THE FRIENDS of the Cyprus Donkey, a charitable organisation, have protested over the use of two donkeys to make a political statement at a protest planned for next Monday at the Ledra Palace checkpoint.
The two donkeys will attempt to cross the Green Line from south to north in protest against the showing of passports, as part of a series of bicommunal events leading up to the annual Cyprus peace day on September 30.
The idea to use the donkeys was inspired by an old quote from Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, who once said the only real Cypriots in Cyprus were donkeys.
However, Patrick Skinner, who runs the Vouni sanctuary for donkeys, said yesterday he had protested to bicommunal organiser Nicos Anastasiou over the use of the donkeys, describing the event as “undignified”.
“It is pity to put such a degrading spectacle in an otherwise excellent programme,” Skinner said in a statement. “In our view the politicisation of the donkey in the event on 22nd September is totally unworthy. The problems between the communities were created and are perpetuated by humans, and animals have no part in them. They should not be exploited in the way proposed.”
Anastasiou told the Cyprus Mail yesterday he had received Skinner’s comments, but didn’t feel the bicommunal group was being in any way cruel. “We will make sure they have water and food,” he said. “They will not suffer any exploitation.”
He said while he respected Skinner’s good work for the donkeys, and his opinion, the group would not be backtracking on their plans.
Skinner said the event was falling into the trap set by Denktash when he made the comment several years ago. And he added that there such thing as an indigenous breed of Cyprus donkey, saying their origins were African in the case of the small grey variety and European in the case of the larger, mainly brown types.
Skinner said that with the exception of an estimated 550 feral donkeys in the Karpass peninsula, which are bounded by fences, “probably every donkey is the servant, and
prisoner, of man, who uses it mainly for rural work”.
“Given freedom, they would have many crossing points along the line ‘border’ between the North and the South, where they might pass freely at their own discretion,” he said. “They would certainly not choose the man-made edifices at the Ledra Palace checkpoints.
”They are far too intelligent.”
Skinner said that there was a second and practical reason why the Vouni Trust requested the “undignified activity” be withdrawn.
“In the face of great difficulties we try to maintain a dialogue with parties in the North trying to do similar work to our own, and we see a little light at the end of the tunnel when our bicommunal work can properly begin, and be acknowledged. This event will not help this work,” he said.
Friends of the Cyprus Donkey operates almost entirely by means of financial contributions from of members of the public, enabling them to look after unwanted, sick and elderly working animals and to provide health care services for all remaining working donkeys and mules in Cyprus. Much of the charity’s work is undertaken by npaid voluntary management and helpers
