Parties hit back at Rubin comments on Kyprianou row

By Athena Karsera

DIKO and Akel yesterday lashed out at new American criticisms of their stance on Yugoslavia, this time made by US State Department spokesman James Rubin.

Responding to a question on the row between House President and Diko leader Spyros Kyprianou and US ambassador Kenneth Brill, Rubin told his daily briefing in Washington on Wednesday that “We fully support Ambassador Brill’s very active efforts to carry out US policy on Kosovo. He has worked very hard and creatively to counter the misinformation that has appeared in much of the Greek Cypriot press about (Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s) criminal activities and the brutalities committed against Kosovar Albanians.”

It took less than 24 hours for Kyprianou to hit back, telling reporters that the US and Great Britain always saw those who did not agree with them as the enemy.

But Kyprianou also said that Rubin had confused the issue of the dispute, focusing on Cypriot feelings over Yugoslavia, when the crux of the dispute lay in Brill’s refusal to meet him in his capacity as acting President.

“He could have at least telephoned, but he did not even call,” Kyprianou complained.

Rubin said on Wednesday that the ambassador had assured President Clerides that he had not meant to offend Kyprianou, either personally or in his capacity as acting President.

With President Clerides away in China, Kyprianou had sought a meeting with Brill to complain that letters sent by the embassy to Diko and Akel constituted interference in the island’s domestic affairs.

Rubin said on Wednesday the letters had dealt exclusively with the situation in Kosovo “and the inaccurate and irresponsible statements made by party officials during and after a June 7 anti-Nato rally in Nicosia.”

“It is the job of an American ambassador to explain and articulate and represent the views of the United States,” Rubin added. “It would be appropriate for our ambassadors to try to counter some of the propaganda coming out of Belgrade and other places.”

He said it would be interesting to see what those who had believed this propaganda would say “now that they’re uncovering mass grave sites regularly and frequently in Kosovo. Maybe some of those people who said it wasn’t true should respond now.”

Kyprianou yesterday defended himself on that count too, saying Rubin had been mistaken in implying Diko and Akel denied that Milosevic was a war criminal.

“As I wrote in my letter to the ambassador, this was not my concern, my point was that even if there were war crimes — and we are not the right ones to judge or uncover this — it is the job of the appointed organs of the international bodies involved. But even if we suppose that they (crimes) did happen, our concern was that Nato took advantage of this, and as a result the US completely destroyed Yugoslavia.”

Kyprianou said Rubin had implied that Cyprus was on Milosevic’s side: “We are on the side of the Serbian people, whom we have always supported, but we are not against the ethnic Albanians. We never said that their human rights should be violated.”

Meanwhile, a statement issued by Akel yesterday called Rubin’s statements “wholly unacceptable”.

The party said his comments had “once again expressed the arrogance of the rulers of the planet,” and that no one had to right to censor parties from expressing their opinions freely.

“Beyond interfering in Cyprus’ domestic politics, (Rubin’s comments) are an unprovoked attack on the Cypriot mass media for having had the courage to resist the one-sided propaganda and misleading information that Nato and Washington projected worldwide during their attacks against Yugoslavia.”