Writer/journalist FANOULLA ARGYROU wrote an open letter to President Christofias on 20th July 2009, the 35th anniversary of the barbarous Turkish invasion of Cyprus. Here is her letter in full:

Your Excellency,

Your pledge to accept 50,000 Turkish mainland colonists

During your presidency, a relatively short period to this day, you have made some very serious mistakes which tend to help the Turkish policy over Cyprus.

With the Agreement of 23rd May 2008 between you and Mr. M. A. Talat you consented to a major Turkish and British demand: That of two constituent states. In so doing you have side-lined the result of the 24th April 2004 Referendum i.e. the WILL and DECISION of the people.

 I will not list all the mistakes recorded. However, I will refer you to a second such mistake i.e. your statement of accepting 50,000 Turkish colonists upon reaching a solution of the Cyprus problem. (This provision however was included in the rejected Annan Plan).

 It is a well known and indisputable fact, that the importation of tens of thousands of Turkish colonists, which started in 1975, was part of a Turkish strategy aiming at changing the demographic character of the occupied area. And filling in the gap left by  the uprooting of the 200,000 Greek Cypriot refugees.

Therefore your hastened statement of being prepared to accept 50,000 of these people, especially after the people decided to reject the Annan Plan, is very serious indeed. The inclusion of this provision in the pro-Turkish Annan Plan was not accidental. But a successful Turkish ploy supported by Ankara’s allies.

 Turkey played this game before and very successfully.

Mustafa Kemal wanted the Sanjak of Alexandretta (once Armenian, later Ottoman and after the First World War, a part of Syria). That was where the famous Armenian resistance of Musa Dagh (made more famous by Franz Werfel’s “Forty Days of Musa Dagh”) took place.

 So, what Kemal did in order to further his strategic aims was to send Turks to Sanjak (same strategy the Turkish Governments began implementing in 1975 soon after the Turkish invasion of our island in 1974) with the objective of increasing the Turkish population there until they became a virtual monopoly. Then, when the time was favourable, in 1939, the Turkish Government asked the League of Nations to conduct a Plebiscite (Referendum) so that the people could. determine to which country they wanted to belong! So no prizes indeed for guessing a vote for Turkey.  So Turkish it became – though, to this day, Syria shows it as  part of Syria.

 If our Republic of Cyprus accepts any number of Turkish colonists, it does so at its own peril.

Turkish Cypriot concerns – Toplum Postasi 16 July 2009

It is interesting therefore to take serious notice of the Turkish Cypriot concerns over this matter. The London Community Post (English section of Toplum Postasi  HYPERLINK "http://www.toplum.co.uk" on 16 July 2009 wrote and I quote:

“Join the Boycott! Protect our identity! Toplum Postasi and London Community post are boycotting BRT TV following the company’s decision to ban the use of ‘Turkish Cypriot’ in all its newsreels and television programmes. The company’s director Ozer Kanli prefers it if Turkish Cypriots identify themselves as ‘Cyprus Turks’, a position he claims is necessary to ‘fairly’ include settlers from Turkey who live in northern Cyprus”.

This is accompanied by a full page inside Editorial titled ‘ Who Will Vote In A Referendum?’. The article criticises Mr. Stephanos Stephanou “jumping the gun when he says that an agreed solution will be put to referenda, separately but simultaneously in the “north” and in the “south” (Cyprus news Agency, 12.07.2009)…Therefore, in a referenda it will not be the Turkish Cypriots but the settlers who will predominantly decide the future of the Cypriots and Cyprus. There may be some truth in the argument that a substantial proportion of long established settlers may vote “Yes” in a referendum as they did in 2004. But if settlers’ votes will deny or override the legitimate human rights of Turkish Cypriots then those votes should be rejected regardless whether they produce a “No” or a “Yes” result…” And it quotes : “If a referenda is not based on the principle of EU citizens voting for the future of an EU member state then the outcome of the referenda will be that a settler society in a colonial form will be established and legitimised”.

And if one examines carefully what happened on the 24th April 2004 in the occupied areas, it will be confirmed that the “yes” vote for the notorious Annan Plan was supported by the colonists’ votes and not by the votes of the Turkish Cypriots. Not forgetting of course that the importation of colonists in the occupied areas constitutes a war crime and has been confirmed as such.

I hope Mr. President  you reconsider the situation. It takes more of a man to admit mistakes and address his People and all outsiders in frankness and determination in support of the National interests of his country no matter what.

 I am sure you do not want to go down in History blamed for all that your predecessors did not dare do. Even though some do carry heavy indictments of co-responsibility for the political mess they left our country in.

With my best intentions and regards,

Yours sincerely,

Fanoulla Argyrou

Refugee from occupied Neapolis Nicosia, London.

“Bullshit” revisited!

Review by Fanoula Argyrou of the shameful book
“Cyprus: The Post-Imperial Constitution”
by Vassilis K. Fouskas and Alex O. Tackie

[commissioned by Lobby for Cyprus!!!]

Ackknowledgements

In their acknowledgements the authors explain that the book was commissioned by Kyriakos Christodoulou, former coordinator of Lobby for Cyprus (London based) and the issue originally was to address  the  (so called) Turkish Cypriot ‘isolation’. To my understanding K.C must have asked them to write a pamphlet explaining that such a thing as “T/C isolation” does not exist. A book or pamphlet to be used against the Turkish propaganda.

However, they decided to proceed on a different level (to the disappointment of Lobby for Cyprus, as they note, which nevertheless accepted their proposal) because as they claim the issue is inseparable from a number of other complicated themes and because there is no reliable statistical information about the areas where the European acquis is suspended, where the T/cs and settlers as well as other ethnicities live, work etc.

I disagree with the authors:

1) The so called “isolation of the T/cs” is straight forward and clear. They chose to side with Turkey who invaded half of Cyprus in 1974 and still holds that part of the Republic under its occupation. Therefore whatever “isolation” they claim is due to the Turkish invasion and occupation. (Strange as it may seem, the British documents endorse fully this position and it is  questionable why the authors chose to ignore that first hand evidence – the writer has already published  references to that effect  in ‘Simerini’).  Since 1974 to this day, we have not seen or heard of any mass and continued demonstrations in the occupied by the Turkish Cypriots for the withdrawal of all Turkish occupation forces and of the hundreds of thousands of Turkish Anatolian squatters imported to the occupied and for the return of all Greek Cypriot refugees, legitimate owners of their properties in the occupied areas.

2) Let us be clear. When the Turkish Cypriots claim “isolation” they mean political isolation i.e. recognition. Nothing less. Therefore their demand is forbidden by United Nations Resolutions 541 and 550.

Chronicle of the Cyprus Crisis

In their chronicle they list:

“1954 Britain, in defiance of the Treaty of Lausanne, introduces the idea of a tripartite Conference (Greece, Turkey and Britain) to discuss the Cyprus issue. Greece objects but finally accepts. Grivas, an extreme right-winger who fought against the Greek Communists during the Greek Civil War (1944-49) using terrorist methods, arrives secretly in Cyprus to organise the liberation struggle.

1955 EOKA (National organisation of Cypriot Fighters) anti-colonial campaign begins on 1 April but the Communist left does not participate. Tripartite Conference in London begins on 29 August. Riots in Izmir and Istanbul against the Greek Minorities”.

These two references above apart  from contradicting each other are also full of historical inaccuracies. 

The Tripartite Conference in London took place end of August 1955 and not 1954 as wrongly stated in para a) above but correctly in para b).

2. 2)The reference to Grivas as an “extreme right-winger who fought against the Greek Communists…using terrorist methods” in para a) above, in my opinion was deliberate by the authors, in order to undermine the EOKA struggle as a “terrorist organisation” just like the British and the Turks did.
   

3. 3)George Grivas was chosen by Archbishop Makarios himself, as the military leader of the EOKA 1955-59 struggle for Union of Cyprus with Greece (something the authors avoid explaining). Makarios was the political leader of that organisation. According to the authors a reader can assume that Archbishop Makarios is equally and automatically branded  as a “terrorist” too!
   

4. 4)In para b) the authors refer to “EOKA anti-colonial campaign” which is half the truth. As aforementioned EOKA 1955-59 whilst an anti-colonial, it was foremost a struggle for UNION OF CYPRUS WITH GREECE. The authors avoid explaining this crucial factor to the readers.
   

5. 5)They add that the  “Communist Left does not participate” i.e. relating this to previous para and their reference to Grivas. 6) The authors conveniently avoid explaining to the readers that the riots in Izmir and Constantinople (by the way Greeks all over the world, Press, Politicians, Writers, Media and ordinary people do not use the Turkish name of Istanbul but Constantinople) were organised by the then Turkish Prime Minister and the British government to coincide with the Tripartite Conference. They paid organised Turkish thugs to attack the Greek community i.e. the pogrom…
   

“1963 – 65….Turkish Cypriot nationalists withdraw into military protected enclaves…Greece and Turkey assume new role to solve the Cyprus issue on the basis of Dean Acheson’s NATO partition schemes…”

This is a misleading chronicle. 1) By 1963 the Turkish Cypriots were armed to their teeth by Turkey. They attacked the Greek Cypriots in December 1963 before withdrawing to their self imposed enclaves, putting into effect a long devised Turkish plan to attack the Greek Cypriots and dissolve the Republic of Cyprus and create two Federated States. Full text of Turkish plan found in the safe of Turkish Cypriot Agriculture Minister, who forgot it in his haste to abandon his office. The document was dated 14 September 1963! References in Cypriot Press especially in ‘Phileleftheros’ of February 1964 and many books.

2) There was NO NATO partition scheme at the time,  that is a myth created by elements who want to shield British front line involvement. The PARTITION PLAN (and how to execute it step by step leading to 1974) was devised by the Planning Department of the Foreign Office in February 1964. The Americans did not want to get involved in January 1964 but the British Government pressed hard to achieve their agreement to do so. Full description of those historical events in British Archives (also articles by  the writer in Simerini in Cyprus and London based Eleftheria and Ta Nea). Acheson was guided by Lord Hood of the Foreign Office in all his negotiations. Acheson, who was a sick man soon got fed up and left the scene…

1967-“Most military officers are on the payroll of the CIA”… write the authors in their chronicle. This is very important to us. But unfortunately the authors name none of those officers. Not even one.  In the same paragraph under “1967” they write “Fighting in Cyprus between Grivas’s forces and Turkish Cypriots in Kophinou…” This is also wrong. It was not “Grivas’s forces” but the Forces of the legitimate Republic of Cyprus in defence of the Republic.  (The removal of the Greek Contingent/ (Merarchia was a Turkish demand which the British pursued satisfactorily in order to eliminate Greek involvement, bring back Denktash from Turkey and start the Clerides/Denktash dialogue between the two communities. All that with the help of the Soviet Union too!).

2005 “Talat, a left-winger, wins elections in the areas where the European acquis is suspended, renewing hopes for a just and fair settlement for all Cypriots”.

Unfortunately they do not explain that the position Talat holds is an illegal one, and the area where those elections were held is the part of the Republic UNDER TURKISH OCCUPATION since 1974. Not just the “area where the European acquis is suspended”. That is grossly misleading to readers who are not well acquainted with the Cyprus issue.

2008 “AKEL President Christofias wins …and renews hopes for a solution on the basis of an anti-imperial anti-nationalist agenda…”. Does this reference insinuate that  previous presidents were seeking a solution on the basis of pro-imperial, pro-nationalist agenda?

Introduction

As the authors say, the book argues instead that it is the time of two left-wing parties on both sides of the Greek Line, to initiate an anti-imperial dialogue and to launch a post-imperial constitutional process immune from great power and NATO engineering… because the Republic of Cyprus is a member of the EU but not of NATO.

The authors clearly detest NATO and this is more than clear right through the book. The exact line taken by President Christofias himself.  As one Turkish newspaper in London quoted Christofias  “NATO over my dead body”.  The authors suggest thinking of a Cypriot society, politics after imperialism, they insist on calling the OCCUPIED AREAS as ASA (Areas of Suspended Acquis), repeatedly they refer to the Republic of Cyprus as “Greek Cypriot-led Republic or Greek-led”.  For instance in page 7 they say “The Cypriot Left is in office both in ASA and in the Greek Cypriot-led Republic…”.

The authors have clearly taken the issue from a wrong prospective. Or was it intentional? The Cyprus issue is one of INVASION and CONTINUED TURKISH OCCUPATION. Instead, they have overwhelmed the book with Left-wing anti-Natoism which to my opinion is prejudicial.

Narrating Cyprus

On page 19 they write: “The British partition policy on Cyprus was upheld by the Turkish Cypriot leadership and Turkey itself, and was additionally endorsed by Acheson’s and Ball’s conspiracy plans of 1964-65. It could also be argued that the faction of Greek Cypriot nationalists who gathered around General Grivas, the leader of the military arm of EOKA, played straight into the hands of the advocates of partition, since it aroused Turkish Cypriot nationalism further. Grivas might have been fighting for enosis but, to all intents and purposes, he and his fellow Greek nationalists, or some of them, were working – whether wittingly or unwittingly we are not in a position to know – for the undercurrents of partition, serving NATO’s policy…”

This paragraph is, again, misleading (as in pages 22 and 23 and others). All partition plans for Cyprus were British to start with in consultation with Turkey. And there were NO conspiracy plans of 1964-65 by Acheson and Ball. This is a myth, as already mentioned in this review. All plans were devised by London and sometimes promoted through the Americans with the guidance of the Foreign Office. And when George Ball, as claimed by Martin Packard, (Ball died and is not here to confirm or deny)  told the latter:

“You’ve got it all wrong, hasn’t anyone told you that our plan here is for partition?”, (If he really said something to that effect) what he meant by “our” was the  UK/USA plan and not just an American plan!

The undercurrents of partition SERVE foremost TURKEY’s interest and not NATO’s and that is a fact nobody should avoid spelling out loud and clear.

Another crucial point in this paragraph is the fact that the authors do not clarify which EOKA they refer to! Very important point. Epecially as they refer to Grivas as the “military arm of EOKA”. Grivas was indeed the military arm of EOKA of 1955-59 as I have already mentioned. However, do they refer to EOKA 1955-59 or EOKA B? Again, they grossly mislead without giving proper explanations to the readers. Grivas died anyway in January 1974, six months before the coup and the Turkish invasions of 1974.

In page 20, again they mislead when they say “Inter-communal fights broke in 1963-64… This gave the golden opportunity to the Turkish Cypriot leadership to leave their government positions and… withdraw…” The authors avoid informing the readers that it was the heavily armed by Turkey Turkish Cypriots who attacked the Greek Cypriots in December 1963. The way they portray the situation – their reference to “golden opportunity”- prompt one to take it that the Turkish Cypriots were attacked by the Greek Cypriots!

Worth noticing that most of the times when referring to Greece (Turkey and Britain) they refer to it as NATO power.

However, another vivid contradiction is to be found in pages 24 and 25. Whilst they repeatedly refer to NATO’s and Acheson/Ball conspiracy partition plan, they finally note that “The partition of Cyprus between Greece, Turkey and Britain, initiated by the British in the 1950s and enshrined in the constitutional arrangements of 1959-60, were virtually put into practice in 1963-64 with the self-imposed policy of enclaves by the Turkish Cypriots, a policy of which Resolution 186 disapproved…”. 

In page 27 they revert to their anti-American obsession when they claim that the Turkish invasions of 1974 were an amateurish implementation of Acheson’s conspiracy scheme.

I find it befitting of any one who claims to be an academic to be so resentful of the truth. The British Archives are full of documents revealing the actual facts and the very truth. What happened in 1974 was a well orchestrated implementation of a detailed British plan devised in February 1964 taking into account all Turkish demands. And had nothing to do with Acheson who was long dead by then (1971).

The ‘Isolation’ of Turkish Cypriots

On pages 58 and 59 the authors write: “The Greek Cypriot project for self-determination/enosis was defined from within and mainly by the Greek Cypriot bourgeoisie and the prosperous Church – with Cold War Makarios and Post-Cold War Papadopoulos being its most prominent political exponents, although no Cypriot leader has since 1974 ever mentioned enosis…”.

This is again a distortion and deliberate undermining of the EOKA 1955-59 struggle. By referring to the bourgeoisie and prosperous Church (i.e. the Communists not participating!) the authors directly insinuate that only a small faction of the Greek Cypriot majority on the island supported that cause. By referring to just “Papadopoulos” whom do they mean? The late President Tassos Papadopoulos? But if Makarios was its “Cold War exponent” why was Papadopoulos its “post-Cold War exponent”?  Both of them were involved in the EOKA 1955-59 struggle, together, right from the beginning.

Finally the authors touch the heart of their promotion in the book on pages 64 and 65 (and in “Conclusions” 88 and 89). When more or less they regard as misleading the following counter-discourse of the Republic of Cyprus: 

“The Greek Cypriot counter-argument is that there is not so much isolation – which is true – and that the isolation that exists is the self-imposed result of 1963, of the Turkish invasions of 1974 and of the declaration of independence in 1983. The very tag ‘isolation of Turkish Cypriots’ is a misnomer, they argue, since there are more Turkish settlers in the North than Turkish Cypriots – which is also true. The demand-driven inefficient economic system and ‘the large public sector of the occupied areas’ has also been damaging to its economic performance. Furthermore, the Greek Cypriot argument goes, the dependence on Turkey and the influx of unskilled labourers from Turkey are detrimental to productivity. Moreover, the Greek Cypriot side points to welfare policies implemented on the part of the Republic, including the issuing of tens of thousands of passports to Turkish Cypriots, the free welfare attention they receive and other benefits. In short, the Greek Cypriots say that the Turkish Cypriots are using the ‘isolation myth’ in order to gain political capital, namely international recognition as a separate state-which might very well be true”.

In actual fact they doubt the position of the Republic of Cyprus that the so called ‘isolation’ myth aims at recognition. Further more they refrain from referring in full detail to all the benefits the Turkish Cypriots absorb from the Republic without paying a single penny in taxes. (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cyprus has issued a booklet on that issue).

And they suggest:

“We would assume that the Cypriot Left in particular, would want to step out of the Macmillan-Annan illegal orbit, as this leads Cypriot society nowhere, while deepening the dependence of European political and legal orders upon Anglo-Saxon power-political calculations… Our duty here is to argue (and recommend) that the Cypriot Left, both in the North and the South of the island, should get out of this vicious circle of the illegal Cypriot acquis…will make some suggestions as to how the developmental gap between the two separate parts of the island can be bridged…”.

In fact they promote the integration of the occupied areas with the rest of the Republic but as two separate entities! This is more explicit in page 88: “…that the Republic and the EU should try simultaneously to cooperate, in every possible economic manner, to bridge the regional economic disparity between ASA’s and the Republic’s territories, while advancing island-wide economic and political integration…”. (ASA they call the occupied areas). Confederation?

And in conclusion they recommend: “For it would be bourgeois humbug if the Cypriot Left, now in office, fails to meet the condition hereunder, on the basis of which our conception of a Cypriot post-imperial constitution is structured. And as far as Cyprus after imperialism is concerned, this much is clear to us for the future: Cyprus, guided by its society and its parties of the left, should begin moving now, nationally and internationally, outside the perimeters of its illegal and externally imposed imperial acquis. In other words, the Cypriot left should convince itself that-with apologies to Marx-the liberation of Cyprus will only be the work of Cypriots themselves”.

Wrong! Liberation of Cyprus comes only by the withdrawal of All Turkish troops and all Turkish Anatolian squatters by “Natoist” Turkey and NOT by the “Cypriots themselves”.

“Solution by the Cypriots for the Cypriots” was the invention of the Foreign Office promoted by pro-Turkish Joan Ryan and which President Christofias adopted. And implied nothing short of the recognition of two constituent states legalised of course by a …new Constitution! (Already such a camouflaged attempt failed in Zurich only recently).

This book is yes, music to the ears of President Christofias on many respects. However, let us make the long story SHORT:

A NEW CONSTITUTION MEANS DECONSTRUCTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS AND CONSTRUCTION OF ANOTHER STATE OF AFFAIRS, namely Virgin birth i.e. in Greek PARTHENOGENESH…

No doubt, the 1960 Constitution needs to be UPGRADED, but NEVER REPLACED, as this  -further to the “annanial character” the NEW Constitution will definitely have-  in no uncertain terms will  lead 100% to “EU throw us OUT”.

The TETRAGONISMOS TOU KYKLOU (squaring the circle) by the EU guys, so to accommodate the nonsense that will be agreed, is PARAMITHKIA THS PANO TSIKARTZHS (total nonsense).  Indeed, the chances for squaring the circle are the same Cyprus will have in maintaining  its EU identity, should the Constitution be REPLACED and the Republic of Cyprus be deconstructed.

AS SIMPLE AS THAT.  Whoever disagrees, HAS to document and convince of any opposite position.

The authors have chosen and used repeatedly (I lost count) two words: “bullshit”and “hambug”.

In which case I am entitled to use it myself. I regard this book as “bullshit” revisited!

Fanoulla Argyrou

Journalist/Author

London 5/4/2009

OPINION: Α wake-up call

Christofias’ 50,000 unlimited!!!

Regarding  Mr. Christofias statement of having accepted 50,000 colonists. This constitutes automatically legalisation of a war crime (acceptance of even one constitutes legalisation of war crime) for which President Christofias DOES NOT have a people’s MANDATE.

Originally I thought this number to be a misrepresentation. To begin with it does not specify whether this is a TOTAL number or if it will most certainly exceed this number once their spouses and children are added (and they do have children, not one not two not three…) reaching well over the 150,000 in actual total! (If there can be a total to this case!).

 However, on second thought I believe even this number is wrong! Why? Because these squatters do not marry only one wife but up to...4! So the number can swell considerably if this is not the TOTAL number.  A friend reminded me of a recent case: When the Gymnasium in occupied Rizokarpasso opened,  RIK went there and reported on a case of a Turkish Anatolian squatter who had four wives and...28 children!!!

Whatever the case, Mr. Christofias’ concession of the century accepting without a mandate 50,000 colonists which was a provision of the Annan Plan and which the 76% of the Greek Cypriots rejected constitutes : THE CRIME OF THE CENTURY! Because Mr. Christofias, WITHOUT A MANDATE from the people who VOTED him in, unilaterally stands by the aggressor Turkey and her expansionist ambitions and plans over Cyprus and her war crime (the importation of these squatters from Anatolia is considered a war crime) Mr. Christofias is not just trying to show how a good boy he is to Cyprus’s colonial masters and others,  but in actual fact is putting into practice the notorious Annan Plan provision by provision and selling it to the indigenous population as…goodwill concessions. The change in history books is another vivid example of putting into practice provisions of the notorious Annan Plan etc etc.And this began with the 23rd of May 2008 agreement with Talat when he accepted the “partnership” of “two constituent states” as envisaged in the British invention of the so called “Annan Plan” (Hannay).  We should demand his resignation. He has failed the people that voted him in. This should be a wake-up call. Otherwise the very existence of Greek Cypriots in Cyprus after well over 3,000  has started the countdown…

Fanoulla Argyrou

London 6.9.2008