Loucas Charalambous has gone beyond the pale

Sir,
Your newspaper has made no bones about the fact that it enthusiastically supported the Annan Plan. Gentlemen can respectfully disagree, but there reaches a point where an opposing viewpoint becomes so scathing in it’s approach as to be unacceptable.

Sunday’s comment by Loucas Charalambous (‘History will judge those who paved the way for partition’) is so strident and one-sided that it falls far outside the bounds of acceptable argument. Mr Charalambous accuses the political leadership on the ‘no’ side of not being only wrong, but acting with ulterior motives. There is no call for this vile insinuation.

President Papadopoulos has taken a great deal of “heat” for his stand on the referendum. It would have been far easier for him personally to have advocated a ‘yes’ vote. You may not agree with him, but to suggest his motivations were ulterior is reckless and unfair.

Nearly 76 per cent of the Greek Cypriot population also voted ‘no’ to the Annan plan. Are we to assume they are incapable of analysing the plan’s chief shortcomings on their own? Perhaps their motivations are ulterior as well?

Mr Charalambous needs to analyse his own motivation for so emotionally attacking those of the opposite viewpoint. A little less passion and a little more analysis is what’s needed with respect to how the Cyprus problem is covered by the media – both within Cyprus and by the international media.

Philip George Vorgias
Troy, Michigan, USA