I REGRET to report that despite our many preparations, the UN Secretary-general avoided visiting the Kofishop during his two-day stay on the plantation, because of official protests by lawyers claiming that this would be tantamount to recognition of our establishment as a legal entity (which it is not, according to UN resolutions). Error of judgment: at our pad he would have achieved something, in contrast to the rest of his meetings.
Annan’s visit proved a bit of an anti-climax in the end, with the fat Denktator ensuring that he left the plantation with nothing worth boasting about. It must be a big blow to the UN Secretary-general’s self-esteem and confidence to realise that he could not bring into line two superannuated nobodies of the world political stage. To add insult to injury, one of them is not even internationally recognised as a nobody, which might explain the huge chunk on his shoulder.
The guy is a political psychopath with a colossal inferiority complex who adores the notoriety that results from his stroppy behaviour. He relishes the attention he gets from big-shot diplomats, but even more he loves to ignore their advice and pleas, because it gives him a sense of self-importance that his pathetic position, as leader of 150,000 impoverished Anatolians, neither merits nor justifies.
Yet this pitiful nobody, whose insignificance in the world pecking order is not officially recognised by anyone, plays host in his vulgarly decorated house to the UN Secretary-general, has dinner with him, and, to crown it all, treats him with contempt. And to give an air of legitimacy to his ludicrous antics he has a couple of stern-looking losers — third-rate academic Mumtaz Soysal and charmless furniture salesman Ergun Olgun — as his so-called advisers who are on bigger ego-trip than their obese boss. Is this the sort of guy we should want to have a political partnership with?
El presidente, in an interview with CNN-Turk, offered the Denktator everything he wants — recognition, a new constitution, rotating presidency, political equality, an autonomous state — but he still won’t play ball, because a settlement will signal the end of his ego-trip and his return to nonentity.
This analysis might be somewhat superficial and facetious, but what did you expect? A philosophical account of whether sovereignty should emanate from the state or from the people of the plantation?
IN THE FREE areas of the plantation, unlike the occupied part, lunacy about the banana problem is expressed not by el presidente but by our politicians and newspaper scribes. Our guys are happy with the status quo as long as the pseudo-plantation is not recognised by anyone. The most recent scare that mobilised public opinion was embodied in the suggestion that we buy milk and halloumi from the Turkish Cypriots.
There was a hysterical reaction to this suggestion, as it would supposedly lead to recognition of the Denktatorship, and under intensive political pressure the halloumi trade initiative appears to have been abandoned.
The illusion that we prevent recognition through our shrewd diplomatic moves gives us a sense of empowerment. But do we seriously believe that the international community had been waiting for us to buy halloumi from the Turks so it could find an excuse to recognise the Denktatorship, and that by not falling into this trap, we prevented this from happening?
With the Denktator taking the UN chief for a ride on the one hand, and our guys successfully dealing with the halloumi threat on the other, it would be fair to say that both sides scored resounding victories this week. The settlement will have to wait until after the victory celebrations are over.
SPEAKING of lunacy, special praise needs to be given to our expatriate brothers in the US of A who have come up with a startlingly original idea for winning the support of American public opinion, for our just cause — the erection of a statue of JFK.
The statue will be placed at the traffic lights at the intersection of Makarios and Kennedy avenues in Nicosia. The unveiling will take place on November 22, 2003, the 40th anniversary of the late president’s assassination, and will allegedly be attended by former US presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter as well as Senator Ted Kennedy. Don’t be disappointed if none of them turns up.
According to sources in the expat community in the US, which is footing the £120,000 bill for the statue, “great importance and publicity will be given to the event by the media in the US, and will be an opportunity to get Americans interested in the violation of human rights in Cyprus”. Republican Americans, in particular, will warmly embrace the Cyprus cause once they see pictures of the JFK statue being unveiled.
The whole enterprise could backfire, of course alienating even the few Americans who still think JFK was a great leader, given our unenviable tradition for producing hideous sculptures. This is a distinct possibility given that the UK-based sculptor who has been given the JFK commission, Nicos Kodjiamanis, has already committed at least one major crime against aesthetics — the Makarios statue that adds a touch of ugliness to the grounds of the Archbishopric.
WHY IS it that the 13 Palestinians brought to the plantation 10 days ago as part of the deal ending the Church of Nativity stand-off have still not found an EU country that will take them in? Could this have anything to do with the scare stories being disseminated by Israeli embassies in EU countries claiming that these are hardened criminals wanted for terrorist activities? The Israelis claim that one of the 13 is responsible for the murder of Tourism Minister Rechavam Zeevi, a crime they have also pinned on Palestinians picked up elsewhere.
Meanwhile the 13 remain holed up in Larnaca’s Flamingo Hotel under very tight security, which makes you wonder. Why has the government taken such Draconian security measures? According to Foreign Minister Juanito Cassoulides, the security is ‘for their own protection’. But who are we protecting them from? Could it be from our close friends the Israeli government, which has often underlined its friendly feelings towards our plantation by showing utter contempt for our sovereignty?
Nobody can rule out the possibility of Mossad agents sneaking into the country, on a mission to take out or take back the Palestinians back to Israel. They’ve done it before so they could do it again. And they are more likely to be able to do this in a small, inconsequential and friendly plantation like ours than in an EU country to which the Palestinians might eventually be taken.
SOCIALIST windbag Dr Faustus, who has become an unguided missile since relinquishing the leadership of his party KISOS, had his comrades running for cover last Sunday after saying in a newspaper interview that a KISOS presidential candidate supported by DISY and the smaller parties could win the elections. This was a bit of a wake-up call for AKEL and DIKO who thought that KISOS would be part of their presidential election alliance, backing Tassos Papadopoulos.
Does the old codger still entertain ambitions of becoming el presidente at 82? Because when he spoke of a KISOS candidate he was not thinking about anyone else but himself (forget the party’s leader, Yiannakis Omirou). His outburst immediately alerted the AKEL chief, who demanded assurances from Omirou that this is not an option. Even if it was, KISOS did not want to show its hand to AKEL and DIKO so early.
Party insiders claim that Faustus calculatingly raised the issue in order to thwart any alternative plans by Omirou to be a candidate. It would destroy him, they say, to see his successor as a candidate with realistic prospects of winning. And that’s as good a reason as any to support Omirou’s candidacy.
THIS HABIT of honouring dinosaur politicians is getting a bit out of hand. First, they honoured the late Spyros, and now it seems it is Dr Faustus’ turn. This week there was a special ceremony organised by DISY which provided the strange spectacle of the Führer praising Lyssarides’ great contribution to Cyprus and Hellenism. Of course this was a cynical exercise by the Führer who is frenziedly trying to forge an electoral alliance with KISOS.
This not the only ceremony honouring the great socialist leader. KISOS itself is also organising a special ceremony for May 31, titled, ‘The Man, The Politician, The Doctor — the Course of Vassos Lyssarides in the Modern History of Cyprus’. Presumably his course in the ancient history of Cyprus will be discussed at a ceremony organised by Archaeological Society.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL Alecos Markides has also started contacts with an assortment of politicians with a view to being a presidential candidate in next year’s election. Apparently he will announce his candidacy on June 21, even though we do not know if he has received clearance from the DISY Führer, who is not a great supporter of the darling of the Nicosia bourgeoisie.
But Markides, an incorrigible ditherer, is still reluctant to resign from his public post in order to be a candidate, because if he loses his political career will be over. There is no place for him in DISY and a new presidente would appoint someone else as Attorney-general. This possibility seems to terrify him, so he is currently toying with the idea of taking unpaid leave in order to stand in the elections and have a job to return to if he loses. Nobody likes taking big risks, but if he takes the unpaid leave option, Markides would be an advertisement for vacillation.
MOST of our public officials just do not know the first thing about successful PR. Take the former director of the Nicosia Central Prisons, Haris Themistocleous, who won kudos from everyone with his decision to resign because he could no longer tolerate interference from ignorant ministry pen-pushers in his work. This was a rare breed of man on a plantation in which public officials will suffer any humiliation and indignity as long as they stay in their state job.
But then Themistocleous ruined everything by sulking in public because the Public Service Commission did not invite him to explain the reasons for his resignation. I am surprised Haris did not think of taking unpaid leave instead of resigning, which is what a true public official would have done.
OUR ESTABLISHMENT would like to make it very clear that it fully supports rapprochement and confidence-building measures between the two communities. It would also like to applaud the latest rapprochement initiative, undertaken by Star Cyprus 2000 and Miss Turkey 1995, who have been photographed for Greek magazine Max, rubbing their perfectly-shaped bare breasts on each other, and express the genuine hope that their shining example will be followed by others.
We do not subscribe to the outrage expressed by the patriotic puritans of Simerini and other papers, who feel disgusted that a Greek Cypriot woman would be photographed in the nude with a Turkish woman. On the contrary, Stella Demetriou and Neshan Mulazim deserve heaps of praise for making rapprochement sexy, youthful and attractive. For years it had been the exclusive preserve of ugly left-wingers, boring businessmen and fat feminists who had as much sex appeal as a used tissue. If there were more girls like Stella and Neshan participating in conflict resolution groups, there would be thousands of young Greek and Turkish males wanting to join.
We would therefore like to urge nubile young girls from both sides of the dividing line to rub tits for the sake of Greco-Turkish friendship. We are happy to offer our premises as a venue if they have nowhere else to engage in this imaginative form of confidence-building. This is the sort of imaginative and subversive confidence-building act that could lead to a real breakthrough — not buying halloumi from the Turks — in peace talks, and it is a shame that the publication of the pictures came after Kofi Annan left the island. He could have asked el presidente and Denktator to rub their chests as well.
JUST contrast the sexiness of Stella’s and Neshan’s confidence-building with that of the monumentally boring Bicommunal Choir for Peace in Cyprus. Only sad bores with no life would think they are contributing to peace by participating in a choir. According to a CNA report, the Choir gave a concert in Constantinopole and its member Costas Christodoulides said that “this is a cultural event sending various messages”.
Christodoulides told the CNA that “despite the fact that the group is not a political organisation, it supports a solution to the Cyprus problem based on UN resolutions and the 1977 and 1979 High-Level Agreements, providing for a bicommunal, bizonal federation”. We do hope the choir got this non-political message across to the Turkish audience, but somehow we doubt it had quite the same impact as Stella’s and Neshan’s beautiful boobs.
AT LONG last the House Finance and Watchdog Committees have completed their investigation into the “great stock exchange swindle”. Their report and conclusions will be made public in early June. But watchdog committee chairman Christos Pourgourides has made a promise that he has not kept. When he had his run-in with the former Central Bank Governor Afxentis Afxentiou, he pledged to release the names of all deputies who had bought shares on private placement. Whatever happened to that list, Mr Pourgourides? We still haven’t seen it. Will it be included in the appendix of the 350-page report or has it been conveniently forgotten about?
A WORD of sympathy for poor old Archbishop Chrysostomos, who is recuperating in a Greek hospital after his fall. The media coverage of his progress is a disgrace and should never have been allowed by his so-called advisers and assistants. Is it really necessary for newspapers and TV stations to give us details such as ‘the Archbishop has walked’; ‘the Archbishop yesterday sat in his chair’; ‘the Archbishop ate solids’?
My favourite detail, which is reported every day, is that ‘the Archbishop has contact with his environment’, which is a polite way of saying that ‘reports of insanity are exaggerated’. He is too nice a guy to be humiliated in this thoughtless and insensitive way every day. What will they tell us next? That he was able to sit on the toilet or that he had his catheter removed? A bit of respect, please.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
I refuse to play golf with Errol Flynn. If I want to play with a prick, I’ll play with my own.
W.C. Fields
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.
