Sir,
I refer to Nicos Elkis’ and Janet Gosling’s letters (August 31.) Nicos Elkis asks as about my credentials to speak with such authority on the Cypriot question.” As many of your readers will know, I have a unique experience of Cypriot “hospitality”, having been on the receiving end of the best and the worst Cyprus has to offer. I have travelled to Cyprus for 41 of my 48 years on this planet and I was in Cyprus in July 1974 when hostilities broke out. Along with Cypriots of both ethnic communities, I was airlifted by the RAF to safety in the UK. The hostilities of 1974 and the resulting 29 years of division followed a failed coup against the democratically elected president of Cyprus by a country not a million miles away from the present location of Nicos Elkis.
As to my “lying in wait” to ambush any poor unwary Cypriot and/or their “protectors” who dares to hold a dissenting view, this is pure fantasy. As is his view that the whole Cypriot problem is the work of “outside forces” trying to stop the Cypriots having a free ride on the back of the tourists. I lived in Cyprus for three years, paying a king’s ransom for my time there. And how was my patronage repaid? I was deported for being far too handsome and stealing all the beautiful women from the world-renowned Cypriot Valentinos.
Someone should really tell Nicos Elkis that the Republic of Cyprus actually came into being in 1960, August 16, to be precise, and not 1961 as he seems to believe.
As to Janet Gosling’s position that the “border” between north and south is “defined” by the north, this is wrong. The “border” has been in place for years and is “defined” by agreement between the Republic of Cyprus, the TRNC and the UN, all of whom agreed that it would be a good idea to have a crossing point between the two divided communities. Again I invite Janet Gosling to take her own advice (as offered to John Russell, Letters, August 10) to learn a bit more of the “other” side of the Cypriot story before committing pen to paper.
The problem with this blanket ban on foreign nationals using the checkpoints as crossing points is that the Republic of Cyprus is acting like a spoilt child. The Republic is not saying that tourists are the only ones who aren’t allowed to cross from north to south; Janet Gosling’s “pre-1974 in Cyprus” friends, like my friends, are denied access to the Republic by the ban on the travel of non-Cypriots. Of course the real question we should be asking is: “Why are you banning EU members from entering the Republic of Cyprus at a time when the republic is gearing up to enter the European Union?”
The problem with Cypriots is that they tend to operate a policy of exclusion rather that inclusion. The Cypriot response to a problem is to banish it, rather that solve it. Historically Cypriots have adopted the ostrich mentality to problems. I prefer to be a meerkat; alert, up on its hind legs and ever-watchful. Besides that, when you head is buried in the sand, your butt is exposed for the world to use as it sees fit.
On a legal point, the idea that someone is illegal because they entered the Republic via an illegal entry point is flawed. The buffer zone checkpoints are legal entry points for the Republic. If the Republic stamped the passports of foreigners who entered the Republic via the buffer zone checkpoints, anyone who had passed through them would be a “legal” visitor.
To end on a positive note, I support Nicos Elkis’s call for Cypriots to be left alone to sort out their own problems. Only through dialogue and negotiations within the two communities can we ever hope to see a just and equitable solution to the Cyprus problem.
Brian Semmens
Lisbon, Portugal
