“QUO VADIS CYPRUS?”

My ninth book, published in Istanbul in June 2002, had the title “Quo Vadis Cyprus?”.  In almost one year, the publishing house had run out of the 1,250 copies it printed and there was a second print run. On the back cover of the book, I quoted Mr Turan Gunes, the Turkish Foreign Minister during the 1974 invasion:

“Let’s take the half of the island now, create a fait-accompli and they cannot pull us out from there in 20 years. God knows what happens later. Different generations of Turkish and Greek Cypriots, who do not know each other, will not be able to live together anymore.”

Now that since 23 April 2003 the contacts between the two sides of the so-called  “Green Line” are allowed by the Turkish Cypriot regime, albeit limited, I remembered the above sentences of Mr Gunes in Geneva in 1974, which were recorded by the columnist Guneri Civaoglu in Sabah newspaper on 19 July 1994.

In the first week more than 130,000 Cypriots crossed to the other side and especially the younger generations showed a lot of interest in getting to know each other. I was amazed to hear many Turkish Cypriots speaking the Cypriot dialect of the Greek language very well and enjoying the togetherness with their compatriots after 29 years of forceful   division. A lot of moving stories were shown by the TV stations and written in the press, north and south.  There is a lot yet to be recorded.

As many were sceptic about the future attitude of the Turkish Cypriot leadership and the Turkish military authorities, there was a rush to the check-points in order to visit old villages and places, where the two communities used to live before 1974, before an eventual closure of the gates by the Turkish Cypriot leadership.  Everyone knows that the Turkish Cypriot leadership had been a master of provocations in the history of Cyprus problem and they have not forgotten.

It was very significant that the Turkish and Greek Cypriot working people celebrated May Day, 1 May 2003, at Eleftheria Square in the Greek Cypriot quarter of Nicosia in the morning and at Sarayonu Square in the Turkish Cypriot quarter of Nicosia in the evening. This was the first time for 45 years.

In 1958, after the common demonstration of the Turkish and Greek Cypriot workers against the British colonial administration and their Turkish Cypriot collaborators, who were pursuing a policy of partitioning the island and trying to create enmity between the two communities in Cyprus, the Turkish Cypriot leadership and its underground organisation, TMT, forced and threatened Turkish Cypriot workers to resign from the common leftwing trade union, PEO.  In the months of May and June 1958, the Turkish Cypriot newspapers were full of advertisements, stating that the workers supported the Turkish Cypriot leadership policy and had no contact with the PEO anymore. A wave of terror was started against those, who were seen as the leaders of the progressive Turkish Cypriots. Four Turkish Cypriots were killed and others wounded by the TMT (See A An: The Stormy Years in Cyprus 1942-1962, Nicosia 1996 in Turkish).

Then we lived through the night of 6 June 1958, when the provocative bomb explosion went off in front of the door of the Turkish Information Bureau of the Turkish Consulate in Nicosia. The Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Denktash, confessed years later that it was not a Greek Cypriot, who placed the bomb, but a Turkish Cypriot friend of his. It was a similar provocation to the 6/7 September events, staged in Istanbul against Greek properties. The Turkish Cypriot mob started to loot and burn Greek Cypriot properties in the Tahtakale and Ayios Lucas quarters of Nicosia. Parallel to these events, thousands of nationalist Turks demonstrated in Istanbul, shouting the slogan of “Either partition or death”. Dr Kuchuk was saying: “It is not possible anymore that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots can live together”. The murder of nine Greek Cypriots in the outskirts of Gonyeli village on 12 June 1958 was another provocation staged during this period.

We later witnessed the murder of Ahmet Gurkan and Ayhan Hikmet by the TMT. The two advocates were publishing Cumhuriyet (Republic) weekly newspaper, which propagated the cooperation and friendship between the two communities of the Republic of Cyprus and which made sharp criticisms of the partitionist policies of the Turkish Cypriot (See A. An, Notes on the development of Cypriot awareness, Nicosia 1998 in Turkish). In April 1965, Dervis Ali Kavazoglu, the Turkish Cypriot AKEL Central Committee member was murdered together with his Greek Cypriot friend, Costas Mishaoulis, only because they were trying to foster friendship between Turkish and Greek Cypriots.

After 1958, December 1963, the summer of 1974, many years have passed away. The Turkish Cypriot leadership went on repeating the same myth that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots cannot live together, but thousands of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots proved them wrong by visiting each other’s side after the walls of shame were open.   

The cases of Titina Loizidou and Ahmet Djavit An contributed significantly to the decision of Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot authorities to lift the ban on the freedom of movement across the Green Line. According to the newspapers, Turkey was under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights that their rulings had to be implemented as soon as possible. The Turkish authorities were forced to give the order to the Turkish Cypriot leadership to allow visitors to both sides of the divide.

It came as a shock for both Greek and Turkish Cypriot politicians as tens of thousands of Cypriots crossed to the opposite side to look around and find how the things have changed in the last 29 years. Naturally people chose to visit their old homes and properties which they left over 29 years before and they had not been allowed to visit since. The long Easter Holidays were used especially by Greek Cypriots to visit the occupied part of the island with their cars in masses.

Some left wing Turkish Cypriot politicians commented on the opening of the Green Line, attributing this to the four big demonstrations of the Turkish Cypriots, organised jointly by the “This Country is Ours” Platform and the “Common Vision”. Although these demonstrations sent shivers down the backs of the local Turkish Cypriot administrators and the Turkish government, showing that Turkish Cypriots themselves were striving for a solution contrary to the intransigent policies of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, there was no mention by the masses of the removal of the movement restrictions across the dividing line!  Even the flag of the Republic of Cyprus, which was brought by a young person to the meeting, was not allowed by the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) officials to be carried. Later when the belated measures of the government of the Republic of Cyprus for Turkish Cypriot citizens were announced, again CTP was critical of them, defining them as “minority rights”.   One should remember also the appeal of CTP to the visiting head of the EU, Mr Simitis, when he met oppositional Turkish Cypriot political parties, that the EU should adopt the Turkish language as one of the official languages of the EU, even before the northern Turkish occupied part of Cyprus officially enters the EU.

Mr Denktash was quick to thank Mr Talat for his anti-Greek Cypriot policies in line with his decades-long nationalist policies. No doubt CTP was in the mass media every day and night after the appearance of the Annan Plan, trying to attract the dissatisfaction of Turkish Cypriots from the devastating economic situation prevailing in the occupied north and turning this into party votes in the general elections of December 2003. The same CTP leadership was in the foreground defending the settlers’ so-called rights as equal TRNC citizens to cross the Green Line. Not to forget that CTP supported the so-called property rights of the settlers.

The CTP leadership was eager to collect the support for its populist policies in the forthcoming general elections by avoiding criticising the presence of the Turkish occupation army in Cyprus and the population brought to the island from Turkey, contrary to the Geneva Convention, which supported the Turkish Cypriot leadership in all post- 1974 elections.  Only the indigenous Turkish Cypriots should be able to vote after a reliable census is done, observed by international bodies.

The CTP secured the support of the young Turkish Cypriot entrepreneurs and went on to be successful in the municipal elections in the three main towns. A group of pro-American “Conflict resolution” educators and their so-called peace-activists supported the continuation of a separate Turkish Cypriot entity in the north within the framework of an overall Cyprus settlement, which would serve the interests of the United States in our region. Those “peace-activists” are well-organised in various civil society organisations and they even tried to form their own political party, which would accommodate to the new environment.

One must be very cautious in accessing the new situation after contacts began between the two sides. The Turkish colonizers of over 200,000 and the Turkish occupying army of 35,000 are still in the north. The puppet state of the TRNC is still there. The corruption and the mafia-type economic structure still prevail. Any solution or formula, which does not comply with the principles of the United Nations and the European Convention of Human Rights and that legalises the partition of our island should be rejected categorically.  The independence, territorial integrity and the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus must be restored as soon as possible. The negotiations should aim for a federal and democratic structure for all the citizens of this country, who deserve a peaceful life without foreign interference. The complete demilitarisation of our island will contribute also to the peace in the region. To establish a joint political party is now on the agenda in order to reach the above-mentioned aims.

 

(This paper was read at the conference, “Cyprus – 50 Years of Independence: Achievements and Challenges”, organized by the London Metropolitan University on 30^th June 2010)