HAPPY TO report some good news on the diplomatic front, for a change. Our Ethnarch may have pissed off the European Commission, the UN and the Anglo-American axis of evil in the last few months, but he has bounced back like a rubber ball, recruiting the unstinting support of other big players on the world stage.
A couple of weeks ago, he secured the full backing of the highly principled President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Then he got France’s Foreign Minister publicly to tell the Turks that they have to recognise the Republic of Cyprus, and this week we have found out that China is not only on our side, but as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, it is eager to play a more active role in any new peace initiative.
Asked about the stance of China on the Cyprus issue, a spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said his government “calls always for the full respect of the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Cyprus and points out that the legitimate rights of both the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots should be safeguarded.”
The spokesman also said: “China supports the efforts of the UN Secretary-general Kofi Annan to accelerate a political settlement and underlines that any solution must take into consideration the benefits and concerns of both sides.”
It seems our Ethnarch’s new diplomatic policy is paying dividends. He has announced that he would never again allow the Brits and the Yanks who were untrustworthy and biased, to act as Cyprob mediators on behalf of the Security Council. If there is an initiative and there is supporting mediation from countries, he would demand that all five permanent members of the Security Council be directly involved and have a say.
He explained this in an interview published in last Sunday’s Simerini. He said: “I will not accept the Americans and the British, who co-authored the Annan plan, to be protagonists (of a new initiative). They do not have the right. Whenever they tell me, ‘here is a proposal’, I will ask them, ‘what do the Russians say, what do the French say, and what do the Chinese say?’”
Given that France will give her approval to any proposal for a settlement and Russia will do nothing to alienate the Turkish government, we will depend exclusively on China blocking the Anglo-American axis. So the next time a State Department envoy arrives to see Tassos with some peace proposal he will be told: “Did you ask the Chinese?” And if he hasn’t Tassos will send him home.
THE ARRIVAL of the Chinese on the Cyprob scene inspired a great headline in Politis on Friday. It read “European solution, made in China”. You can be sure that the Chinese will play a significant role in securing that elusive ‘European solution’ that everyone has been speaking about since we joined the Union.
There is a suspicion that our government has found a new scam to give false hope to us gullible natives – the participation of all permanent members of the Security Council in peace initiatives. This is reminiscent of another political scam that had been served to us in the ’80s by AKEL and Spy Kyp – the demand for an international conference for Cyprus.
The international conference was the idea of the Soviet Union and it was lapped up by our lying politicians for a decade. In fact, people sincerely believed that as soon as this was called there would be a settlement. Turkey and the axis of evil were always opposed to it so it was never going to happen, but it did not stop crusading politicians from supporting it and pretending that it was a realistic option.
Still, there is more chance of an international conference for Cyprus being held, than the Americans seeking China’s approval for any proposal they make to Tassos.
THE MAN in charge of British diplomacy, Jack Straw, showed an astonishing lack of diplomacy in his attack on our Ethnarch in the House of Commons last Tuesday.
Realising that the softly-softly approach was getting him nowhere – if anything, it made Tassos feel more powerful – he decided to stick the boot in, openly accusing our man of using EU membership to turn the screw on Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots.
His comments sparked mass political hysteria, with all the politicians attacking Straw’s unacceptable, arrogant, aggressive, provocative, undiplomatic outburst. Funnily, the CyBC, like many politicians, labelled his broadside an “unprovoked attack”. But how unprovoked was it?
We treated him as a war criminal when he arrived. Not only did the Ethnarch refuse to see him, but he was greeted at the airport by a lowly foreign ministry employee. His car was pelted with eggs when he arrived at the Foreign Ministry and when he was leaving the police did not even bother getting the demonstrators out of the way. Greek Cypriots who met him were treated as traitors by the media. So could we really say that his undiplomatic attack was “unprovoked”?
And what of Commissar Christofias’ party, which accused Straw’s rant of being “outside of diplomatic norms and practices”. When the Commissar, who is also House President accuses Britain of being “our evil demon”, is he within diplomatic norms and practices?
OUR GOVERNMENT has warned that it will give the deputy assistant Secretary of State Matt Bryza, who plans to visit the plantation in the coming weeks, the ‘Straw welcome’ if he dares to see the former fridge technician Talat in his pseudo-presidential office. In fact, the CyBC foreign correspondent George Iacovou has said he was considering not seeing Bryza, if and when he visits, as he was a “low-ranking official”.
The question is, if Bryza has secured China’s approval for seeing Talat in his office, what will our government do?
WATCHING a report on the Antenna TV news about DISY’s 10 non-party candidates for the parliamentary elections I could only count nine individuals on the screen. There was one missing. It was former government spokesman Christos Stylianides. Had he not attended the presentation event for the candidates? He had, but the station’s autocratic ruler Loukis P has a policy of never showing Stylianides on Antenna broadcasts – he is never invited to discussion shows and his views are never reported. For Antenna, Stylianides does not exist. If you want to know why, we suggest you call Loukis P’s office and ask him, because he’s not going to tell me.
A WORD OF sympathy for poor old Marcos Baghdatis, who was not given any free time during his two-day visit to the plantation last weekend. He was dragged from one boring ceremony to the next as every mayor wanted to honour him. He even had to visit the Ethnarch at his Strakka ranch, so our leader’s family could have their pictures taken with the champ.
There were some fine newspaper articles about Baghdatis, with writers trying to draw parallels between his achievements and our struggle for vindication. The Commissar’s personal columnist Vasos Georgiou wrote that “every Cypriot hides inside himself a Baghdatis, who, at the critical time, comes to the surface.” And in these difficult times we live in, “every one of us should unleash the Baghdatis who is inside him to act and help our country overcome its difficulties so it can achieve a settlement that will serve all Cypriots, and not the foreigners, led by the British.”
But if we all have a Baghdatis inside us why is my backhand so bad? I tried to unleash the Baghdatis inside me on the court last week, but my backhand remained as crappy as it always has been. If Georgiou unleashed Baghdatis from inside him, he might even be able to write a half-intelligent column.
It gets worse. Another intellectually challenged columnist waxed lyrical about Marcos. Bash-patriotic Costakis Antoniou of Simerini wrote: “He is the reflection of the (Cypriot) people’s desire for this small country live w
ith freedom, independence, dignity… The Cypriot people is Baghdatis. And Baghdatis is the Cypriot people.” Costakis is paid to write this stuff. At least Georgiou does not charge money for his column.
WE ARE PROUD to announce today the launch of the Coffeeshop Charity Appeal Fund, which will campaign to raise money for worthy causes. The aim is to help the less fortunate members of our society, who have not benefited from the plantation’s growing affluence, either because they were not lazy enough to qualify for a job in the public service or because they did not have the university degree that would allow them to become state school teachers.
These people need our help and we have decided to do something about it, to show them we care. We will use our establishment to publicise their plight in order to raise money for them and make their lives a little better. You, dear rear reader can help us, help them by giving generously to our Fund. Just fill in the coupon printed at the bottom of the page, make your cheque payable to the Coffeeshop Charity Appeal Fund and post it to the Sunday Mail.
We know there are thousands of people out there deserving help, but we will take one group at a time. Our first appeal will raise money for the much-maligned Cyprus Airways pilots, who have been treated very shabbily by the airline’s board and were forced to stage a four-hour work stoppage last Thursday in order to win some public sympathy. Despite standing in the bitter cold outside the legislature for over an hour, not a single cent was put in their collection box.
Yet the pilots will have their salaries cut by 30 per cent by a callous, money-grabbing board. What other workers have ever been forced to sacrifice a third of their salary? We know that other CY employees have accepted a 25 per cent pay cut, but they do not have loans for holiday homes and restaurants to support with their salaries. A pilot, on the other hand, who may have been earning 70 grand a year, will now have to survive on £49,000. How will he feed and clothe his family?
This is why we urge you to give generously to the Pancyprian Pilots’ Appeal Fund. You can also subscribe to our ‘Adopt a Cyprus Airways Pilot’ scheme, giving a little money every month to help a pilot feed and clothe his children.
SPEAKING of pilots, I could not help noticing the Cyrano de Bergerac-sized nose of one of the pilots’ spokesmen. I do not mention it to make fun of the guy, but because I think I may have stumbled on a new theory, as his name is Tassos Christofides. This is the third Tassos I know blessed with an unusually big nose. Is it a coincidence or is there some tradition for parents of babies with big noses to christen them Tassos? Or could it be that children who are christened Tassos grow big noses?
OLD SEA WOLF Glafcos was asked to tell a joke at an official DISY function on Thursday and came up with a classic dig at our Ethnarch. “The President of a tiny country was facing a hostile public opinion and sought the help of a wise man, who gave him three envelopes to open and use whenever he was facing problems. The first envelope said ‘it is the fault of the previous government’; the second said ‘Europe is to blame’. He used both when it was necessary and then he needed to open the third, which read, ‘go home, you are not up to the job’”
Had the former presidente been aware of developments he would have added a fourth envelope in the joke, which read ‘tell them that the Chinese will help us’.
