THE ETHNARCH leaves for Boston today after a three-day stint at the EU-Latin American countries summit in Guadalajara, at which he explained the Greek Bananiot ‘no’ vote to the leaders of countries that do not matter, such as Chile and Colombia, and dissuaded them from recognising the pseudo-plantation.
In Boston he will sign an agreement with Harvard University for the establishment of an international research centre on the plantation, give a lecture and exchange views with academics about the problem. After that he will be going to the Big Apple for a Wednesday morning coffee with Kofi at the UN. This is just a courtesy call, requested by Tassos, in what is a rather sad attempt to show us that he is not isolated and still has some clout in the international scene.
As he said on his departure, he will discuss “the need to keep open the way to the re-unification of Cyprus” and ask about “the political and time prospects for maintaining this potential”. As we all know, the reunification of the island has become a big anxiety and a cause for many sleepless nights for our Ethnarch (if the black rings under his bloodshot eyes are anything to go by) who assures anyone who will listen that he is working doubly hard to secure it, just a few weeks after moving earth and sky to prevent it from happening.
I suppose Kofi will take Tassos’ vows of commitment to the reunification of the plantation with a big sack of salt, knowing that the meeting is geared primarily for domestic consumption.
THE US TOUR does not include a stopover in Washington as no US official seems particularly interested in hearing Tassos explain the ‘no’ vote and re-iterate his burning desire for the reunification of the plantation. In fact, countless efforts have been made by the Greek lobby and Cypriot organisations in the US to arrange some meeting with at least one Bush administration big-wig, but all failed.
It was not the time to seek any meeting with the US government – “neither the climate nor the time was right” – said the Ethnarch on his departure from Larnaca. “We did not ask for a meeting, nor did they (presumably the US) propose one.” The ‘we’, was the royal plural and did not include the Greek lobby in the US, which quite clearly thought the time was suitable and repeatedly tried to set up a meeting but in vain.
This is at least what the authoritative Washington-based correspondent Michalis Ignatiou, who is an unofficial spokesman of the Greek lobby, has been reporting from the US of A. Did he get it wrong, like he did, a few months ago, when he was predicting that the US government would be giving big bucks to hacks and politicians in order to support acceptance of the A-plan?
At the time, everyone was citing the self-important Ignatiou’s bribery claim as if it was the God-given truth. Yet we pro-plan scribblers did not get a dime from the Yanks, leading us to conclude that Ignatiou’s sources suck big time and his authoritativeness is, like Tassos’ desire for reunification, a bit of a myth.
So who is telling the truth? The Ethnarch, who insists that he has not asked for a meeting with any US official or Ignatiou who has been reporting that countless requests had been made to the Bush admin and that all had been turned down? I think it is very much a case of who you disbelieve the least.
A CLUE may be the news that Greek-American millionaire Alex Spanos will be awarded some Makarios medal by the Ethnarch, which is the highest state honour bestowed by our plantation. Spanos, according to sources in the Bananiot community in the US, has never contributed any of his millions to the promotion of a just solution to the banana problem, nor is he remotely interested in our unyielding struggle for vindication.
So why are we bestowing our highest state honour on him? Spanos, apparently, has contributed mega-bucks to the Bush election campaign – a more just cause to him than the Cyprob – and has access to the White House. It had been hoped that he would use this access to arrange a meeting with George Bush for the Ethnarch. Spanos tried and failed but he will still be honoured by our Republic, for the effort and, presumably, for contributing to the Bush re-election fund.
The awarding of the medal was arranged by a certain Panicos Papanicolaou, who is president of the grand-sounding but majestically ineffective Cyprus Federation of America, which does quite a bit of medal-brokering among the Greek community in the land of the free.
Instead of resorting to using all these fixers and influence-peddlers, would it not have made more sense if the Ethnarch awarded our plantation’s highest honour to President Bush directly? Dubya would then have to meet the Ethnarch collect his medal. If he declined the honour, as a last resort, we could ask Mehmet Ali Talat, who is welcome in Washington, to set up a meeting for Tassos; as long as he does not expect a medal.
I HEAR that the authoritative Ignatiou resigned as Washington correspondent of Politis and has been employed by Phileleftheros. Ignatiou told Politis that he was quitting for ideological reasons, as he was a supporter of the ‘no’ camp’, and could not work for a paper that was openly in favour of accepting the A-plan. A month later he had become Phil’s correspondent, whose ideology of brown-nosing everyone in authority, and especially members of the government, is pretty close to Ignatiou’s. A third ideological reason that made him move to Phil was that he was offered more money.
CYPRUS Goldenmouth made a total mockery of his name last week as he launched a vitriolic attack on the new Turkish Bananiot leader, Mehmet Ali Talat, over the issue of Greek Bananiots having to show their passport when crossing to the north. It had been announced the previous weekend that EU nationals would only have to show ID cards, but on Monday the Turkish cops were still demanding the show of passports, thus fuelling Cyprus’ self-righteous indignation.
Adopting a morally superior tone, Cyprus accused Talat of “not being able to act in a European manner”, of “lacking in honesty” and of being too weak to confront those forces that wanted to maintain the status quo (I do not think he was not referring to the Papa-Dop government).
“The whole issue proves his weakness to go against those who want to make occupation permanent,” Goldenmouth raged, adding that he was “nothing more than a representative of a subordinate administration of the occupying forces”.
Twenty-four hours later, the morally superior Cyprus was looking a complete fool as the dishonest and weak puppet Talat had introduced the ID solution for Greek Bananiots. It was an improvement, patronisingly, conceded Goldenmouth, who used to show much more deference to the Denktator, for some inexplicable reason.
FUNDAMENTALIST Bishop of Kyrenia Pavlos, who was issuing cut-price, one-way tickets to hell for ‘yes’ voters during the referendum on the satanic plan, also joined the passport debate, but his tirade was positively subdued by comparison to Goldenmouth’s. “The abolition of the showing of passports for Cypriots does not constitute an act of goodwill,” warned the spiteful, hairy ogre. It was just a trick by the occupation regime which was “anxiously looking for ways to upgrade its status quo (sic).” But would we go to hell if we showed our ID card at the checkpoint? He offered no spiritual guidance on the issue, awaiting the Holy Synod to take a stand.
NOBODY could ever accuse Talat of having too much charisma. To be more precise, nobody could accuse him of having any charisma, so why are our charismatic leaders so eager to put him down whenever he says something about the banana problem? Is it because he was granted an audience by Colin Powell?
His biggest detractor and critic has always been Commissar Christofias, which is very peculiar considering that AKEL and Talat’s Republican Turkish Party have had very close ties for decades. These close ties may be the reason for the personal hostility the Commissar feels towards Talat.
In the past, AKEL had offered funding to the RTP via joint organisations in the UK. As paymasters, the Stalinists of AKEL expected a certain level of subservience from the leadership of the RTP, which it got for as long as the affable Ozker Ozgur was party chief. Once Talat took over, he refused to blindly obey the diktats issued by the Commissar and immediately fell out of favour.
Since then, the AKEL propaganda machinery, led by the Commissar himself, has been demonising Talat, who may have allowed the attention heaped on him by the international community go to his head, but is no Denktator.
ANOTHER DISY deputy defected to the rebel camp this week – Demetris Syllouris. Well he didn’t exactly defect, as he remained a member of the party, but announced he would be backing the Matsis gang in the Euro-elections. This was a classically cowardly stance (one foot in and one foot out of the party) by Syllouris, who had resigned as the party’s parliamentary spokesman a couple of weeks ago.
Syllouris, like the rest of the rebels, has a grudge against the DISY fuhrer, who had resoundingly defeated him in the leadership elections of six years ago, and is now looking to get his revenge. As we wrote a couple of weeks ago, a more suitable name for the rebels would be Rally for Revenge.
MEANWHILE, that other cowardly, pseudo-rebel, deputy Sotiris Sampson, who denied his links to his family paper, Machi, in order to avoid expulsion from the party, has been crudely using his family organ to undermine the Fuhrer and win support for the Matsis gang. Why can’t he stand up to Nik, like a man, instead of pussyfooting and lying about his allegiances? Are there no politicians with balls left on this plantation, apart from the fuhrer?
IT CAME as a bit of a shock that mega-wealthy businessman Yiannos Andronikou (he of the Zapata moustache) was arrested in connection with a case of forgery. Andronikou is a good buddy of the Ethnarch and had contributed big bucks to the ‘no-campaign’. On Friday he was charged with forgery, circulation of forged title deeds and deceit in the mortgaging of property.
He is also a shareholder in the Dias group, and at one point it was reported that he had bought a stake in Machi. This was denied by Sampson, at the same time that he denied having anything to do with the content of his rag.
THE TRUTH has become very flexible during the reign of the Ethnarch. You never know who to believe as the truth comes with an expiry date; it usually lasts 24 hours and then it changes. Commerce minister George Lillikas has become the chief exponent of single-use, dispensable truths.
On Tuesday, he announced that the six-cents price rise imposed by the oil companies, immediately after the liberalisation of the market were justified. And when he was told that, according to technocrats’ estimates, the rises should have been just four cents, he claimed that those calculations had been done three weeks ago when the international price of crude oil was lower.
By Thursday (this time the truth lasted 48 hours), he had written to the oil companies telling them to lower their prices because the six-cent hike was not justified in the case of low sulphur diesel. His technocrats had re-done their calculations and decided that the hike should have been only four cents. Was this the truth, or had the government decided to force oil companies to lower prices because of the public outcry?
The liberalisation of the fuel market lasted 48 hours, which is something.
THE EVER-CHANGING nature of truth was illustrated, with regard to the possibility of raising taxes, by Papa-Dop and Lillikas last weekend.
In an exclusive interview given to his mouthpiece Simerini, the Ethnarch was asked how he would reduce the big fiscal deficit. He said: “There is salvation through taxation and only fools would not impose taxes”.
Little did he know that one of the fools he was referring was a member of his government. On the very same day that his interview was published Lillikas said: “No taxes will be imposed, I deny this.”
Who was telling the truth? Both of course.
