CROSSING CONTINENTS - Cyprus

Hello audio diary!  And the first thing I'm going to tell you 
to my horror is that I've just realised that it's forty years 
since my first visit to Cyprus.  That's a sobering thought.  
Forty years ago the British flag had only just been lowered 
after a hundred years of colonial rule here and of course the 
Cypriots gained their independence.  That was not what some 
Greek Cypriots wanted.  What they desired to be unified with 
Greece, Enosis they called it.  That's what they fought for, 
and that's what the Turkish minority feared, and the 
consequences of all that of course is what is being visited on 
Cyprus now.  I'm just off to Nicosia which as a result is still 
a divided city.

PAPADAKIS:
Now there's beautiful quote by George Mikes, a very famous 
humourist, and it's important it was made as early as 1965.  
Mikes said that Cypriots realised very early that they could 
never become a great power so they decided to become a great 
nuisance, and I think we have proved this beyond any doubt.

NARRATOR:
I've come to a café for a chat with Dr Yiannis Papadakis who's 
a social anthropologist and assistant professor at the 
University of Cyprus.  Perhaps it may sound a rather cynical 
question to you, a Cypriot, but in world terms what does it 
really matter, I mean if there is no agreement, if this little 
Turkish enclave persists in the north of Cyprus?

PAPADAKIS:
Well clearly Cyprus is a very small place but think of the 
implications of Cyprus as a whole entering into the EU?  It 
will be the first EU state with a Muslim constituent state, and 
I think the implications of this and the hopeful messages it 
gives are enormous, especially in this post-9/11 era where 
these divisions between Muslims and Christians have become even 
more dangerous to cross than our own barbed wire division.

NARRATOR:
Efforts by the United Nations to end nearly thirty years of 
partition between this side of the island and the Turkish 
Cypriot north are at a critical stage.  I'm speaking to you on 
the 22nd of February and in just six days the UN-sponsored 
peace talks must be completed.  If there's no agreement, then 
Greek Cypriots move on to join the European Union leaving 
Turkish Cypriots out in the cold, isolated, in their pariah 
state in the north.  In this week's Crossing Continents, we 
follow events as Cyprus approaches the most important 
crossroads in its recent history.

Along the road off Eleftherias Square - Eleftherias of course 
means freedom - and I've come across a little group of 
children.  I think judging by their caps and their toggles and 
woggles and various things, they're probably Brownies and Cub 
Scouts, and they're busy signing forms and with them is a lady 
who's wearing a sign that says "hands across the divide".  What 
are the children doing?

LADY:
Well the children are giving us messages of peace.  We're 
collecting messages of peace and we have been since January 
11th this year – sorry, just one minute.  

He's asking me if he can write another message.  He doesn't 
just want one, he wants two.  

NARRATOR:
What sort of messages are they sending?

LADY:
Well I'll give you an example for the one we've got here, from 
Marios who was the first little boy.  I think he must be about 
six years of age.  It says, translated, I wish that Cyprus will 
not be divided any more and that we will have peace here and 
all over the world.

NARRATOR:
How much do you think that these little Greek children know 
about northern Cyprus and about Turkish children up there?

LADY:
Why don't you ask them?

NARRATOR:
Alright, well you ask them for me.  

LADY:
No.  I asked him if he's actually met a Turkish Cypriot before 
and his answer was straight away, no.

NARRATOR:
Would you like to visit?

LADY:
He said yes we would.

NARRATOR:
Do you think that it may be possible within a few months or in 
a few weeks time?

LADY:
Half say yes and half say no. Mixed reaction. Not in weeks but 
in months, she is saying.

NARRATOR:
Why does this turn you on so much?  Why are you so determined 
to --

LADY:
Why am I so determined?  I was born and brought up in London.  
My best friends are Turkish Cypriots and I -- I'm Greek 
Cypriot.  Yeah Cypriots, I mean in London we do not really 
distinguish so much.  Here though when I emigrated twelve years 
ago I saw the prejudism, the mistrust and what frightened me 
more than anything was the actual propaganda that is taught to 
our children in the schools.  I could not believe it when my 
daughter came home at the age of sort of like six and said to 
me the Turks are our enemies, the Turks have taken our houses, 
I hate the Turks.  So when I turned round and I said to her, 
hold on a minute, you remember Dilek and Shen and Mehmet in 
London?  She said yeah, I said you know they are our friends, 
right?  She goes of course they're our friends.  Well you've 
just told me they're our enemies because they are Turkish 
Cypriot.  Oh!  So when she sees it in that respect, it changes 
the whole concept.

NARRATOR:
It is very odd to walk into a city centre and find that it gets 
quieter and quieter as you walk on.  Well that's how it is in 
Nicosia.  I'm approaching the green line, the heavily fortified 
and defended frontier that divides Greek Nicosia from Turkish 
Nicosia.  I've just climbed onto a little viewing stand and I'm 
looking across ruined and deserted streets full of weeds and 
barbed wire, with a heavily armed soldier beside me and I can 
see a Turkish flag flying a hundred metres away.  This 
obscenity stretches across the city and across the island, and 
it's been here for decades.  Things started to go astray in 
Cyprus very soon after independence, with intercommunal 
violence and accusations of atrocities on both sides.  In 1974, 
Greek nationalists here were encouraged by Athens once more to 
demand Enosis - union with Greece.  In response, Turkish troops 
invaded and occupied the northern one-third of the island.  
It's been divided ever since, split by this green line.  In six 
days time, there's just a chance that agreement will be reached 
to dismantle these hideous barriers.

Well it's - what ? - five days now till the deadline with the 
framework talks and meeting me at the hotel this morning is 
Peter Loizos.  The question that we're concerned with this 
morning is refugees and that's obviously one of the big matters 
that's got to be settled, Peter.

LOIZOS:
Yes in 74, there were about 165 to 180,000 Greek Cypriots 
became refugees and none of them have been able to return to 
their homes so what I'd like you to do this morning is come and 
meet some of them.  They're actually going to be very close to 
the village they left in 74 and they'll give you a sense of how 
they feel about the last twenty-eight years and the future.

NARRATOR:
OK, off we go.

So Peter, can you just explain the geography?  Where are we 
exactly?

LOIZOS:
We're in a village called Astromerites, which means the place 
of stars.  We're right on the green line in western Cyprus and 
we are within sight of the village that my father emigrated 
from in 1930, and you're going to meet some of the people from 
that village in a moment.

NARRATOR:
Which is now of course in the Turkish enclave?  

LOIZOS:
Yes, it's called Argaki in Greek.  I don't actually know what 
it's called in Turkish.

NARRATOR:
I should have explained, Peter, that you're actually an 
academic and that you're teaching now at the Intercollege in 
Nicosia and you have a special interest in refugee matters.  
Now can you explain to me what the Annan plan proposes to do 
about the refugees?  

LOIZOS:
Well the Annan plan is going to allow half the Greek Cypriot 
refugees to go back to the zones where the Greeks were in a 
clear majority, and close to the line.  It's going to not allow 
that to happen in a Turkish-dominated zone where the Greeks can 
never be a majority so those people will get just visiting 
rights effectively in the Turkish zone.  The other 
characteristic of the Annan plan is two zones, a Greek zone and 
a Turkish zone, a very loose federation and the big debating 
points are how many settlers from mainland Turkey who came 
after 74 will be permitted to stay?  And how many soldiers, 
Greek or Turkish, will be involved in maintaining future 
security?

NARRATOR:
Let's go and talk to some of the refugees.

Nikos, I understand you were a student in England at the time 
that your village was invaded and taken over.  Do you still 
regard it as your home?

NIKOS:
It's not a matter of regarding it or not.  It's a part of me.  
It is the soil, it's the soul, it's the air, it's the light, 
it's the spirit.  It's my village and it's me.  It's a part of 
me. 

NARRATOR:
This obviously is something that matters very deeply to you and 
to your generation.  What about your children's generation, 
though?  Do they feel as strongly?

NIKOS:
On many occasions I’ve tried to describe to them what our home 
looked like in the village.  I think this is a rather emotional 
moment for me to share with my children and -- sorry!

NARRATOR:
It's alright.  I can understand your feelings entirely.

NIKOS:
So home in Cyprus is a very very sensational thing. So don't 
ask me if I'm going back.  Of course I'm going back.  I want to 
go back to my home.

NARRATOR:
We've got two generations here, mother and daughter, Georgina 
and Eliana.  If you had a chance, would you go back?  Eliana, 
presumably you've never been to the village?

ELIANA:
Right, I was thirty days old when the war happened so I had 
been there once, but I can't remember it.  Would I want to go 
back?  Absolutely.  For my generation, it's like an invisible 
wall.  You can't cross it and so just not only the curiosity 
aspect but also the need to resolve an unsolved issue is, is 
paramount.

NARRATOR:
I have heard it said that your generation is not really so 
concerned about this whole problem of the ongoing partition of 
the island because after all, the south is much more 
prosperous, things are going well here, you're going to get 
membership of the European Union anyway so what does it matter? 
 Do you hear that view?

ELIANA:
Yes I do.  My generation would believe that we have gained this 
right.  Why should Turkish Cypriots who for twenty-eight years 
haven't reacted at all, and haven't shown willingness to want 
to unite with us, all of a sudden now that we're joining the EU 
want to show this?  Why are the economics motivating the change 
rather than the emotions?

NARRATOR:
It's 6 o'clock in the morning, on the 24th February, four days 
to go until the deadline and I'm back in Larnaca airport about 
to begin the longest shortest journey in the world.  Let me 
explain.  I'm going to the so-called Turkish Republic of 
Northern Cyprus.  Now if I had wandered down the street outside 
my hotel this morning in Nicosia, walked fifteen metres across 
the green line, I should be there in northern Cyprus.  But 
according to the regulations, I should not be allowed to stay 
the night and since I need to stay several nights I have to 
take a very different route.  First I must take a plane to 
Athens, then another plane to Istanbul, then another plane to 
northern Cyprus.  In eighteen hours time at 11 o'clock tonight, 
I shall have completed my fifteen metre journey - at great 
expense and inconvenience.  That's the absurdity of this 
divided island.

That's stage 1 of my journey.  To travel fifteen metres north, 
I've flown a thousand kilometres west.  UN Secretary-General 
Kofi Annan is due here in Athens tomorrow to talk to the Greek 
prime minister.  He's already been to Ankara to consult with 
the Turkish government, all in preparation for his visit to 
Cyprus on Wednesday when he'll give his final shove to the 
negotiations in the hope of getting a settlement on Friday.  It 
does occur to me that at a time when the Secretary-General must 
have a great deal on his mind, stroppy little Cyprus is taking 
up a lot of his time.

Well it's after midnight and this ghastly journey is over.  I 
am in my hotel in Kyrenia in northern Cyprus, and the last lap 
of the marathon involved a nine hour wait in Istanbul and a 
ninety minute flight in a crowded plane.  Tomorrow - no that's 
today - I shall be talking to Turkish Cypriots about their 
hopes for the future.  Goodnight, audio diary!

It's Tuesday, three days to go until the deadline, and I've 
driven fifteen minutes up the road from Kyrenia to - guess 
where? - to Nicosia.  I'm just a few minutes away from where I 
was yesterday in southern Cyprus and it's taken me twenty-four 
hours to get here.  

I've come into a little shop which sells halva, beautiful 
beautiful very sweet.  What is it made from actually, Ahmed?

AHMED:
Sesame seeds and sugar.  

NARRATOR:
It's delicious.  Your family has had this for a long time, I 
understand, the business?

AHMED:
Yes.  Two hundred years we've been doing this business.

NARRATOR:
What I really want to ask you about is not about your beautiful 
halva but about, I see you've got a newspaper here and it's 
talking about the Kofi Annan plan.  Do you think it's going to 
work, do you think that your city and your country will be re-
united?

AHMED:
I hope so.  I would like to see it work anyway.  Either it 
works or we're going to leave the country.  My children will.

NARRATOR:
Do you think they would leave, your children?

AHMED:
They won't come back.  

NARRATOR:
Why is that, Ahmed?

AHMED:
Because there is no future.  I've been doing this business for 
thirty years.  Now I am not earning my living here.  

NARRATOR:
You mean, with things as they are, you think the economy is 
never going to recover?

AHMED:
No, no.  It won't recover.

NARRATOR:
So it's mainly an economic argument, as far as you're 
concerned?

AHMED:
Yes, it is.  

NARRATOR:
I am in the office of Supreme Court Judge Gonul Eronen.  Is 
there not something rather difficult or even contradictory 
about being a high court judge in a state or a country which is 
not even legally recognised, which is not a legal entity?
ERONEN:
Well I don't have any problems with that question because the 
European Human Rights Commission and now the European Human 
Rights Court has recognised that there is an independent and 
impartial judiciary functioning in the northern part of the 
island.

NARRATOR:
If, in the best of all possible worlds, there is a settlement, 
I mean what difference is it going to make to you and to your 
life and to your career, do you think?

ERONEN:
Oh, do you know what, I've always wanted to be a part of the 
Supreme Court of Cyprus, of a joint Cyprus.  I wanted to work 
with my colleagues.  One of my ideals even now, it’s a secret 
wish which I have to make, is that I always wanted to sit on 
some of the, one of the benches in Europe, in Brussels, 
Luxembourg, the Hague or Strasbourg.  But today I can't be, 
because because I don't exist.  We live and we breathe and we 
sleep and we eat the Cyprus issue, whereas the rest of the 
world is just involved in perhaps women's issues or what the 
Municipal Council is not doing or if they have their milk 
delivered or something.  We can't talk about such things, we 
have to wake up and go to bed with the Cyprus problem and 
everybody talks politics and now I'm really tired of this.  I 
want to get on with my life, I want to be - I want to think of 
simple things rather than whether I exist or not.

NARRATOR:
Well it's Wednesday 26th February and for the first time since 
I arrived in Cyprus the rain and the snow has gone away, and 
the sun is actually shining.  Perhaps that's a good omen.  As 
the argument continues in high places, I'm going to visit a 
school.  It's the school teachers' unions that have been 
largely responsible for organising demonstrations in favour of 
a settlement.  There have been three peace rallies in the past 
few months.  In November and December about thirty thousand 
took to the streets, and in January they claim up to seventy 
thousand attended.  Basically they've been calling on the 
Turkish Cypriot leadership, meaning President Denktash, to 
negotiate or to get out.  And there's another demonstration 
arranged for tomorrow, D-Day minus one, when they say it'll be 
the biggest rally ever in Cyprus history.  Well that's 
tomorrow.  Today, the school.

I'm here in the teachers' smoking room, with one of the 
teachers, Funda, who I think spent a lot of her, your life in 
Australia didn't you?

FUNDA:
I spent twenty years of my life in Australia.

NARRATOR:
Will you be attending the demonstration tomorrow?

FUNDA:
Yes, yes.  We've got to make ourselves heard in some way.

NARRATOR:
I think a lot of us may wonder, but why haven't the Turkish 
Cypriots been saying this for a long time?  For many years 
they've done nothing.

FUNDA:
I think the Turkish Cypriots have been saying it but no one's 
been listening.  Now when we've got all the attention with the 
solution, I think we're taking advantage of it.  

NARRATOR:
We've just stepped outside the school gates to talk to some of 
the pupils who are now thronged around us.  Are you guys going 
to the peace demonstration tomorrow?

PUPILS [translated]:
Yes - yes - yes.

NARRATOR:
Do any of you know any Greek Cypriot kids of your age?

PUPILS [translated]:
No - no - no.

NARRATOR:
Do you think that if there is peace, that you could make 
friends with them?

PUPILS [translated]:
No.  Why?  If we live together now, risk may be trouble, may be 
small trouble, the reason for big trouble. 

NARRATOR:
So what he's really saying is that if they are brought together 
now, he thinks there could be trouble, there could be --

PUPILS [translated]:
Yes.

NARRATOR:
Maybe you could start to play some sport against them for 
example, would you like to do that?

PUPILS [translated]:
No, they are worried.  I hear the history from 1974, this is 
the reason which I don't trust the Greek Cypriot now.  He says 
all my family want peace and solution here.

NARRATOR:
It seems to me that they want peace but they really don't want 
to live alongside the Greek Cypriots?

TRANSLATOR: 
They don't want now mix.  We want to live good neighbour.

NARRATOR:
OK thank you, thank you very much.

So that, that chant - I imagine they'll all be chanting it 
tomorrow - means no barriers to peace in Cyprus.

Thursday, 27th February.  Tomorrow is D-Day.  There are rumours 
that the deadline may be extended.  Whatever happens, the 
volume of debate in the media has grown and grown until you 
cannot turn on any radio or television channel without hearing 
more discussions, chat shows, phone-ins, news reports and 
punditary, and today the chatter is especially frantic because 
they're all discussing today's demonstration in Nicosia.  Some 
channels are urging their listeners to attend the rally and 
demand a settlement while the official government channels are 
telling them to stay away. I've just driven up the road from 
Kyrenia to Nicosia, and there was quite heavy traffic on the 
outskirts of town, so we shall see.

I've managed to get onto the roof of a building so that I can 
get a more panoramic view and also so that I can hear myself 
speak.  It is a very impressive sight up here, impossible to 
know how many there are.  Certainly the organisers will claim 
seventy thousand, the authorities will probably say it's far 
fewer.  Signs down here in the crowd, many of them are 
inscribed with slogans like "there will be no settlement with 
Denktash in power", "Denktash does not represent me".  

The other predominant slogans out there are to do with the 
European Union.  Hundreds of the demonstrators, probably 
thousands, are carrying blue balloons with the European Union 
stars and a map of Cyprus inset.  It's clearly that membership 
of the European Union is perhaps the biggest incentive for the 
Turkish Cypriots to seek a settlement.

This song has got pretty interesting words.  Everybody's 
singing along and apparently what they're saying is "Turkish 
Cyprus is a prison, the green lines are the prison bars and 
Denktash is the prison warder".  

It's Friday, 28th February and this was to be deadline day, but 
it's already become clear that the parties are to be given more 
time, another ten days, not to agree to the peace plan itself 
but to agree on holding a referendum to test public support for 
the plan.  That's on both the Greek and the Turkish sides.  
Later I'm hoping to talk to the United Nations special adviser 
on Cyprus, Alvaro De Soto, about the latest developments but 
first I'm trying to get an insight into the role of the Turkish 
armed forces in all this.  With thirty-five thousand troops 
here, the Turkish top brass will be taking a keen interest in 
the negotiations and their approval of the final plan will be 
crucial.  Since Turkish generals don't readily give interviews, 
I'm going to talk to a former officer in the Turkish Cypriot 
army, Colonel Halil Sadrasam.

SADRASAM [translated]:
Cyprus is extremely important strategically for Turkey.  When 
you look generally to the specific geographic position of the 
island, you can easily see how important it is strategically to 
Turkey.

NARRATOR:
And that, which explains why Turkey has been so reluctant over 
the past thirty years to, to reduce its military presence here?

SADRASAM [translated]:
Definitely, I completely agree with you.  This is exactly why 
also there are two English bases, British bases still on the 
island and because the Brits have been able to see the 
strategic point, even before Turkey, so that's why they're 
still maintaining their two bases.

NARRATOR:
I'm coming to the end of my journey and I've had such 
difficulty finding anyone who will speak against the 
settlement, it's hard to believe that it may not happen.  The 
great unknown at this stage is the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf 
Denktash.  Many believe that he's by far the biggest obstacle 
to a settlement and that he could still frustrate it.  He's 
even described the plan as trickery, far too complicated he 
says to be settled by the people in a referendum.  It's easy to 
present Denktash as a difficult old cuss but it must be 
remembered that he led his people throughout the 60s when 
Turkish Cypriots did suffer appallingly at the hands of Greek 
Cypriot nationalists.  Hundreds of Turkish Cypriots were 
murdered and so thoroughly intimidated they took refuge in 
enclaves.  Denktash cannot forget those days, and trust on both 
sides is in short supply.

For his comment on the notorious Cyprus problem on this special 
day, I am going to talk to Alvaro De Soto, the Secretary-
General's special adviser on Cyprus, and to meet him, I've had 
to get special permission from the Turkish Cypriots to pass 
into the UN buffer zone between north and south Nicosia.  I'm 
heading for the old Ledra Palace Hotel, now occupied by the UN.

Mr de Soto, this must be one of the longest UN operations 
anywhere, I imagine.  As of today, do you think it's any nearer 
a resolution?

DE SOTO:
Well what it is is near to decision, and I hope that that 
decision will be favourable on all sides but for I think the 
first time, what we have is a clear choice.  No further 
negotiation will yield more clarity.  

NARRATOR:
Is this, do you think, really the last chance, at least the 
last chance in the foreseeable future, to get a settlement?

DE SOTO:
It's very difficult to imagine should this fail a situation in 
which the same alignment of celestial bodies was in place.  The 
framework of incentives that exists now - very difficult to 
repeat.

NARRATOR:
And for Alvaro De Soto, has this been a frustrating experience? 
 How do you think you're going to look back on it?

DE SOTO:
Well I've never been actually frustrated.  There have been 
moments where there have been setbacks but I would only be 
deeply frustrated if either the leaders or the people should 
say no.