Wednesday, October 18, 2023

THE COMMON ACTION PROBLEMATIC OF THE CYPRIOT LEFT: FROM PAST TO PRESENT

When we speak of the Cyprus Left, we must first clarify what we mean by this. Greek Cypriot writer Kyriacos Djambazis, in his book "Disclosure of a Myth", emphasizes that the nationalist leadership of the Greek Cypriot community does not include Turkish Cypriots in the definition of "Cypriot people" with an "expansionist" understanding. In this case, since the Cypriot people will consist only of the majority Greek community living on the island, the exclusion of the Turkish Cypriot community, which does not comply with their demands for union with Greece, becomes a necessity in terms of political integrity.

AKEL AND EXCLUSION OF MINORITIES

Djambazis writes that the Communist Party of Cyprus (KKP), which was founded in 1926 and developed a policy against the nationalists' goal of Enosis, has set the island's full independence as its main goal and argues that this can only be achieved through the joint struggle of the two communities (Lefkoşa 2013, p.55).

On the other hand, the leadership of AKEL, which replaced the KKP and defined itself as the "Progressive Party of the Cypriot Workers", adopted the definition of "Cypriot people = Greek Cypriot community", like the nationalist Greek Cypriot leadership, and excluded from the common political struggle foremost the Turkish Cypriot community, as well as other religious groups like the Maronites, Armenians, Latins.

Djambazis, who also gives us information about the existence and views of the members who criticize AKEL's policy of Enosis and its mistakes in its approach to Turkish Cypriots, referred to an article titled "AKEL and the Turkish Cypriots", written by Pavlakis Georgiou, a member of the AKEL Politburo and responsible for the Turkish Cypriot community. In that article titled "Minorities" (No: 12, 1954, pp. 294-297), Pavlakis Georgiou stated:

“AKEL both did not educate the Greek people about the difficulties of the struggle and underestimated the role of minorities. For this reason, it has never addressed minorities, never enlightened them or called them to struggle... Moreover, the ignoring or belittling of the Turkish minority by our progressive party is nothing but an obvious expression of this chauvinism.” (p.31)

In his footnote to this quote, Djambazis makes the following assessment:

“The contempt mentioned in the quote is limited to the non-use of the Turkish language in workers' meetings and party documents. Of course, while linguistic communication is a major factor, it is not the only factor. The reaction of the Turkish Cypriot workers was related to the Enosis policy supported by AKEL. AKEL management interpreted this as not being able to explain their theses because of language and refused to examine the underlying causes.” (p.31)

At the meetings held by the "Left and the Cyprus Problem" group, I also discussed these issues in my papers titled "Language Problem in the Common Class Struggle in Cyprus" (1924-1954) in 2018 and "The Enosis Problem of the Greek Cypriots and Political Cooperation with the Turkish Cypriots (1902)" in 2020.

FROM ENOSIS TO FEDERATION

At a press conference with Turkish Cypriot journalists in 1989, AKEL Secretary General Dimitris Christofias answered a question directed to him regarding the issue of enosis as follows:

“Our current program was approved in 1962 and still hasn't changed. At that time the goal was complete independence. In the conditions of those days, the Turks were scattered and there were no conditions for federation. After 1974, conditions were created for two separate regions and federation. In our opinion, Turks should live in the North, Greeks should live in the South, and Turks should be in the majority in the North. All these views are new and naturally unpredictable in the conditions of 1962. Our program needs to be changed. That program is not valid today. The valid ones are the party decisions, taken after 1974. What is on the agenda now is federation, and enosis and partition must be buried forever. We are divorced from Enosis, enosis is now buried.” (Halkın Sesi, 19-23 April 1989)

Speaking at an event, organized by AKEL on the evening of October 13, 2000, Party Secretary General Dimitris Christofias said that Cyprus gained its independence after many years and tough struggles, that the majority of the people took part in this struggle, but there were some mistakes on the domestic front and the Turkish Cypriot factor was not given the necessary attention. (Kıbrıs newspaper, 16 October 2000).

This important statement of Christofias about the policy of AKEL, the biggest party of the Greek Cypriot left, which excludes the Turkish Cypriot community, reminded me of an article published in the newspaper "Demokratis" in 1952 and I wrote under the pseudonym "Yusuf Aydın", an article titled “AKEL and the Turkish Cypriot Factor”, in which I felt the need to emphasize this important point once again:

“But unfortunately, AKEL itself, which prides itself on being the party of the Cypriot working class, still does not pay due attention to the Turkish Cypriot factor.” (Kıbrıs’ta Sosyalist Gerçek, No:58, November-December 2000)

This historical article, which puts its finger on this burning issue and asks for due attention to the issue half a century ago, was taken from AKEL's publication "Demokratis" and it was translated into Turkish and was published in the newspaper Halkın Sesi, dated March 19, 1952 under the title “The Liberation Struggle of the People of Cyprus. (Written by G.Ioannidi, K.Koliyannis, P.Rusu, Translated by K. Muhtaroğlu) In this article titled “=Turkish Minority=", among other things, it was said:

“AKEL should explain to the Turkish minority in concise and sensitive words that the independent administration to be provided in case of the annexation with Greece will provide the Turkish Cypriots with ample autonomy, national, linguistic, political, religious and other development. AKEL will not be the leader party of the struggle of the Cypriot people unless it succeeds in influencing and winning over the Turkish minority workers in the political arena and as an organization.”

The justification of these warnings, which appeared in Demokratis in March 1952, was accepted at that time, as the PEO established a separate Turkish Office for Turkish Cypriot members in November 1952. The news that AKEL also established a separate Turkish Bureau appeared in the Turkish Cypriot press in June 1954. The first statement signed by "AKEL Turkish Branch Office", which was distributed to the public, was published in full text in the newspaper Halkın Sesi, dated October 20, 1954. (A.An, Transition from Class Unionism to Ethnic Unionism and Workers' Opposition among Turkish Cypriots, Nicosia, 2005, pp.208-212)

In his book, Djambazis writes the following regarding the attitude of Turkish members on the issue of Enosis defended by AKEL: "Unfortunately, there is no written document showing how the AKEL administration informed the Turkish party members, or even if they did, how these members reacted." (p.25)

I also wanted to cover the important and sensitive issue of AKEL's Enosis policy and Turkish Cypriots in my book titled “The First Pioneers of Our Working Class - Turkish Cypriots in the Labour Movement Until 1958” (Khora Publishing, Nicosia, January 2011), but only what I could obtain. I quoted two anecdotes. (p.141)

FEDERAL STATE

The fascist Greek coup in the summer of 1974 and the subsequent partition of the island by Turkey forced the Greek Cypriot leadership, including AKEL, to accept the federation model. On what grounds was AKEL now accepting this model, which contradicted the USSR's view that "a form of federal state can also be considered" in 1965?

As the author of these lines, I had been wanting to ask the AKEL leadership, whom I sympathize with, some questions that have plagued my mind since I started to look at the world from the perspective of the working class. As a matter of fact, in a letter I forwarded to AKEL on December 20, 1977, I requested the explanation of the reasons for the adoption of the federal solution, which was strongly opposed by the party before, and asked the following questions:

“Wouldn't it be helpful to hold a conference on theoretical and organizational issues regarding Turkish Cypriots before the 14th General Assembly of AKEL? What will be the future of ethno-political integration in Cyprus?”

Unfortunately, this proposal was not even responded to and the “approach to Turkish Cypriots and the nationality problem” continued to prevent the two communities' relations from improving as a bleeding wound.

JOINT FRONT OF TURKISH CYPRIOTS AND GREEKS

The following decision, taken at the AKEL Central Committee Plenum Meeting on February 24, 1989, is still relevant today:

“Another prerequisite for the victory of our struggle and the liberation of Cyprus is the joint front of the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots. According to AKEL, the idea of establishing a joint struggle front is maturing today. The necessity of a common struggle on the Greek Cypriot side is accepted by the wider public. (...) AKEL, which has a wide prestige in the Greek Cypriot community and also in the Turkish community, will take the initiative to bring the idea of rapprochement and establishing a common front into practice. This task is not easy at all. There are many issues that need to be discussed and clarified in order to reach the desired level of consensus with our Turkish Cypriot citizens.”

In a series of articles titled “What AKEL's 80th Anniversary Theses Reflect” that I wrote in May 2005, I stated the following:

“On April 23, 2003, after the Turkish Cypriot side allowed mutual free crossings to both sides of the green line, albeit limited, we did not witness new expansions in AKEL's rapprochement policy. Interestingly, the case filed by Ahmet An, the Turkish Cypriot Coordinator of the Contact Group for an Independent and Federal Cyprus, against Turkey, the sovereign power in the north of Cyprus, was won in the European Court of Human Rights on February 20, 2003, after a waiting period of 12 years. The main theme of the case was the inhibition of “freedom of association”.

In the first month after the attainment of this freedom, a negative response was given to the question “When will the Turkish Bureau open, which AKEL closed in 1974 on the grounds that contacts were no longer possible”, by the Secretary General of AKEL Dimitris Christofias. His explanation was on the grounds of “safety of comrades”. It was a sign of how difficult the struggle that had to be fought was going to be. Moreover, it is known that nearly 30 letters I sent to the party between December 2, 1974 and November 4, 2003, requesting opinions on theoretical and organizational problems related to Turkish Cypriots, were left unanswered.

Another reason we were told during our meetings with other AKEL supporters was as follows: “Turkish Cypriot progressive parties are against AKEL establishing a separate Turkish branch. It is sufficient to support the progressive parties that still exist in the north.”

However, as far as we know, this support has been maintained for years in the form of purchasing tickets from the solidarity lottery of the CTP held every year. Unfortunately, those who "own without any criticism" of the party policy also achieve a zero-to-none result due to the struggles to "not be a mug stuck in AKEL's tail"! In other words, the "agents" of once have just turned into a "bad copy"!

Since the gates were opened, AKEL has yet to hold any political meeting for Turkish Cypriots living in north of the division line. Another disadvantage is that the joint commissions created together with the CTP do not work, regardless of the reason. Especially during the voting of the Annan Plan, AKEL's saying "no for a strong yes" led to the loss of sympathy for AKEL in the Turkish Cypriot community. Despite the fact that the party has adopted the federal solution, it has emerged that it has not sufficiently enlightened both its members and the Greek Cypriot community in general on what the federal state is and what it is not, and on the sharing of power. (…)

NO UNITY TO FIGHT CYPRUS TURKISH LEFTISTS

AKEL preferred to stay away from Turkish Cypriots, both after 1968, when the youth of higher education was closely interested in leftist ideology, and under the extraordinary conditions created by the coup and occupation in 1974, just at a time when a guiding Turkish Office was needed.

Especially, AKEL made a big mistake by closing the Turkish Bureau, and under the new conditions, it caused the Turkish Cypriot workers to be deprived of a leadership that would enable them to equip themselves with an internationalist policy against the separatist policies of the nationalist Turkish Cypriot leadership. It is an important shortcoming that this vital mistake made in organizing is not mentioned in the 80th year theses.” (These critical articles were published in Afrika newspaper between 15-22 May 2005.)

IMPERIALISM DOES NOT WANT THE UNITY OF THE CYPRUS LEFT

In the 1990 Edition "Yearbook of International Communist Affairs", which is published every year in the USA, there is the following assessment of the Turkish Cypriot left:

"If the north and south of Cyprus were to reunite in a "Federal Republic" one day, it can be predicted that the combined voting power of the left-wing parties in both communities could secure a majority of the votes in a Presidential election.

This fear of American imperialism, first expressed in the 1989 Yearbook and more clearly formulated a year later, explains why the United States pursued a two-state confederal solution based on partition of the island. It also reveals the reason for the "hostility against the Greeks" and "not having contact between the communities" policy of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, which has been a collaborator of British and American imperialism. (A.An, The U.S. View of the Turkish Cypriot Left, Sosyalist Gözlem, October 1993, Issue:5)

In the 1991 Yearbook, the following evaluation is made:

“Although AKEL is not banned within the Turkish Cypriot community, the party has chosen not to be active in the north due to the difficulty of establishing contact via the “green line”.

There are three left-wing parties among Turkish Cypriots: CTP, TKP and YKP. All three left-wing parties advocate a federal solution to the Cyprus problem and believe that intercommunal rapprochement is a tool in achieving this. According to the CTP leader, “all three left-wing parties are unique in their own right, and none of them copy any party in the south of Cyprus or anywhere else in the world.” (Learned from personal communication between Özker Özgür and writer Thomas W. Adams on 6 November 1990.)”

LEFT PARTIES OF TURKISH CYPRIOTS

When the island was partitioned after the events in July 1974, Turkish Cypriots gathered in the north and formed various political parties, unions and associations. The struggles of those who are mentioned on the left are known for their successes and mistakes. The parties that represent today the Turkish Cypriot left politically are as follows:

The Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which was founded at the end of 1970 and defended a left social democratic line for many years, has adopted a liberal policy today. The old left line of the CTP has to some extent been taken over by the New Cyprus Party -YKP. YKP was founded in 1989 by the left wing that broke away from the Communal Liberation Party-TKP. Those who left the CTP together with Özker Özgür formed the Patriotic Unity Movement (YBH) in 1998 by merging with the YKP, but later left and founded the United Cyprus Party (BKP) in 2002. The Right Social Democrat, Communal Democracy Party-TDP- is the continuation of the TKP, which was founded in 1976, and it cannot develop because the party cannot reproduce itself.

Some of the members and supporters of these four political parties are the projections of those views in the unions of workers, teachers and other civil servants. Other elements of the Turkish Cypriot left, who are independent of these structures and have a political view, can occasionally convey their thoughts in certain publications or in their own magazines or newspapers, or they maintain their existence in the form of certain narrow friend groups. The Cyprus Socialist Party, which was founded by the "Socialist Reality in Cyprus" magazine in 2002, and the Independence Path established in 2018 by the "Baraka Cultural Association" can be given as examples.

It is noteworthy that, with a few exceptions, all these organizations did not adopted the accumulated experience of the Turkish Cypriot left, which were silenced by the bloody terror and oppression applied by the TMT in 1958. These parties, which do not base their current policies on the principles that the old left tradition defended with the mistakes and merits, cannot clearly show the Turkish Cypriot community the way out of the political, economic, social and cultural impasse they are in, and in the final analysis, they leave the people helpless and melt away.

Almost all of the political parties in the Greek Cypriot part are against the partition of the island and demand that the Cyprus problem be resolved with a bi-communal, bi-zonal federal state structure and an end to the fait accompli that has been imposed on the island for 49 years by military force. Let us remind you that the candidate of AKEL, the largest organized party of the Greek Cypriot left, won 48% of the votes in the last presidential elections.

OBSTACLES TODAY

The Turkish and Greek Cypriot left, which should join forces to re-organize the Republic of Cyprus under a federal roof and to re-establish friendship and cooperation between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, the two main ethnic-national communities living on our island, against the partitionist and separatist policies of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, should immediately make a new assessment of the situation. In order to overcome the difficulties on the way to an independent and federal Republic of Cyprus, it has become an inevitable necessity to get rid of fake leftists and reorganize the struggle.

Unfortunately, we are far from the goal of a unified federal state, although advocates of a federal solution make up 48% of voters on both sides. Akinci and Mavrogiannis, the federalist presidential candidates on both sides, resigned from politics after failing to win the elections. Already after the collapse of the inter-communal negotiations in Crans Montana, the Turkish Cypriot side abandoned the UN parameters based on a federal solution and began to advocate the policy of “two separate states”.

But now is the time to form an All-Cyprus Federalists Front to fight for a united Cyprus whose federal constitution is at the signing stage. In this struggle, it is inevitable that those who seem to be in favour of a federal solution but support the confederal solution or the final partition will be exposed. What we mean here is the so-called federalist policy of the CTP. CTP Chairman Tufan Erhürman, who says he is a "Federalist", did not continue the struggle for a solution in this direction and left the scene to the separatists.

Same Erhürman spoke at a meeting of the United Cyprus - Bi-communal Peace Initiative, held with the leaders of CTP, TDP, DISI and AKEL on February 11, 2019 under the title "Bi-communal Discussion Panel" in the buffer zone in Nicosia against the speech of KTOEÖS President Selma Eylem, who stated that “The north of the country turned today into the backyard of the Republic of Turkey”, Erhürman reacted by saying that “even if I were not the Prime Minister of the TRNC, I would reject her statement completely” and stating that he did not agree with what was said. This was the clearest proof of the CTP's policy of not blaming the occupying country.

In addition, Erhürman took the floor after the speech of POGO Women's Movement General Secretary Skevi Koukouma, who attended the 10th Ordinary Congress of the CTP Women's Organization on May 28, 2022 and repeated again: "I am under the obligation and responsibility to openly state that we, as CTP, do not accept some of the terms used in her speech here, and that we reject the terminology of the occupied area."

The most important factor underlying the election failure of the supporters of the federal solution, besides the interventions of the occupying power, is the use of the "citizen-made" settler population transferred here as a vote depot in the race for seats in the Parliament.

The day-to-day criticisms of the government by hiding the occupier and the invader serve no purpose other than "we cooperate better". The solution forces that are in favour of the federal Cyprus should gather and come together and seek ways to meet with the federalists in the Greek Cypriot side as soon as possible on a COMMON POLITICAL platform! It is not enough to just publish joint statements, we must make our voices heard in the international community!

(This is the English translation of the original Turkish text of the paper, presented at the 5th Annual Conference of the “Left and Cyprus Problem”, held on 14 October 2023 at the “Home for Cooperation” in the buffer zone in Nicosia, where the subject was the “Common Action by the Cypriot Left”. Because of time constraint, only the text of the last two subtitles was read.)  

 

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