misleadings and the “knots” of the colonialists and their collaborators. The
reason why we, the AKEL’ist Turks who have shown interest in the real interests
of our people and who have been struggling to win and defend these interests,
talk in this direction to our Turkish brothers is that the struggle being waged
for the people of Cyprus to live free and happy, is the our direct concern as
the T/C people.
We
should not be viewers at this struggle of the people of Cyprus against
colonialism and for a better life, but we should not behave against it. Because
we are Cypriots. The place of the T/C
labourers who suffer under the colonial administration like the G/C’s cannot be
on the side of the colonialists. The T/C workers live a difficult and hard life
as much as their G/C friends under the colonial administration. Our children
are raised under the same conditions of food deficiency. The T/C labourers,
like the G/C labourers, are faced with the danger of unemployment without being
confident of the future. In the times of old-age and illness, the life of the
T/C workers and labourers, like those of the G/C’s, are not under the security
of any social system by the government. The head of a T/C family, like those of
the G/C family, cannot deal with the high cost of living and high rents. The
struggle of the T/C and G/C day-labourers are common for the distribution of
the properties of the monastries, churches and Evkaf to those who can till it
and who are in need of it. What else,
the colonialists keep the Evkaf properties which belong to the T/C commnity in
their hands and they govern these properties. Cyprus has become a base of war.
Therefore both the T/C and G/C are confronted with the same danger. In case of
outbreak of war the atom and hydrogen bombs will not differ between G/C and
T/C, G/C houses, schools and churches, as well as T/C houses, schools and
mosques will become ashes. Under the colonial administration, both the G/C and
T/C are deprived of their most democratic rights of expression and freedoms of
meeting and press. At the same time, the administration of our schools like those of the G/C are in the
hands of the colonialists and the culture of our children is adjusted to the
interests of the colonialists. The colonialists recognize us officially instead
of Turks as Mohammedans and the G/C as orthodox Christians. This means that our
pains are common as our struggle for a good life and a happy future is also
common. The people of Cyprus wages a just struggle for a better and comfortable
life, but the people has to obtain its national sovereignty in order to solve
its cases.
The colonialists use everything in
order to secure the help of Turkey and the Cypriot bourgeosie who are the aghas
of the farms. Their aim is to weaken the struggle by separating the struggle of
the Turkish Cypriot people from the anti-colonial liberation struggle of
Cyprus.
A three-man T/C “delegation” as the
bourgeois representatives of the aghas of the farms and as the friends of the
colonialists went to London and to the United Nations and asked for the
continuation of the colonial status of Cyprus in order to serve this effect. It
is very interesting to stress on the answer of the three-man delegation to the
question of a journalist at the United Nations and this answer is a proof of
our allegation.
“The question put to the
“delegation” by the journalist was: “If the majority of the population in
Cyprus was T/C, then what would you ask for?” The answer of the “delegation”
was: “Again we would ask for the continuation of the status quo.” That means,
if we were the majority, we would not ask for the union of Cyprus with Turkey,
but for the continuation of the British administration. There can be no other
way of defending the friendship with the British and its colonialism. It is
obvious with this answer that the delegation wants only to blow the movement of
freedom of the people of Cyprus.
The real interest of the T/C is not
with the colonialists, but with the other brother people of Cyprus. The road of
these gentlemen that they follow is the road of the colonialists. They do not
have any relation with the embarrassments and pains of our people. They live
comfortably under the colonial administration.
The future and the happiness of the
people of Cyprus cannot be found in the colonial administration. The suspicion
which was made up skillfully by the colonialists and their local associates
(With the liberation of Cyprus, the Turks will be under national oppression and
they will suffer) was created especially in order to separate the T/C from the
G/C in their struggle for liberation and therefore for the success of the
policy of the colonialists.
But our people will not continue to be drugged after this
propaganda. Our people can make the difference, like our people of Cyprus do,
between the democratic people of Greece who wages a struggle for liberation
under the exploitation of the Anglo-Americans and the Papagos government.
The just demand of the people of
Cyprus for the self-determination is not the change of patron (efendi) for the
T/C as our enemies want to demonstrate. This road must be passed by for our
social and national liberation under the conditions of peace. For the
continuation of this, the T/C and G/C people of Cyprus will struggle for a
better future together with the people of Greece.
The voice of NAZIM HIKMET, a man of
thought, a great poet and a distinguished son of the brother people of Turkey
shows us the way.
NAZIM, in his message of greeting
sent to the Turkish people of Cyprus, starts by addressing, “My T/C brothers”,
stressing how our brothers in Turkey live under today’s conditions and he
continues as follows:
“…The request of your brothers in
Turkey is this: “Give your hands to your Greek brothers who wage a struggle for
peace in Cyprus and for liberation, for saving your Cyprus from colonial
status, functioning as a military base for imperialism. Fight together with
them in the same front.
In the hands of the enemies of
humanity, the island of Cyprus has been turned today into a ship of war, an
aircraft-carrier, a ship which will pour death like rain.
For
turning your green Cyprus into a ship of peace, a ship of life, a ship of
friendship between peoples, participate at the struggle of our Greek brothers
with your whole strength. Only through this you can help your brothers in
Turkey. Only through this, you can be of some help to us, the Turkish patriots
who are waging a struggle for the national independence and freedom of Turkey,
for the happiness of the people of Turkey and for the world peace. I kiss your
eyes my brothers.”
Every T/C worker, labourer, farmer and real intellectual should take
his/her share of lesson from this statement of NAZIM.
AKEL which is the party of the poor
G/C and T/C working people and came out of their bossom, constitutes the
security of our free and happy future. Like the workers of Cyprus and their
internationalist party AKEL, the Communist Party of Greece, which is the
vanguard of the labourers and the working class, a progressive movement and which
fought with sacrifice and braveness and lost its most distinguished sons by
poring their blood, will not allow oppression and pressure on the other peoples
and minorities. It does not have any interest in such a thing.
AKEL declares now as it did in the
past that it will struggle in shoulder with the democratic Greek people in
order to secure wide freedom of national, social development, the freedom of
language and conscience (autonomy). AKEL is struggling for a better future and
happiness for all the people of Cyprus without making difference of nationality
and religion. AKEL is not only the party of the G/C, but of all the suffering
T/C and G/C, of all the labourers of Cyprus.
AKEL has proven its sincerity in the
practice and the truth in its statements beyond giving only statements that it
has been struggling in the field of work in daily life for a better living for
all the labourers, without making difference between T/C and G/C.
Brothers,
If our forces are scattered under
today’s circumstances, it will only help the colonialists. Therefore T/C and
G/C, all the people of Cyprus has to unite their forces. We, the T/C labourers
who live, work and suffer together with the G/C labourers, have to enter the
struggle at the same front with the other people of the island for the use of
our right of self-determination by us, for a better future and happiness, by
isolating the divisive elements of the colonialist organs from the people.
We invite all the T/C people and
even the leaders of all the political parties and other organisations who
really deal with the problems of the people to participate at this honourable
struggle against colonialism on the way of patriotism. We have to abandon the
policy of dividing the two brotherly peoples and participate at the common
struggle. As T/C and G/C, our interest and future is in this road.
LET’S BE TOGETHER AGAINST SUFFERING
AND TORMENT!
LET’S UNITE FOR A HAPPY AND BETTER
FUTURE!
AKEL Turkish Branch Department”
When we came to the end of 1954, we
see that there were about 1500 T/C workers organized in the PEO. Meanwhile, the
PEO started to publish often for its T/C members often special statements and a
monthly “Workers’ Bulletin” in Turkish (Isci Bulteni). It was even planned to
publish a weekly trade-union newspaper called “Voice of the Worker” (Iscinin
Sesi). When the weekly newspaper “Inkilapci” (Revolutioner) was started to be
published on 13 September 1955, they withdrew this plan.
The “Inkilapci” newspaper could be published only 14 weeks and it
became the voice of the workers which published articles and news about all the
important social and economical subjects of those days. But after the British
colonial administration declared on 14 December 1955 the emergency situation,
this newspaper was closed together with “Neos Democratis”, the daily newspaper
of the AKEL. The AKEL, being the first and then the leftist villagers’, youth
and women’s organizations were outlawed and many leftists were arrested and put
into prison. As it can be understood from the article under the title “Threat”,
published in the last issue of “Inkilapci” on 12 December 2003, the then T/C
leadership and its underground organizations sent letters of threat to the
publisher team of the “Inkilapci” bearing sentences like “Stop the publication
of Inkilapci, you will be killed, your head will be crushed”.
After the T/C and G/C workers marched together on the 1 May 1958 and
stated their decisiveness to wage a common struggle against imperialism and
colonialism, the TMT (Turkish Resistence Organization) published a statement
and asked the resignation of the T/C workers from the G/C trade-union, the PEO
and warned those who collaborate with the G/C that they would be punished. Then
T/C newspapers of those days were full of resignations from the PEO. And the
first terror action started on 22 May 1958 with the murder attempt to Ahmet
Sadi, the head of the Turkish section of the PEO. Later on 24 May Fazil Onder,
the editor of the “Inkilapci” newspaper was killed. Other progressive T/C were
either killed or wounded in Nicosia and Limassol.
Simultaneously, as Turkey and the T/C leadership continued their
policy that the partition would be the only solution to the Cyprus question,
the G/C and the T/C left who were against the partition of the island were
raising their voices and making opposition. For example the T/C branch of the
AKEL told in a letter dated 19 January 1957, given to Prof.Nihat Erim who was
in Cyprus during that time, “the Cyprus people, the T/C and G/C, are an
indivisible whole and have lived together on this soil since centuries and
still live.” They conveyed ideas such as the following: “The idea of
partitioning the island is both not possible to implement and not be a form of
final solution to the Cyprus question. Because the T/C and G/C peoples do not
live in separate areas. It will end up with a problem of displacement of
people. The history has taught us to whose interests such events can serve.”
(Nihat Erim, Cyprus as I have known and seen, Ankara 1975, pp.55-57)
The founding of the independent Republic of Cyprus in 1960 which was
outside the demands of the T/C nationalists for enosis and of the T/C
nationalists for taksim (partition) was the start of a new period. The
democrats, who continued their struggle for democracy against the partitionist
T/C leadership and who possessed the Republic of Cyprus and published the first
issue of the weekly “Cumhuriyet” (Republic) newspaper on 16 August 1960, the
foundation day of the Republic, established the Cyprus Turkish People’s Party
on 27 September 1960.
Those circles who were embarrassed by the publications of the
“Cumhuriyet” which warned the T/C community, organized the murder of Ahmet M.Gurkan
(35) and Ayhan M.Hikmet (33) on the night of 23 April 1962. That was the day
when No.89 of the “Cumhuriyet” was published and hinted who was the responsible
person from the bombing of the two mosques in the G/C sector of Nicosia.
This second terror act against the democrats who were opposing the
partitionist policy of the T/C leadership put the T/C community into a new
period of oppression and fear which was aggravated after the begin of the
intercommunal conflict in December 1963. Dr.Ihsan Ali, who was one of the
writers of the “Cumhuriyet” newspaper, gave a statement to the G/C
“Fileleftheros” newspaper, saying that they would do all they could in order to
continue “Cumhuriyet”s publication, but this was not realized.
The murder of Dervis Ali Kavazoglu, T/C member of the Central
Committee of the AKEL, in April 1965 together with his trade-unionist G/C
friend Costas Mishaoulis, constituted the third wave of terror. From that
moment on, the political atmosphere was completely in the monopoly of the T/C
leadership.
After the first half of 1968, the intercommunal relations started to
soften and the process of negotiations resumed. The T/C oppositional forces
started to raise again their struggle. The important milestones were the
formation of the Trade Union of the Cyprus Turkish Elementary School Teachers
in September 1968 (it will be renamed later as KTOS) and establishment of the
Republican Turkish Party (CTP) in December 1970.
After the partitioning of the island with the events of July 1974,
the T/C concentrated in the north and formed various political parties,
trade-unions and associations. The struggles of those in the left-wing of the
political spectrum are well-known with their successes and failures.
If we look at the picture in the last period, we see the following:
According to the “1991 Yearbook on International Communist Affairs”, “Although
the AKEL was not outlawed within the T/C
community, the party preferred not to be active in the north, because of the
difficulties of having contact over the “green line”.
There are three left-wing parties among the T/C: Republican Turkish
Party, Communal Liberation Party and New Cyprus Party… The three left-wing
parties defend a federal solution for the Cyprus problem and believe that the
intercommunal rapprochment is an instrument. According to the RTP leader,
“three left-wing parties are sui generis and one of them copies any party in
the south of Cyprus or any other party in any part of the world.” (Information
gathered by the author, Thomas W.Adams, from Ozker Ozgur on 6 November 1990)
In the 1990 Yearbook, there is the following assessment of the T/C
left:
“If one day the north and the south of Cyprus will be re-united
under a “Federal Republic”, it can be estimated that the united voting power of
the left-wing parties of the both communities can make the majority votes
during a presidential election.”
This fear of the American imperialism formulated in the 1989
Yearbook for the first time and here more openly, explains why the USA follows
a confederal solution based on two states and the partition of the island. It
also explains the roots of the policy of the T/C leadership who propagates the
“enmity for the G/C” and “non-contacting of the two communities”. (A.An, The
Outlook of the USA at the T/C left, Sosyalist Gozlem, October 1993, No.:5)
It is an interesting to note that all the left wing parties which
represent the T/C left on the political plan, do not adopt the past accumulation
and the policy of those oppressed and silenced in the 1958.
The Republican Turkish Party (CTP) was formed as a centrist party on
27 December 1970 under the leadership of Ahmet Mithat Berberoglu, a lawyer.
After 1974, the left wing youth that graduated from the Turkish universities
and returned to Cyprus got the leadership of the party by electing Ozker Ozgur,
a secondary school teacher, as the president and Naci Talat Usar, a lawyer, as
the secretary-general of the CTP in the 3rd Ordinary Congress of the
party in October 1976. The CTP started to have a clearly pro-Soviet stance on
international affairs and it seemed to be often in agreement with the AKEL.
Although the RTP was against the declaration of a separate state in 1985, it
voted together with the TKP for it and in the following years adopted a more
centrist policy, which led the way to the formation of a coalition government
in January 1994 with the Democratic Party (splinter from the governing UBP).
Mr.Ozgur became the Deputy Prime Minister, but later he lost the power struggle
in the party by losing the election in the 14th Extraordinary
Congress and leaving the Chair of the Party to Mehmet Ali Talat in December
1995 who formed the third CTP-DP coalition government which lasted until August
1996.
The Communal Liberation Party (TKP) was established on 19 March 1976
just before the June 1976 elections and came out as the second largest party
after the rightist National Unity Party (UBP). Alpay Durduran was the founding
president who had the support of a leftist (Halk-Der) fraction in the party. In
1983 Ismail Bozkurt was elected as the President and Mr.Durduran was the
Secretary for Foreign Relations. The TKP experienced a coalition government
with the UBP between July 1985 and August 1986. Mustafa Akinci (TKP) was the
mayor of North Nicosia between 1976 and 1990 and he was elected as the
President of the TKP in 1987 to reorganize the TKP on a social-democratic line.
When Mr.Durduran and his supporters were excluded from the TKP
because of ideological differences, they formed the New Cyprus Party (YKP) on
29 October 1989. The YKP was a small left wing party with about 150 members
which criticized the Denktas regime sharply and spoke against the interventions
of Turkey into the internal matters of the T/C community. The YKP could win
only 0.87% of the votes in 1990 and 1.20% in 1993. After Mr.Ozgur and a group
of his supporters left the CTP, they joined Mr.Durduran’s YKP and the name of
the party was changed into the Patriotic Union Movement (YBH) on 6 September
1998. Izzet Izcan was elected as the leader. The YBH could get 2.51% of the
votes in the general elections of 1998.
Later Messrs.Izcan and Ozgur with some other supporters left the YBH
to form the United Cyprus Party (BKP) on 27 September 2002. Izzet Izcan was
named as the Secretary-General of the BKP which is centre-left and seems
friendly with the AKEL.
A group of Stalinists, organized
around the monthly magazine “The Socialist Truth in Cyprus” which was being
published since February 1996 regularly, formed their own party on 26 November
2002 with the name “Cyprus Socialist Party” (KSP) and declared Mehmet
Suleymanoglu as the Secretary-General of the KSP.
Before the general elections on 14
December 2003, the CTP convened an extraordinary congress on 10 July 2003 and
changed its name to Republican Turkish Party-United Forces (CTP-BG), opening
the way for some leaders of trade-unions to be candidate from the party’s list.
The TKP, the BKP and the KSP
suspended their activities and formed an election party, called “Peace and
Democracy Movement” (BDH) under the leadership of Mustafa Akinci on 18 July
2003. It aimed the solution of the Cyprus problem and the EU membership of a
re-united Cyprus. A liberal party was formed by the pro-EU businessmen, called
“Solution and European Union Party” (CABP) under the leadership of Ali Erel,
Chairman of the T/C Chamber of Commerce on 21 August 2003, which led the
political group “Common Vision”.
One has to remember also the big
demonstrations of the T/C working people as an expression of their resentment
to the existing regime in the occupied areas in Cyprus. First of these
demonstrations was organized on 18 July 2000 by 35 organizations under the
slogan of “This country is ours”. Almost 10 thousand T/C protested the arrest
of some journalists from the Avrupa newspaper who were released just before the
meeting. These organisations later formed the Platform “This Country is ours”
with the participation of political parties, trade-unions and other
professional associations. More NGO’s united to a greater grouping called
“Common Vision” under the leadership of the T/C Chamber of Commerce. Both mass
organizations aimed at the solution of the Cyprus problem and the EU
membership. They organized four big meetings on 21 November 2002, 26 December
2002, 14 January 2003 and 27 February 2003 with the participation of tens of
thousands of T/C who wanted to express their will for a quick solution to the
Cyprus problem and for the EU membership.
As the CTP wanted to exploit the mass participation at these
meetings into its own electoral advantage in the forthcoming general elections
on 14 December 2004, the unity of the T/C opposition was disrupted. On 10 July
2003, the CTP made some changes in its constitution and made it possible to put
non-party members to its election list. The party changed its name to CTP-BG
(Republican Turkish Party-United Forces). The TKP, BKP and KSP suspended their
activities and united their forces on 18 July 2003 under the leadership of
Mustafa Akinci by forming the BDH (Peace and Democracy Movement). The businessmen
of the T/C Chamber of Commerce who helped the formation of the “Common Vision”
and could not agree with the policies of the CTP, decided to form their own
party called CABP (Solution and EU Party) on 21 August 2003 under the
leadership of their chairman Ali Erel. All the three parties came together in
September and signed a protocol in which they decided to get rid of Mr.Denktas
before the negotiations restart on the basis of the Annan Plan.
Although
the CTP complained to the Supreme Court, the TKP to the European Council and
the YBH to the European Court of Human Rights about the citizenships given to
the mainland Turkish settlers before the elections took place, there was no
reference to this factor after the elections of 14 November 2003. Out of the 50
seats at the “TRNC” parliament, the CTP won 19 (35.18%) seats, the BDH 6 seats
(14.13%). The CABP could not win any seats (1.97%) while the YBH boycotted the
elections and did not participate.
The CTP forgot all its promises and did not even meet its protocol
partners to review the situation after the election and formed a coalition
government with Denktas Junior’s DP (7 seats with 12.93%), cooperating for the
fourth time. The UBP (National Unity Party) of Dr.Dervis Eroglu, which governed
the TRNC all along except a few years, formed the opposition front with 18
seats (32.93%) in the “TRNC” parliament.
All the left wing T/C political parties today support a solution to
the Cyprus problem and the EU membership within the framework of the Annan
Plan. Unfortunately, no other alternative to this plan is in discussion on both
sides of the partition line. The CTP is supporting more or less a liberal policy
with most of the progressive T/C trade-unions under its influence. Its previous
left-wing social-democratic positions are represented today by the BDH and the
YBH. There is no T/C party which supports parallel policies with the G/C ones,
since the re-unification under the umbrella of the Republic of Cyprus is not
propagated by the T/C left-wing parties, except the YBH, some columnists and
independent personalities at the moment.
It is a burning necessity to unite the Cypriots of all ethnic origin
for an independent, re-united and federal Cyprus.
