A
Dangerous Trend in Cyprus
Rebecca Bryant
Rebecca
Bryant is assistant professor of anthropology at George
Mason University and author of Imagining the
Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2004). She writes from Cyprus, where
she is conducting research on place and memory since
the opening of the checkpoints.
|
Turkish
Cypriots look through a fence to the Greek side
of the ceasefire line on the day of the 2004
referendum on reunification. (AFP/Tarik Tinazay) |
In
late April 2004, voters in Cyprus went to the polls
to pass judgment on a plan offered by the United Nations
that held out the hope of ending over 30 years of
conflict. The plan, bearing the name of Secretary-General
Kofi Annan, would have reunified the island that has
been divided since 1974, when a Greek-sponsored coup
aimed at uniting the island with Greece provoked Turkish
military intervention. The breakaway Turkish administration
declared itself the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus
in 1983, but the Greek-controlled Republic of Cyprus
remains the internationally recognized government
of the island. Annan and European chanceries put their
weight behind the reunification measure, hoping that
its acceptance would pave the way for a united Cyprus
to enter the European Union on its May 1 accession
date. But while a majority of Turkish Cypriots voted
yes, Greek Cypriots—in larger numbers—voted no.
One
year after the referendum, Cyprus is undergoing new
and potentially dangerous transformations. Greek Cypriots
rejected the UN plan in the belief that European Union
membership would give them a stronger position from
which to negotiate a better deal. So far, EU membership
has brought them little besides ill will from Europe.
What their rejection has wrought in the island is
a new period of inter-communal mistrust, along with
rising nationalism in the majority-Greek south.
Denktaş
Redux
On
April 17, 2005, Turkish Cypriots went to the polls
again in the final phase of a revolution that over
the past two years led to the opening of checkpoints
along the divided island’s ceasefire line and mobilization
in support of the Annan Plan. Turkish Cypriots elected
as their new president long-time opposition leader
Mehmet Ali Talat, who in 2004 led the campaign in
favor of the UN scheme. After 22 years in office,
hardline President Rauf Denktaş, known for his determination
to keep Turkish and Greek Cypriots apart, did not
even bother to run. But the ouster of Denktaş—seemingly
a momentous event—aroused little joy, as northerners
watch Greek Cypriot obstacles to a solution appearing
to mount daily. At 70 percent, the voter turnout was
the lowest in the north’s history.
Indeed,
despite Talat’s significant victory with 55 percent
of the vote, Turkish Cypriots are dispirited and worried
in the face of an uncompromising Republic of Cyprus
led by a hardliner who appears in no danger of being
ousted. Greek Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos
has rejected Annan’s call to submit in writing Greek
Cypriot requests for revisions to the plan rejected
in the 2004 referendum. He has refused to engage in
dialogue with Turkish Cypriot leaders and instead
is using his new position as president of an EU country
to put pressure on Turkey, the EU’s most controversial
candidate for entry. In lieu of a negotiated settlement,
the government now appears to encourage the use of
individual mechanisms for compensating owners of property
lost in the 1974 fighting that led to the island’s
division, including using courts both in Cyprus and
in Europe. This strategy promises to institute a new
regime of legal tangles that may not be easily undone
at the negotiating table.
What
is most apparent in this new approach is that the
Republic’s current government is determined to ignore
Turkish Cypriots as political actors. That was clear
at the time of the referendum and has become more
obvious as the leadership of the Republic has evaded
invitations to the negotiating table. But one would
not expect Papadopoulos to be particularly concerned
to include Turkish Cypriots, given his history. Only
days after Talat’s election, the Greek Cypriot newspaper
Alitheia created a stir when it publicized
that journalist Makarios Dhroushiotis had documented
in his latest book a secret plan proposed by Papadopoulos
to the Greek army in 1964.[1]
The plan provided for the complete annihilation of
all Turkish Cypriot civilians within 75 minutes in
the event of an impending Turkish invasion. Fortunately,
Papadopoulos’ Greek military superiors rejected the
idea. This revelation surprised no one, but it led
many Turkish Cypriots to ask if perhaps Papadopoulos’
present strategy might not be a slower, more effective
version of the same plan.[2]
All
of this seems to recall a period that many thought
had passed, when Rauf Denktaş turned up his nose
at opportunities for dialogue, insisting on the independence
and sovereignty of his unrecognized state. Moreover,
rather than rejecting their rejectionist leader, Greek
Cypriots have, since the referendum, called for solidarity
in the face of world pressure. While the wave that
brought Talat to power has sent ripples through Turkey
and Greece, those effects seem to stop at the ceasefire
line that still cuts Cyprus in two. Or, as a Turkish
Cypriot postal worker put it, “We’ve had our revolution
in the north. Now we have to start one in the south.”
Conspiracy
Theories Die Hard
|
Greek Cypriot women affix “Oxi”
(“No”) stickers to balloons prior
to the 2004 referendum on reunification. (AFP/Philip
Mark) |
Not
long ago, right-wing parties in northern Cyprus canvassed
the villages with checkbooks and trucks filled with
children’s shoes and pressure cookers. Getting services,
jobs or promotions depended on one’s party affiliation.
It is generally known that those close to Denktaş
were favored in the post-1974 distribution of property
left behind by Greek Cypriots fleeing southward. One
leftist says that such “moneyism,” rather than nationalism,
is still very much in evidence. Denktaş-style rejectionism
fell out of fashion after the checkpoints opened;
when better-off Greeks began to visit the north and
patronize Turkish establishments, some of the nationalists
went with the flow. “Those same people who ran around
with a flag when Denktaş told them to,” the leftist
says, “danced on the tables when the Greeks came over
with all their money.”
In
such an environment, it is not surprising that Turkish
Cypriots should be cynical and prone to conspiracy
theories. Nor should it be surprising that they were
anxious to throw off ties to Turkey. The overwhelming
presence of Turkish troops; the opening of the island
to Turkish settlers and workers; the use of Cyprus
for the Turkish black market, including drugs, gambling,
prostitution and human trafficking; and the use by
local politicians of ties with Turkey led many Turkish
Cypriots to sour upon a power whose intervention they
had once desired. Turkish Cypriots unable to find
work were leaving the island, while poor Turks were
arriving in droves. Denktaş infamously remarked that
“the ones leaving are Turks, the ones coming are Turks,”
suggesting that it made no difference whether they
were from Cyprus or Trabzon. This remark is still
repeated by Turkish Cypriots with a certain wry amusement
today. The result was a rebellion against a local
regime whose main political tactics seemed to be bribery
and threat.
But
while the main slogans of the Turkish Cypriots’ revolution
reviled the Turkish occupation of their island, events
began to take a different turn. By the end of 2002,
Turkey was no longer the same old Turkey, and the
new Justice and Development Party was eager to resolve
problems in Cyprus to clear the way for its own EU
accession bid. Meanwhile, the opening of the checkpoints
in April 2003 made it clear that the reunification
of the island would not be as simple as long-lost
siblings embracing. Turkish Cypriots had prepared
to rebel against Turkey if necessary, and it was something
of a denouement when it turned out that the new Turkish
government was as anxious to be rid of the Cyprus
problem as Cypriots were to be rid of the “motherland.”
The real surprise came when Greek Cypriots, who had
always declared themselves ready for a solution, were
caught off guard at the transformation of the subject
of their propaganda into a real possibility. As one
Turkish Cypriot researcher recently phrased it, “Because
of Turkey we began to feel ourselves to be Cypriots.
But now, because of the Greeks, we’ve become Turks
again.”
One
misconception common in the south is that the key
to a solution is simply pressuring Turkey. Greek Cypriots
are aided in this misconception by an interesting
coalition of far left and far right in the north,
who have united in the claim that the revolution that
ousted Denktaş and brought Talat to power must be
orchestrated by foreign powers, whether Turkey or
the US. The absurdities of this situation become apparent
when one realizes that the far-right, ultra-nationalist
Greek Cypriot newspaper Simerini favors the
far-left, ultraradical Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika
as its source of information about the north. The
latter insists that the current government in the
north is only a puppet of Turkey, confirming for nationalists
in the south that Turkish Cypriots have no political
will of their own, are at the mercy of Turkey, and
should be politically and economically strangled for
their own good.
The
reality is that while Turkey’s cooperation is certainly
necessary for any solution to the Cyprus problem,
Turkey could not force a solution on Turkish Cypriots.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyıp Erdoğan,
recognizing this situation, has repeatedly invited
Cypriot leaders to the negotiating table. In the south,
Erdoğan’s call is seen as evasion, and Papadopoulos
now threatens to erect barriers for Turkey at every
step of its EU accession process. These threats are
hailed in the south as a sort of David-and-Goliath
battle. Unfortunately, the only possible results of
this legal gamesmanship are either the Republic’s
own further isolation from other EU countries or Turkey’s
withdrawal from the EU process. Seemingly, these are
both results that the Republic should not want, especially
after years of insisting that Turkey should conform
to EU norms. But it seems that these days the view
from the moral high ground has grown a bit cloudy.
Preparing
the People
|
Turkish Cypriot girl crosses
a checkpoint in divided Nicosia. (AFP/Laura
Boushnak) |
These
developments are disheartening for an island that
only two years ago experienced the excitement of long-closed
checkpoints opening, allowing Cypriots to visit their
former homes. There was an initial enthusiasm, replete
with emotional reunions with former neighbors in villages
left unwillingly behind. But interestingly, it seems
that one of the primary reasons for Greek Cypriots
to reject the Annan Plan was the realization in very
concrete ways that life simply would never be as it
once was. What Greek Cypriot civil society leaders
now repeat time and again is that the Annan Plan failed
because there was no time “to prepare the people.”
That preparation would have been as much psychological
as political, “preparing” them to accept a new reality
that for 30 years had never been part of their horizon
of possibility.
A
year ago, not long before the fateful referendum,
I had the opportunity to return with a Greek Cypriot
couple to their former village and to act as interpreter
as the Greek Cypriot woman visited for the first time
since 1974 the house where she was born and grew up.
She had fled the village without a chance to look
back, “without even a handkerchief,” as she says.
A family from a village outside Ankara now lives in
her childhood home, persuaded to immigrate by their
son, who was wounded during the Turkish invasion of
the island. The Turkish family acquired the property
from the government, sold all their land in their
former village and invested in the house that they
now fear losing.
Many
Greek Cypriots despised the Annan Plan because it
appeared to legalize this sort of plunder. But the
real irony of the plan is that it would have allowed
both the Greek Cypriot couple who desire to return
to their village and the Turkish family now living
in their house to remain neighbors in a new sort of
community that many have had difficulty imagining.
The plan called for a bizonal, federal state in which
property issues would have been resolved through restitution
or compensation and a limited number of Greek Cypriots
would have returned to their homes. Although it would
have returned to the Republic of Cyprus many villages
that before 1974 were primarily Greek, the plan also
would have allowed large numbers of Turkish immigrants
to remain in the island. As a result, the dream of
recreating their communities that has sustained Greek
Cypriot refugees for 30 years would have been sacrificed
to a realpolitik that appears to many cynically
to disregard the demands of what Greek Cypriots call
“justice.”
The
use of abstract, supposedly universal principles for
culturally specific aims has a long history in the
Greek Cypriot community. The dream of uniting the
island with Greece was, even in the early part of
the twentieth century, expressed in terms of abstract
principles of “justice.” In the 1950s, Greek Cypriots
expressed that dream in terms of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. Greek Cypriots understood this as
their majoritarian right, even though Turkish Cypriots
perceived the demand for union with Greece as what
Tocqueville called the “tyranny of the majority.”
Since the division of the island in 1974, the only
“just” solution for Greek Cypriots has been one that
would expel the Turkish army and ensure an absolute
return to their homes and the reconstitution of their
communities.
The
Annan Plan guaranteed none of that, and as a result,
it was, for most Greek Cypriots, unjust. Much of what
appeared to overtake Greek Cypriots prior to the referendum
was a sort of self-righteousness about compromising
such principles. In early May, when Papadopoulos reiterated
that “no hardship, pressure or threat can force me
to sign a settlement that will undermine the present
and future of my country,” many saw him as sticking
by the principles that have shaped the community for
decades.[3]
At the same time, such a principle of “justice” helps
explain why the same Greek Cypriots who rejected a
plan that would have provided them compensation for
their lost property are now seeking that same compensation
in courts of law.
Moreover,
at a psychological level, large numbers of Greek Cypriots
have found themselves caught between the moral demand
that they remember and the pragmatic demand that they
forget. Institutions of memory that have permeated
life in the south for 30 years have been aimed at
the constant reliving of trauma, rather than at overcoming
it. Refugee organizations, committees of relatives
of missing persons and even political parties all
develop, sustain or symbolize narratives that produce
what historian Dominick LaCapra calls a historical
“acting-out,” or a compulsive repetition of the site
of trauma.[4]
Indeed, compulsive “acting-out” has been the dominant
mode of historical engagement in Cyprus for more than
30 years. At the same time, people have, by necessity,
gone on with their lives, creating contradictions
that only became apparent after the opening of the
checkpoints, when refugees returned to their villages
and realized that the past was gone. The Annan Plan
forced into full public view the heretical idea that
nothing would ever return to the way it once was.
In
this situation, it should not be surprising that Greek
Cypriots are now having some trouble articulating
exactly what they want from a solution. It should
also not be surprising that all official efforts in
the past year involve not dialogue with their Turkish
Cypriot compatriots but the use of legal mechanisms
gained by their new position as members of the EU.
For those who believe that the only “just” solution
is a full restitution of everything lost, taking the
problem to a court of law seems the natural next step.
The
Spoils of War
|
Turkish
Cypriot boys at play outside a destroyed Greek
Orthodox church in the Turkish part of divided
Nicosia. (AFP/Tarik Tinazay) |
In
the past few years, the north has sprouted a real
estate agency on every corner, many foreign or with
foreign ties. Indeed, since the introduction of the
Annan Plan, northern Cyprus has experienced a property
boom. Because the plan would have provided everyone
who has invested in property with compensation, foreigners
no longer afraid of losing their investments in the
event of a settlement have begun to snatch up property
in the highly desirable, heretofore undeveloped north.
Turkish Cypriots appalled by the construction’s effects
on the environment nevertheless shrug that as long
as they are under embargo, they do not have many choices.
If they cannot export goods, they can at least import
buyers.
This
development boom has created an even greater property
tangle than the one that previously existed, when
the essential problem was that of Turkish Cypriots
and Turkish settlers living in former Greek Cypriot
property, with a smaller number of Greek Cypriots
living in Turkish Cypriot property left in the south.
Now not only are foreigners being issued unrecognized
titles to land in an unrecognized state, but Greek
Cypriots are finding their dreams of return cluttered
with bulldozers and bungalow complexes.
Much
of the tangle of the current state of affairs is reflected
in what has come to be known as “the Orams case,”
after an English couple by that name. When Meletis
Apostolides returned to his village of Lapithos, now
in Turkish northern Cyprus, and found that the Orams
had built a villa in what used to be his garden, he
decided to take the couple to court in the Greek Cypriot
south. Not surprisingly, he won the case, which demanded
that the villa be demolished and compensation paid.
The case is currently under appeal, but many are waiting
to see what the EU will do about the unanimous decision
of the parliament of the Republic of Cyprus demanding
that the EU extradite EU citizens such as the Orams.
Of course, many frightened foreigners now await the
final results of the Orams case and others like it.
Moreover,
since the opening of the checkpoints and the Republic’s
entry into the EU, the south has come into possession
of much more information about northern Cyprus and
Turkish Cypriots than it previously could access.
The Republic, in its claim to be the single government
of the entire island, has always recognized Turkish
Cypriots as its citizens. So when the checkpoints
opened, large numbers of Turkish Cypriots, desperate
for easier ways to travel, immediately crossed to
receive their identity cards and passports from the
Republic. Former Turkish Cypriot president Denktaş
called those acquiring Republic of Cyprus identity
cards traitors, though he later took a more pragmatic
view of the issue when his own grandson became a Republic
of Cyprus passport-holder.
At
the end of April, the first lawsuit against a Turkish
Cypriot for use of Greek Cypriot property was brought
against a restauranteur in Famagusta, using information
obtained when he applied for an identity card in the
south. Because of the open checkpoints, Greek Cypriot
officials were able to bring the summons to the restauranteur’s
front door. In a move that appears to encourage such
suits, the Republic recently passed a law giving a
two-year prison sentence to anyone who occupies the
property of a citizen of the Republic without the
legal owner’s permission. With its two-year prison
sentence, the law was intended to meet the EU criteria
for extradition. Although the law’s author, Androulla
Vassiliou, claims that the law was not addressed to
Turkish Cypriots,[5]
the first four arrest warrants, issued in early May,
included three Turkish Cypriots.[6] Now, hundreds of lawsuits to be brought by Greek Cypriots against
their Turkish compatriots are reportedly queued in
the courts of the Republic, with others pending in
the European Court of Human Rights. Because Greek
Cypriots cannot sue a government that they do not
recognize, they have resorted to suing individuals.
In
the north, those individuals able to be sued constitute
about 80 percent of the population. Many Turkish Cypriots
originally from the north had their property destroyed
when they fled their villages in 19631964; when they
returned more than a decade later, they settled in
Greek Cypriot houses. Many other Turkish Cypriots
came from villages in the south, and the government
in the north issued them Greek Cypriot housing. Most
Turkish Cypriots at the time were too war-weary to
think much about the legal consequences. As one woman
put it, “I had three children and a baby in my arms.
We had lived in a tent for eleven years. All I could
think about was having a roof over my head.”
Many
Turkish Cypriots visiting their former homes in the
south report that the homes are now either rubble
or have been flooded by dams or made into shopping
malls, hotels and parking lots. If the Republic succeeds
in implementing the extradition plan, Turkish Cypriots
convicted in the Republic’s courts will no longer
be able either to cross to the south or to set foot
on European soil without risk of arrest. For some
there are ominous reminders in all this of the period
between 1963 and 1974, when Turkish Cypriots were
forced into enclaves but encouraged to emigrate by
the then Greek-controlled Republic, which many report
offered them plane tickets and passports. Much of
the construction boom in the north, and especially
its sales to foreigners, bears an unfortunate resemblance
to stripping bare a sinking ship.
There
is now some talk of Turkish Cypriots initiating their
own lawsuits, but some reports say that the Republic
is blocking information for Turkish Cypriots wishing
to sue for compensation for their own property in
the south. The disappointment for many is that the
Annan Plan had promised to rescue Turkish Cypriots
from a life built on spoils and from the tenuousness
of an existence in which all aspects of life are “so-called”
and dubiously legal. Now they are faced with the possible
creation of a legal, de facto “solution” that would
stand in the way of a true political one.
“We
just have too many lawyers,” commented one Greek Cypriot
activist, “and we’ve all been trained to think of
the legal side of things. We have to start thinking
of the human side.” But that human side may also be
changing. One Turkish Cypriot mukhtar recently
put it rather simply: “We gave lives in the name of
all of this. For them [Greek Cypriots], it was more
a matter of losing property.” While the mukhtar’s
comment in no way reflects the reality of Greek Cypriot
losses, it certainly reflects a perception that seems
to be growing in momentum among Turkish Cypriots today:
namely, that Greek Cypriots want it all, and they
will sell their compatriots up the river to get it.
In
this atmosphere, it is not surprising that even Turkish
Cypriots who a year ago voted in favor of a plan that
would have brought Greek Cypriots into their communities
now say that they do not want them there. We want
a solution, they say, but not one that brings them
back. For Greek Cypriots now asking what they lost
in voting against the Annan Plan, this should be an
important answer.
The
Pieces of Peace
When
Papadopoulos declared in his pre-referendum speech
that “I took over an internationally recognized state.
I am not going to hand over ‘a community,’” it was
difficult at the time to imagine the resonance that
that statement would have among Greek Cypriots.[7] In fact, it may have surprised
some Greek Cypriots to realize that they had developed
a loyalty to the republic that they had never wanted.
The Greek Cypriot anti-colonial fight had been the
only one in the world aimed not at independence but
at annexation to another country. “The flag of the
Republic of Cyprus is the best in the world,” former
President Glafcos Clerides once remarked, “because
it’s the only one that no one would die for.” Yet
many Greek Cypriots apparently discovered a loyalty
to the Republic when they felt under threat of losing
it. What the Republic now guarantees them is a political
voice of their own and a legal weapon with which to
fight for the justice that they believe the Annan
Plan denied them. Giving up their status as the only
recognized government of the island would mean giving
up their chances of getting anything more.
Overwhelming
rejection of the Annan Plan and the belief in the
impending success of legal mechanisms appears to be
emboldening individuals in a trend that many see can
only lead to conflict. During the Easter holiday,
many Greek Cypriots crossed to the north to visit
their former homes and villages. Among them was a
group of refugees from the village of Karmi, formerly
an entirely Greek village and now a quaint community
of foreigners who have restored the village houses
on long-term leases. Foreign residents in the north
have borne the brunt of Greek Cypriot ire since the
checkpoints opened, and Karmi, as a foreign enclave,
has reportedly experienced more than most. When a
Greek Cypriot woman entered the garden of her father’s
coffee shop to pick flowers, she was stopped by policemen
called in by the current resident. She and her companions
were arrested for trespassing, detained overnight
and released with a fine.
On
both sides, it seems, good will is wearing thin. Indeed,
the specter of Greek Cypriot officials turning up
at one’s door with summons or eviction notices has
led many people openly to declare that they will not
go out without a fight. In the wake of these new and
dangerous developments, Turkish Cypriot parties and
newspapers that were a year ago in the forefront of
the peace movement and support of the Annan Plan now
openly say that Turkish Cypriots are under no obligation
to unite with the south. Certainly, if matters continue
to move in this direction, the reclosing of the ceasefire
line that divides the island seems to be only a matter
of time.
Endnotes
