UN prepares for day of protests

By Jean Christou

UNFICYP is gearing itself up for a glut of anti-occupation demonstrations on November 15, the anniversary of the creation of the breakaway regime in the north.

In addition to a ‘drive home’ demonstration by the anti-occupation group Pak, bikers yesterday announced separate plans for a protest drive from Greece, through Dherynia and on to Nicosia, also on November 15.

Student organisations also have plans for a Ledra Palace protest.

UN spokesman Waldemar Rokoszewski said yesterday Unficyp would try to contact the organisations involved and also the Cyprus authorities “to secure co-operation so that no intruders enter the buffer zone”.

Pak announced months ago that – in co-operation with 22 refugee organisations – they would load their belongings on to their vehicles and head for home in a symbolic gesture.

“It is planned to be a peaceful demonstration,” a Pak representative told the Cyprus Mail yesterday, although he conceded that the date of November 15 had been deliberately chosen as a counter-protest against Turkish Cypriot ‘celebrations’.

Turkish Cypriots are likely to be out in force on the same day to celebrate the anniversary of their unilateral declaration of independence in 1983.

“We want them to know we will never recognise them,” the Pak representative said. He added that the demonstrators would try not to get into trouble, but could not rule out that some may try to enter the buffer zone.

“We’ll see on the day,” he added.

Motorcyclists’ federation president George Hadjicostas said yesterday the bikers’ journey would begin in Evros in northern Greece on November 8.

It will end in Cyprus on November 15, when bikers will gather at Dherynia and ride to Nicosia, a plan similar to last year’s anti-occupation ride which ended in the death of a Greek Cypriot protester.

Hadjicostas denied any suggestion that the bikers are looking for trouble by picking that particular date. “We just want to express our opposition to the Denktash regime, he said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.