CONFUSION created by Turkish Cypriot warnings to stay away from Varosha yesterday prompted the Famagusta mayor to say that demonstrators in his municipality’s planned march would only go as far as the checkpoint.
Yiannakis Skordis told the Cyprus Mail that there had been some mix up between his march on Saturday at the Dherynia checkpoint and another as yet unconfirmed event, which will reportedly be held on August 11, the eighth anniversary of the death of Tassos Isaac.
Isaac was beaten to death during a demonstration in Dherynia in 1996.
On Tuesday, the Turkish Cypriot ‘Foreign Ministry’ said it had asked the UN to ensure that participants in the August 7 event were not allowed to enter the north.
However, Skordis said the warning was not issued in relation to the Famagusta event, and in any case the planned march would only go as far as the Dherynia checkpoint, with no question of entering the occupied areas.
“We will have a rally in the centre of Dherynia and march towards the checkpoint and stop there where we will release some balloons and express our wish for peace,” said Skordis.
He said participants would then go to the nearby cultural centre where speeches and a cultural programme will take place. He said despite the peaceful nature of the demonstration, it would not become a bi-communal event.
“August is the month we lost Famagusta, so there is no possibility of a bi-communal meeting,” he said.
Skordis has received criticism and praise in equal measure for the handling of this year’s event, which marks 30 years since the invasion. All forms of nationalism have been banned from the event and politicians have not been invited to speak. Both AKEL and DISY welcomed the move but EDEK and DIKO disagree.
However, the biggest criticism has come from the Cyprus Refugees Union, which, in a written statement, called Skordis a “miserable failure”.
The statement, signed by the Union’s president Panos Ioannides, referred to a gathering in May at the beach near Varosha where a controversial bi-communal event was held for the first time in 30 years, “where they decided to humiliate themselves by listening to the pseudo Mayor of Famagusta and misleading the people emotionally who wanted to be at the town’s beach,” said the statement.
“We wonder if it was an imposed course of action or a personal decision for self humiliation. The Mayor now does not wish for Greek flags to be at the new event or the Greek national anthem to be heard so they won’t offend Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers. The mayor’s decision constitutes a vile tactic not to offend the enemies of the Republic of Cyprus,” it added.
“By the same token we should never again celebrate any Greek event because it will offend our enemies and we should never again speak freely because some word could offend the rapist of all we hold sacred and we should scrap holy liturgies because the invaders have a different religion.”
Ioannides accused Skordis of having total disregard for the Greek Cypriot ‘no’ vote to the Annan plan in April. “The Mayor thinks all these things constitute rapprochement. This is not just humiliation but a complete loss of dignity and a vile approach whose only result will be to divide Cypriots and will surely lead to the removal of the Mayor of the occupied town,” the statement added.
Asked to comment on the statement, Skordis said: “Panos Ioannides complains about everything. The decision was taken by the municipal council with a majority vote. Only one person disagreed.”
He said the municipality was hoping for a large turnout on Saturday. “Yes, we would like to go there and to shout to get our town back but we are also ready to work with the Turkish Cypriots,” he said defending the nature of the demonstration.
