GREEK Cypriot property owners said yesterday the government could never afford fully to compensate them for what they had lost during the 1974 Turkish invasion, but said payments should start somewhere, warning they would take to the streets if they did not obtain satisfaction.
During 1995-2000, property owners had lost £4.5 billion in potential income, an association for property owners of occupied lands (SITOP) said yesterday.
“The University of Cyprus carried out a study that estimated property owners’ lost revenue during a five-year period,” said Lysandros Flourendzou. The estimated amount did not include the remaining 24 years the properties had been occupied, he said.
“We are demanding that the government starts to pay back some of the money that is due to us,” added SITOP vice president, Andreas Lagoudes. “There is no way it can afford billions, but it can start somewhere and make payments in stages.”
If these demands were not met, the association warned it would be forced to take to the streets. “Other people, such as potato farmers, frequently demand that they be compensated and use various means to see that they are. We will do the same,” said Flourendzou.
“We have never been compensated for what we lost. It’s time our problem was solved or everyone will have to take responsibility and face the consequences.”
The money that owners lost was not only based on the value of lands lost, but also on rents they would have collected over the years or income from farming their fields.
“If I owned a field and it used to make £100 profit a year, I’ve lost nearly 30 times that profit,” explained Lagoudes. “The government has never taken that into consideration. Therefore the compensation we are demanding is 29 years of lost income.”
Not everyone would be compensated equally, because not everyone had lost the same amount of property. However, 90 per cent of refugees had owned property of some sort and had a right to compensation, said Lagoudes.
SITOP has also created a ‘Central Agency for the Equal Distribution of Burden’. This is a fund that deals with refugee applications for loans based on the value of their occupied inheritance, he said. The government financed the agency and then handed out loans to refugees.
“The maximum loan property owners can obtain is £50,000. This is the value of the land back in 1974. With inflation that land is now worth £100,000 and we want maximum loans extended to that amount,” Lagoudes told the Cyprus Mail. The loans should also be paid back over 20 years and not 10 years, he said, because loan instalment payments made over 10 years were too high for borrowers.
SITOP also wants the government to increase the agency’s budget so it can satisfy its increasing annual needs. “Every year, the government reduces the agency’s budget and yet our needs are greater. We want the annual budget to satisfy its yearly needs,” said Flourendzou. The group also argued for the Agency to be made into a banking institution and for the government to reintroduce refugee tax rebates of £500.
“If they can’t give us money, they can at least not take it from us,” said Lagoudes.
On a political level, SITOP highlighted the urgency of a Cyprus problem solution
“Partition will be catastrophic and is nationally unacceptable,” said Lagoudes “Once the Republic joins the EU, the occupied areas will become Turkish and Turkish Cypriots will come across to the government controlled areas.”
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.
