By George Koumoulli
“I didn’t take over a state to deliver community”
You can fool everyone for a while, a few all the time, but not everyone all the time.
Abraham Lincoln, 1809–1865, American President
On the occasion of the nineteenth anniversary of the rejection of the Annan plan, I am given the opportunity to soberly and objectively point out the lies/inaccuracies told by the proponents of the “No” vote to deceive Cypriot voters into voting against the plan.
The title of the article, as everyone recognizes, was Tassos Papadopoulos’ motto on the eve of the 2004 referendum.
Before, However, coming to the main issue, I would like to refer to a recent interesting survey by the University of Cyprus that reveals that 2/3 of those who voted “No” would vote “Yes” if there were a new referendum on the same plan today. Perhaps Lincoln’s quote comes true, but it is too late because we have passed the point of no return.
Today I will not comment that if we accepted the plan, Greece and Turkey would reduce the troops by 2018 to 950 Greeks and 650 Turks respectively and their number would be subject to a downward review every three years, that is, there was the prospect of COMPLETE demilitarization.
In short, we voted to keep the 40 000 Turkish soldiers, and we did so with an aggressive order. Nor will I mention that on the territorial side, the Turkish Cypriots would have 28.5% of the total area of the island and would return the entire area of Morfou, Famagusta and 52 villages, while Karpasia would enjoy broad self-government.
Nor that the plan fully respected individual human rights, including the rights of those forced to flee their homes.
However, I will criticize the weighty line that our Tassos Papadopoulos missed in the run-up to the referendum in order to mislead voters and thwart, forever as it seems, the long-awaited solution.
T. Papadopoulos from the first moment advocated the rejection of the Annan plan.
In his address on April 7, 2004, with tears in his eyes, he said: “I did not take over a state to deliver a community.” Since then, all the media sympathetic to Papadopoulos have been repeating – especially these days – like good parrots that Annan would dissolve the RoC.
The project was a form of IFR. The trope of the “No” supporters was that we did not reject the IGC but the concrete solution proposed by the UN.
However, what the opponents of the plan ignore is that any form of federal solution presupposes the reintegration of the Turkish Cypriots into the RoC and this reintegration of our compatriots into the state does not mean … dissolution of the RoC! Besides, the UN (and Turkey) would recognize the United Republic of Cyprus, as would be the new name of our country.
How can a country that enjoys full international recognition be broken? In conclusion, our insistence on the notorious motto of T. Papadopoulos – which we still hear today from party officials who support the PD – indicates our desire to be forever the rulers of Cyprus and for the Turkish Cypriots to be a minority and not a community.
Is it utter hypocrisy to beg for the resumption of talks with a view to reaching a federal solution when such a solution presupposes the effective participation of Turkish Cypriots in all decisions of the central government, which we consider to be the “dissolution” of the RoC or, according to Anastasiades, “inequality”? Therefore, it should come as no surprise to anyone that foreigners suspect that we prefer a uni-communal state in southern Cyprus, i.e. the Greek Cypriot Republic, rather than a bi-communal state throughout Cyprus.
Indeed, the mutation of the RoC would dissolve the Greek Cypriot Republic – which in essence is the current status quo – and it is this danger that brought Papadopoulos to tears.
In other words, we refuse to share power with the Turkish Cypriots and this is where the problem lies. They do not accept that the parties of the “middle ground”, the Church and the economically privileged should have e.g. a Turkish Cypriot foreign minister or an ambassador to the USA/England/Germany Turkish Cypriots.
The rejectionists may have abandoned the idea of union, but they never abandoned the idea of Greek Cypriot sovereignty in a future federal solution – this is the notorious “right content”.
It would be more honest for all of them to confess that they prefer a two-state solution and not to lament that in a federal solution, we will hand, as we ought to do, part of the state to the Turkish Cypriots.
There are many question marks over the intentions of the IGC regarding the IGC. How can one not be alarmed when working with party officials who have excelled in reactionary, racist, chauvinist, not to say dichotomous statements and actions?
The impression of the average Cypriot is that Tatar and Christodoulides are aligned for the two-state solution.
The first approaches the issue directly, the second through the twist. That is why the probability of the sun rising from the west is considerably greater than the probability of a solution under the IGC.
And the myriad worse: the stagnation of the Cyprus problem is now taking on the dimensions of a cry of anguish in the face of disasters hanging over everyone’s heads.
*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of CypriumNews.
