23 April 2023 will be the 20th anniversary of opening the Ledra Palace check-point across the dividing line and it has been the only revolutionary development in the inter-communal relations since the war of 1974.
I was the T/C coordinator of
the Movement for an Independent and Federal Cyprus, which was formed on 24
September 1989 in Nicosia, as the first bi-communal committee since the terror
wave of the T/C underground organisation TMT in 1958. As progressive T/Cs and
G/Cs, we organized many political, cultural, medical and social meetings. For
example the T/C oppositional political leaders were invited to talk in front of
the G/C audience at the Famagusta Gate Cultural Centre for the first time since
1974. During our activities, the participants discussed the ways of
rapprochement and more contacts between the two main communities in Cyprus. The
T/C leadership was against our activities of enlightening the public opinion
about the principles of a real federal system. That’s why no permission was
given to us at a later stage. For those who want to research further about our
Movement, I have donated all the documents and newspaper material to the
Promitheas Research Centre.
Zaim Necatigil, who was
previously the “state attorney of the TRNC” and defended Turkey at the ECHR,
allocated 20 pages to my case (Djavit An vs Turkey, Application No.20652/92) in
his book “The Cyprus Conflict and Turkey in the grip of ECHR: Cases brought
against Turkey by the Greek Cypriot Administration and the Greek Cypriots
before the European Commission of Human Rights and the European Court of Human
Right”. Although many people do not want to accept the importance of my
complaint against Turkey for my freedom of organisation, he wrote the
following: “There was a great impact of the Cavit An’s application to the
European Court of Human Rights, which announced its decision on 20 February
2003, on the opening of the gates on the “Green Line” on 23 April 2003. It is
not possible to see the opening of the gates as a coincidence that came after
this provision." (Ankara, 2005, p.189)
More check-points were
opened in the later years on the dividing line and both communities had the
chance to know each other better and to develop close contacts and friendship. Unfortunately
our aim for a united federal state could not be realized, (although those, who support a federal
solution, make 48% of the voters on each side of the divide. Both Mr. Akıncı
and Mr. Mavroyiannis resigned from politics and the T/C side abandoned the UN
parameters for a federal solution after the collapse of the inter-communal
negotiations in Crans Montana.) It is now the right time to establish a
pan-cypriot federalist front in order to fight for a federal Cyprus, (where its federal
constitution was about to be signed. In this struggle we should decipher those
who are indirectly supporting a confederal solution or a final partition.)
(The last paragraph was edited by the newspaper and I highlighted
those parts in brackets above.)
https://dialogos.com.cy/ligo-choma-matsikorido-mia-agkalia-20-chronia-ti-dianoixi-ton/
