THE BRITISH bases are handicapping efforts to assess the health impact of a huge Akrotiri antenna that sparked anti-bases riots earlier this month, the Cypriot team assessing emissions from the planned mast claimed yesterday.
Andronikos Kakouris, the expert heading the Communications Ministry team testing electro-magnetic emissions at the Akrotiri base listening site, told the Cyprus Mail the British bases (SBA) were refusing to supply technical specifications for the new mast, citing “military secrecy”.
SBA spokesman Rupert Greenwood said he was “extremely surprised” by Kakouris’ complaints, saying co-operation with the Cypriot test team was “perfectly happy” and that all information asked for had been handed over.
The start of groundwork for the 100-metre high new bases antenna sparked anti-bases rioting at the Akrotiri salt lake mast site and at the Episkopi SBA police station on July 3. Almost 50 people were hurt in clashes which followed protests against a mast locals fear will give them cancer.
With work on the new mast stalled, Nicosia and London have since had a series of meetings aimed at arriving at a consensus over the impact of an antenna. Britain insists the new mast is harmless but has also vowed to shelve the antenna plans if an adverse health affect is shown.
The Cypriot test team is today due to begin a second round of emissions tests from existing masts at the Akrotiri site in a bid to assess what the impact of the planned mast would be. Greenwood said the Cypriot team would be conducting three days of tests and repeated the British line that the new antenna, earmarked for erection in 2003, poses no health risk.
Kakouris admitted yesterday that emissions tests carried out by his team early this month had proved “unreliable” and that different methods and equipment would be used this time round.
But he said a lack of vital information on the exact design details for the new aerial was a far bigger hindrance for his team than the technical hiccups.
“The British have not given us all the data we have asked for,” Kakouris told the Mail. “We need to know the technical specifications for new the new antenna, but when we ask for them they cite military secrecy,” he said.
The expert said this lack of information made his team’s task of assessing the new mast’s impact on the basis of emissions from existing salt lake antenna very difficult.
SBA spokesman Greenwood insisted nothing was being held back from the Communications Ministry team. “We have handed over everything we have been asked for, we try to allow the Cypriot team to do their job,” he said.
Greenwood said he was surprised by the complaints, saying Kakouris had not asked for more information: “Mr Kakouris has not been in touch with our communications officer, whom he knows extremely well, over the issue.”
The bases were yesterday afternoon trying to get in touch with Kakouris to iron out the issue, and Greenwood said he hoped the complaints would not harm what he described as an excellent working relationship with the ministry test team.
The antenna issue has strained relations between the bases and Cypriot residents of the Akrotiri SBA and while Nicosia has joined London in condemning the July 3 riots, many local politicians have used the mast affair as a platform for attacking the British presence on the island.
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.
