CONSPIRACY theorists, rumour-mongers and neighbourhood gossips were working overtime in the last week trying to make sense of the cold-blooded murder of Andis Hadjicostis outside his house on Monday night.
Suspects have been detained by police, but we will refrain from writing anything about them because they could be innocent and decide to cover their high legal fees by filing libel suits against all publications that treated them as guilty.
All we can say is that the neighbourhood gossips proved more reliable sources of information than the political conspiracy theorists, among whom were included professional opinion-formers such as leading politicians, newspaper columnists and radio show presenters.
It was the same group of intellectually challenged, bash-patriots who declared the theft of the Ethnarch’s remains last month a plot to weaken our resistance to the sinister designs of evil, foreign powers. Chief inspector Lillikas cracked that case within a few hours of the crime being committed although nobody has been arrested yet.
This time, the chief responsibility of identifying the perpetra(i)tors fell to bash-patriotic radio evangelist Lazaros Mavros, who has uncovered more plots against the Republic than Spy Kyp.
“The murder of Andis Hadjicostis was planned and executed in order to take out of the way the Dias group… so as to subjugate Simerini; to make Radio Proto kneel; for Sigma TV to offer them everything… To send a clear message to Phileleftheros. And to Antenna. And to all those who insist on putting up resistance daily.”
And once the resistance was eliminated, according to Lazaros, “they would impose their intensified operations: for the dissolution of the Cyprus Republic and its surrender to the Turkish co-masters, for the transformation of Cyprus into an Anglo-Turkish protectorate.”
THE FOLLOWING day, Thursday, through his investigations he identified who ‘they’ – enemies of Cyprus – were. He wrote in his daily column in Simerini: “We all have a duty to consider, of which enemies of Cyprus, perhaps, the secret services stepped up, with ‘qualitative upgrading’, their covert operations against us – planning, ordering and financing the cold-blooded murder of the head of the Dias group. On the first day of the intensive talks.”
In the same issue of the paper, the President of Movement of Greek Resistance, wrote: “The enemies of Hellenism are seeking to create a climate of terror for all those who resist the fiendish plans of the Anglo-Turks for the sacking of Cyprus.”
The politicians of this school of simplistic thought were all weaning cheap political messages from the crime. Dr Faustus, who arrived at the scene of the crime on Monday night, announced that this was “a crime against all the Cypriot people.”
House president Marios Garoyian also arrived at the scene and seized the opportunity to peddle his heroically defiant rhetoric in front of the cameras. “We can say one thing to those seeking the destabilisation of the country – it will not happen.”
It is depressing that the bash-patriotic camp could stoop so low, even exploiting a murder, to spread its pseudo-heroic political message.
COMRADE president must be taking everyone for a ride with regard to the Cyprob talks. Last Sunday, he met the leaders of the parliamentary parties to discuss the unacceptable proposals submitted by the Turks, and they unanimously decided that these would be rejected at Monday’s talks. He could not discuss confederal proposals the meeting decided.
Not only did he not reject the proposals but he agreed to submit his own at Tuesday’s meeting and had poor old George Iacovou and Toumazos Tselepis working through the night at the palazzo to get them ready. Tuesday’s meeting lasted eight or nine hours and so did Wednesday’s when the first round of not-so-intensive talks was completed.
What could he have been discussing all those hours if he had rejected the Turkish proposals? Had comrade Talat, as a gesture of goodwill, agreed to discuss only Tof’s proposals? Not bloody likely – Tof agreed with the party leaders on Sunday to get them off his back and then conveniently forgot the unanimous decision.
At Friday’s National Council meeting, he painted a bleak picture about the prospects of the talks, thus ensuring that none of the leaders would come out of the palazzo accusing him of making concessions. And they all agreed that he should carry on talking, regardless, so that our side is not blamed for a deadlock.
The UN, meanwhile, is much more positive and sees progress being made, but its objective is to keep the talks alive. How Garoyian, Omirou and Syllouris react when they hear that there would be a third round of intensive talks in February is anyone’s guess, but the comrade should start thinking of his damage limitation strategy from now.
ONE OF the biggest delegations at the public hearings for the unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, held at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, was that of Cyprus. Our delegation consisted of a staggering 11 members, including several big-shot academics who charge phenomenally high fees for their services.
The foreign academics were chosen by the Republic’s constitutional advisor for 30 years, Clare Palley, who also had a stint as the Ethnarch’s official hagiographer. It is not the first time Palley has hired her friends from academia on behalf of the Republic. Needless to say that Palley was a member of the delegation as well, even though her expertise was not very useful at hearings dealing with international law.
The Attorney-general should inform us what this star-studded delegation cost the taxpayer. The funny thing was that one of our highly-paid foreign experts even had a dig at the UN Security Council, on behalf of Cyprus, during the hearings. He was not to know that it was thanks to Security Council resolutions that the occupied north did not go the Kosovo way, when it unilaterally declared independence.
WHEN A GRAND old house on Nicosia’s most exclusive street was refurbished and a modern extension added to it several months ago everyone wondered who would move in? The owner put it up for rent and the rumours were that he was asking for €15,000 per month.
The verdict was that only a crazy Russian with more money than sense would have been willing to pay that kind of rent, even if the house were on Gladstone Street, the haven of old money. It is a beautiful house, with two annexes and big swimming pool in its massive gardens, in which a football pitch would fit.
Not surprisingly, the house stayed empty for several months, the rent being too high even for Russians, the recession forcing them to take crash courses in belt-tightening and rational economic behaviour. And let’s face it, for that kind of money you could rent a house in Manhattan.
The owner got lucky when Silvio Berlusconi decided to appoint Alfredo Bastianelli as Italy’s ambassador to Cyprus. Bastianelli who, reportedly, has an aristocratic background plus the requisite airs and graces, fell in love with the grand old house as soon as he saw it. The ambassadorial pad on Indira Ghandi Street, in which his predecessors lived, was considered a bit too modest and shabby for his patrician tastes.
He agreed to rent the Gladstone Street house for a bargain €13,000 per month, just under double what the Italian taxpayer was paying for the old shack. When embassy staff realised that they could not get out of the contract for the old shack, they were in a panic over the prospect of paying €20,000 per month in rent for both residences.
But there was a happy ending. The embassy paid compensation to break the contract for the shack and Bastianelli was free to move into accommodation that met his high standards. And Gladstone Street is the ideal road for him to park the shiny Rolls Royce he has brought with him as he takes his place as the prince of the diplomatic corps.
A BIT OF dispute has broken out between restaurateurs and the banks’ credit card centre JCC. The owners of eateries are furious that JCC still takes a three per cent cut of the bill when it is paid by debit card.
In other countries, shops and restaurants pay only a flat fee on bills settled by a debit card because there is no financing cost or bad debt risk for the card issuer – the bank – as they immediately collect the money. However, with credit card use down, the banks are unwilling to reduce their cut from debit card use even though they know it is the fair thing to do.
Then again fairness has never been an ideal embraced by bank head honchos, no matter how hard they work for the good of our economy.
SINCE THE election of the comrade, the ministry of labour and social insurance has been turned into a subsidiary of the two big union federations PEO and SEK. Labour Minister Sotiroulla Charalambous was an employee of PEO and continues to behave as one, with the blessing of her comrade leader; she is his favourite minister.
Sotiroulla makes no pretence of being anything other than a biased union rep, routinely consulting her former colleagues before formulating her insane policies for supposedly fighting unemployment. With union reps deciding employment policy it is a minor miracle that so many people still have jobs.
The latest initiative of Ayia Sotiroulla, patron saint of the proletariat, involves sending ministry inspectors to businesses to check that positions made redundant had not been filled before the 12 months, stipulated by law, had elapsed.
This police state measure will not endear the saintly one to employers, but it could help reduce unemployment, as it would allow significant numbers of jobless, union members to be hired as labour ministry inspectors and informers.
ALL IS not well in the health service industry. The Areteon private hospital, we hear, is facing big financial problems as the doctors who invested in it are being squeezed to meet their big, monthly loan repayments. After Marfin Popular Bank decided not buy the Areteon there has been a desperate search for a big investor, but without success.
Things took a turn for the worse when the administration manager, who kept the peace among bickering doctors, walked out some months ago and has still not been replaced. Meanwhile doctors have been feuding over how much money they bring into the hospital, with surgeons resentful about the fact that they generate more cash than the specialists for the business.
When a patient has surgery he will pay for a room and a host of other over-priced hospital services whereas there is a limited amount of cash that specialists could make from patient visits. If Unficyp could spare a few dozen soldiers, it should send them to the Areteon where the fragile peace is unlikely to hold much longer.
YOU MAY have seen it elsewhere in today’s paper, but I feel duty-bound to mention it as well. A visitor to a Limassol department store picked up a towel she wanted to buy and saw the UK price tag which said €23.50. She asked the assistant if this was the price of the towels, but was told ‘no’. The price was €26 and that price on the tag was in Irish euros.
