THE GOVERNMENT is failing the enclaved of the Karpas peninsula, and their children in particular, the House refugee committee heard yesterday.
Such accusations are nothing new, but yesterday’s virulent attack by the Association of children of the enclaved was made more biting by its timing.
It came the day after a pregnant 19-year-old became the first Greek Cypriot from the government-controlled areas to be allowed to move to the Rizokarpaso enclave by the occupation regime. Every newspaper and TV channel gave broad coverage to Giorgoulla Achilleos crossing north with her husband of two weeks, Andreas, on Tuesday.
In an impassioned statement to the committee yesterday, Katerina Zaoura, of the Association of children of the enclaved, said the state was doing "nothing" to support enclaved children in their school studies.
Enclaved children of secondary school age attend gymnasiums and lyceums in the free areas during the week.
"The younger deputies among you will know that your wives or you yourselves will sit and help your children with their homework," Zaoura told committee members.
"For the children of the enclaved, whose parents are in the occupied areas, who checks on them?" she demanded.
"Do we have a teacher appointed to help them in the afternoons? The state, the Education Ministry, has it got a teacher to help them?"
Zaoura said the government refused to pay for children of the enclaved to attend private tutorials in the afternoon, which would make up for this lack of homework supervision.
The homework load at gymnasiums and lyceums is such that most students attend afternoon private tutorials in an effort to keep up.
Zaoura also said the government had consistently failed to keep its promises to find teachers to go to Rizokarpaso and to increase financial support for the enclaved.
She was particularly critical of President Clerides, saying promises he made in the run-up to the 1998 Presidential elections had proved hollow.
"When we had a meeting with the President and gave him a petition, he said our problems would be solved immediately."
"We came over (from the north), and we voted for him, but nothing has happened."
Refugee committee deputies rushed to express sympathy for the plight of the enclaved.
"The problems of the enclaved should have been solved long ago," Lefteris Christoforou, of governing Disy, said.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Ouranios Ioannides yesterday said his ministry would soon be announcing the appointment of a new teacher to be posted to Rizokarpaso.
Ioannides said the state was only waiting for the occupation regime to allow a new teacher to cross north.
There is currently only one husband-and-wife team teaching in the Rizokarpaso enclave and the government has had a hard time finding more teachers willing to live under occupation, despite dangling incentives of quick promotion and extra pay.
But the chairman of the Karpas Co-ordinating Committee, Nicos Falas, yesterday said the problem was not lack of will on the part of teachers, but rather lack of movement on the state’s part. He said the government was simply not pushing hard enough to get permission for teachers to go north.
The 500-or-so mostly aged enclaved claim they are routinely harassed by the occupation regime, a claim backed up by repeated Unficyp reports.
