FORMALISING THE PARTITION OF CYPRUS: LESSONS FROM THE INDIAN SUBCONTINENT

Year 2001, Volume: 6 Issue: 3, 0 - 0, 01.09.2001

İshtiaq Ahmad

Abstract

Cyprus has been divided between Turks and Greeks since the UN-supervised Green Line partitioning Nicosia, the capital city, was drawn in 1963 after the Greek onslaught against the Turks and the collapse of the now-defunct Republic of Cyprus. Over a decade later, in July 1974, the Turkish intervention only extended the scope of this division to the entire island. The existence of two separate administrations in Cyprus since 1964, when the UN Forces in Cyprus UNFCYP were deployed in the buffer zone, and two separate states since 1983, when the Turks declared independence, means a de facto partition of Cyprus is already well in place. A broader dimension of this division encompassing distinctions of national history, culture, ethnicity and religion dates back to the day the first Ottoman Turk landed on the island in 1571. Neither during the long Ottoman rule, nor in the British period or the brief era of the Republic was the civilisational gap between the two nations bridged. Considering these historical realities, equally reflected in the situation today, the creation of two separate states in Cyprus offers the hope of a long-lasting political settlement of Cyprus within Europe. The division of British India into India and Pakistan in 1947 can be a precedent for formalising the partition of Cyprus: the two cases of partition seem to be a replica of each other in a number of ways.

References

• 1 The Agra Summit between India’s Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and Pakistan’s President, General Pervez Musharraf, on 14-16 July 2001, was important even if the two countries failed to bridge their differences over Kashmir. A joint summit statement could not be issued because Pakistan refused to include in it a reference to cross-border terrorism and India refused to agree to a reference to Kashmiri self-determination. A dispute that has marred ties between the two nations for over half century would obviously take time to resolve. The Summit’s significance should therefore be seen in the context of its contribution to a sustained high-level bilateral diplomacy between India and Pakistan, which had started in February 1999 with Mr Vajpayee’s visit to Lahore as part of what was called ‘bus diplomacy.’ See The Times of India, 17 July 2001. For details regarding the fast emerging détente in Turkish-Greek ties, including at the military level, and their likely impact on the Cyprus issue, see Jonathan Stevenson, ‘Solomon’s Baby’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 11 April 2001. It is quite unfortunate that Greek Cypriots dislike the growing friendship between Turkey and Greece. “Smiles, embraces, lunch by the sea, tree planting, dancing under the stars. It’s not surprising that many in [south] Cyprus were disturbed by the weekend Aegean love-in between Greek and Turkish Foreign Ministers George Papandreou and Ismail Cem,” commented the Cyprus Mail of 26 June 2001.
• 2 In fact, if we look at history and even present times, the Greeks seem to share a common vision with the Hindus of India. Archbishop Makarios, the President of the former Republic of Cyprus was a compatriot of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the Non-Alignment Movement. No surprise that the First Lady of the Greek Cypriots, the wife of President Glafcos Clerides, has Indian origin. For the full text of Jinnah’s speech, see Jamil-u-din Ahmad (ed.), Speeches and Writings of Mr Jinnah, Lahore, Sh. Muhammad Ashraf, 1952, p. 177.
• 3 Jawaharlal Nehru, An Autobiography, London, Bodley Head, 1955, p. 460.
• 4 Mogul Emperor Akbar, for instance, married a Hindu woman and started a new religion based on the fusion of Islam and Hinduism. In Cyprus, the Ottoman Turks liberated the Orthodox Christian Greeks from the tutelage of the Catholic Venetians. During the Ottoman reign, the Greek Cypriot priests were given the power to collect taxes, not just from the Greek subjects but also from Turks living in Greek majority localities. As far as the anti-British nationalist movements in Cyprus and India were concerned, these were a direct outcome of the notorious British policy of ‘divide and rule’ under which the colonial power unduly favoured the former subjects of the Muslim rule. Interestingly, these very people became a Frankenstein Monster for the British.
• 5 The Hindu nationalist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, declared Muslims as foreigners, giving them two options: “They must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country wholly sub-subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less preferential treatment, not even citizens’ rights.” See M.S. Golwalker, We, or Our Nationhood Defined, Nagpur, Bharat Publications, 1939, p. 35.
• 6 See Zaim M. Necatigil, The Cyprus Conflict, Nicosia, 1982, pp. 15.
• 7 Polyvios G Polyviou, In Search of a Constitution, Nicosia, Chr Nicolauo, 1976, p. 15, as cited in Metin Takmkoc, The Turkish Cypriot State: the Embodiment of the Right to Self-determination, London, K. Rustem & Brothers, 1988, p. 63.
• 8 See ibid., pp. 59-76. The sole reason why the Greek Cypriot leadership demolished the system and structure of the International State of the Republic of Cyprus, writes Metin, was to reach their goal of enosis. The amendments to the Constitution proposed by Makarios meant to eliminate those provisions of the Constitution that granted to the Turkish Cypriots immutable partnership status in the affairs of state. For instance, under these amendments, the right of the Turkish Cypriot Vice-President to veto any parliamentary legislation and decisions of the Council of Ministers concerning foreign affairs, defence and security was abolished. The separate electorates for the Turks to elect their 30 percent Turkish members and Vice-President of the House of Representatives were also to be abolished. The list goes on.
• 9 See P Hardy, The Muslims of British India, London, Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 222-55. Also see Robert L. Hardgrave and Stanley A. Kochanek, India: Government and Politics in a Developing Nation, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich College Publishers, 1993, pp. 50-52.
• 10 Muslims made up 22 percent of the population of India and Hindus 68 percent, meaning that under pure majoritarian rule the Muslims would be absolutely insecure in the event that the government should be captured by Hindu supremacists such as the Hindu Mahasbha movement. Although the Congress Party was formally committed to secular India, in practice it never represented all Indian communities. Members of the Mahasbha movement and other Hindu nationalists, such as B. S. Moonje, were welcome in Congress, while members of Muslim parties were excluded as ‘communalists’. See ibid., p. 48; Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India, New York, Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 33-75; and H.V. Hodson, The Great Divide: Britain-India-Pakistan, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 1985, p. 59. The Indian Muslim demands mentioned in Jinnah’s Fourteen Points show a remarkable resemblance with the constitutional safeguards for 20 percent Turks as against 80 percent Greeks provided in the 1960 Republic, for instance, the 70:30 ratio in the parliamentary representation and employment in civil service and security forces, respectively. See Metin, op. cit., p. 62 & 71. Also see Nancy Cranshaw, The Cyprus Revolt: an Account of the Struggle for Union with Greece, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1978, pp. 42-50 & 62-67.
• 11 German Nazism and Italian Fascism inspired Hindu nationalists, who practised racism against the Muslims of India. See V.D. Savarkar, Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?, Bombay, S.S. Savarkar, 1969, pp. 84-85; and K.K. Aziz, The Making of Pakistan: a Study in Nationalism, Lahore, Islamic Book Service, 1989, p. 82.
• 12 Necatigil, op. cit.
• 13 See Harry Scott Gibbons, The Genocide Files, London, Charles Bravos, 1997, pp. 408-415. The genie of Nicos Sampson continues to haunt Cyprus in 2001 in the same month Nicos Sampson died, May, his son, Sotiris Sampson, was elected in the parliamentary elections, swept in by the communist Greek Cypriot party, AKEL.
• 14 See Elizabeth H. Prodromou, ‘Reintegrating Cyprus: the Need for a New Approach’, Survival, Vol. 40, No. 3, autumn 1998, pp. 10-11.
• 15 Radha Kumar, ‘The Troubled History of Partition’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 76, No. 1, January-February 1997, pp. 22-34.
• 16 Chaim Kaufmann, ‘When All Else Fails: Ethnic Population Transfers and Partitions in the Twentieth Century’, International Security, Vol. 23, No. 2, fall 1998, pp. 120-56. Also see Chaim Kaufmann, ‘Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars’, International Security, Vol. 21, No. 1, spring 1996, pp. 136-75.
• 17 A variant of the ‘Third Option’ on Kashmir -that of independence- the idea of partitioning the rest of Kashmir between India and Pakistan while keeping the valley of Kashmir as an autonomous region was proposed first in the early 1990s by US experts on South Asia in response to growing Muslim militancy in the Indian-administered Kashmir since 1989. It reflects a compromise between two extreme standpoints on Kashmir traditionally maintained by the two countries, with Pakistan demanding the holding of a UN-supervised plebiscite in Kashmir in accordance with UN resolutions and India considering Kashmir as an integral part of its territory on the basis of an accession document it claims to have signed with the last ruler of the princely state of Kashmir. If the summit diplomacy between India and Pakistan continues, the leaders of the two countries may agree to exercise the ‘Third Option’ on Kashmir, for which there already exists sufficient support in Pakistani media and political circles, although India remains more or less intransigent.
• 18 Radha, op. cit., p. 25. Also see Mehmet Ali Birand, ‘We have Made a Solution on Cyprus Harder to Reach Again!’, Turkish Daily News, 1 June 2001. He writes, “The Czechoslovakia model is not the kind that can be applied to Cyprus. Czechoslovakia took the decision based on the internationally accepted principle that it can ‘redefine its borders peaceably.’ According to international principles and public opinion, what is wanted on Cyprus is a redrawing of the borders as a result of war. And this is unacceptable.” In the case of Cyprus, Mr Birand’s opinion is questionable. First, the redrawing of the borders as a result of war is not the demand of international principles and public opinion. Second, it was not only the Turkish intervention of 1974 which re-drew Cypriot borders, the British and then the UN have also been instrumental in doing so peacefully, by drawing the Green Line across Nicosia and stationing peace-keepers in the 180-kilometer-long UN buffer zone, respectively. Toeing Mr Birand’s line, the Greek Cypriot government and media also criticised the applicability of the ‘Czech model’ to Cyprus after Turkish Prime Minister, Bülent Ecevit, referred to it in an interview with Hürriyet newspaper in May 2001. See Cyprus Mail, 31 May 2001.
• 19 In 1987, the demographic composition of Czechoslovakia was 63 percent Czechs and 31 percent Slovaks. Even though the Slovaks made significant economic progress from the 1960s onwards, their per capita income six years after independence in 1999 was still $8,500 as against the Czech Republic’s $11,700. The important point is that, despite having a common heritage and ethno-religious stock with the Czechs, the Slovaks have parted ways with them twice since 1939. It is good that they separated relatively peacefully in 1993, but if their alienation and frustration with Czech-dominated rule had continued for long, the path to partition could have been violent - even if not as horrific as the one occurred recently in the Balkans, where the Serbs tried to exterminate the minority Croats and the Muslim communities of Bosnia and Kosovo. By separating the warring communities through international supervision on the ground, NATO has maintained peace, no matter how unstable it is. The idea of partition, in fact, has a universal application, linked closely to the issue of self-determination. The Palestinians versus Israelis in the Middle East, the Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland, East Timurese versus Indonesians in South-East Asia - all of these and many other conflict situations, history tells us, can be better resolved through separating the conflicting parties, well in time, before the situation becomes violent. The main challenge is to determine, what Chaim calls, the “threshold” of ethno-nationalistic strife on the basis of which a partition could be justified. In Cyprus, that threshold was reached as soon as the Sampson coup took place on 15 July 1974. For details, see Chaim, op. cit. The above statistical data was taken from the ‘Country Study’ on Czechoslovakia by the Library of Congress. For more details, see http://www.lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cstoc.html, accessed on 16 July 2001.
• 20 ‘The Cyprus Conundrum’, The Economist, 24 February 2001.
• 21 For details, see Ishtiaq Ahmad, The Divided Island: a Pakistani Perspective on Cyprus, Islamabad, Pan-Graphic Publishers, 1999, pp. 154-155.
• 22 In 1999, Latvia had a per capita income of $4,200, Lithuania $4,800, and Estonia $5,600. See http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/indexgeo.html, accessed on 12 July 2001.
• 23 See Nathalie Tocci, The ‘Cyprus Question’: Reshaping Community Identities and Elite Interests within a Wider European Framework, Brussels, Centre for European Policy Studies, 2000, p. 22.
• 24 In 1995, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay a Greek Cypriot, Titina Loizidou, $900,000 as compensation for denying her access to her land in northern Cyprus since 1974. Since then, the Council of Europe has thrice resolved to force Turkey to comply with the verdict, ignoring the latter’s plea that not Turkey but the Turkish Cypriots should be treated as a counterpart in the case, which makes sense. In May 2001, the Court issued another verdict against Turkey finding it guilty of human rights violations arising out of its 1974 intervention in Cyprus, despite the fact that this intervention occurred in accordance with the international Treaty of Guarantee on Cyprus. See Jean Christou, ‘Loizidou: Europe Puts the Pressure on Turkey’, Cyprus Mail, 28 June, 2001; Jennie Matthew & Martin Hellicar, ‘Turkey Slammed Over Rights Abuse’, Cyprus Mail, 11 May, 2001; and Turkish Daily News, 28 June 2001.
• 25 Mehmet Ali Birand, ‘Turkey Hesitant Over European Army’, Turkish Daily News, 12 June 2001.
• 26 See ‘Solomon’s Baby’, op. cit.; and ‘The Cyprus Conundrum’, op. cit.
• 27 Martin Hellicar, ‘Two-State Suggestion Sparks Political Storm’, Cyprus Mail, 13 February 2001. The report cited Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Yiannakis Cassoulides admitting that there does exist a tendency among certain (Greek) Cypriots for “them [Turkish Cypriots] over there and us over here.” See also Yusuf Kanlõ, ‘Who Would Like a Solution in Cyprus?’, Turkish Daily News, 6 June 2000. “Greek Cypriot businessmen are even publicly acknowledging that it would be absurd for Greek Cypriots to give up their claim to the title of being the ‘sole legitimate government’ of the island, reach a deal with Turkish Cypriots and sacrifice their wealth to develop the northern half of the island,” wrote Mr Kanlõ.
• 28 Tocci, op. cit., p. 32.
• 29 The Greek Cypriot Republic has been a hub of money-laundering. Since the Soviet collapse, it has been a safe heaven for the Russian mafia. Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, now in the custody of the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, reportedly used the island to launder tens of millions of dollars. In April, the Greek Cypriot authorities sent bundles of essential documents at the request of Carla del Ponte, the Chief Prosecutor of the Tribunal, who is trying to trace the money trail left by Mr Milosevic and other Serbian war criminals. Moreover, in April 2001, a UN special report identified two Cypriot-registered firms as central to the supply of illicit arms to rebels of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). There were also allegations, appearing in the Greek Cypriot press, that the President of a Mediterranean state who was cited by an Italian doctor in early 2001 to have shown interest in providing state facilities for human cloning was none other than Greek Cypriot leader Clerides. See Cyprus Mail, 7 and 24 April, and 27 June.