WHEN the comrade president had refused to attend a scheduled meeting with Dervis Eroglu over things the latter had said, some three weeks ago, we had warned that the ‘blame-game’ had kicked off.
If there were any doubts about this assertion, they were dispelled this week when the government officially launched its hate campaign against the UN mediator Big Al. The president’s comrade poodle, Andros
Kyprianou fired the first salvo last Sunday accusing, the Aussie of not “calling things by their name”.
Al was out of order, threatening that the UN would stop dealing with the Cyprob if the current initiative failed to yield results, said the mild-mannered Akel chief, before explaining that it was “the UN’s role, when a peace effort fails, for a renewed peace effort to begin.”
The failure is already a foregone conclusion, and the comrades have already begun talking about a new effort, as if the UN has a moral obligation to undertake peace initiatives, every time our politicians want to play their favourite game – negotiations deadlock.
I suspect the current talks are the last chance saloon, because the UN has finally realised that we love our Cyprob and our politicians’ lives would have no meaning without it. It took the UN several decades but its head honchos have now understood that the Cyprob means everything to us and that life without it would not be worth living.
GOVERNMENT spokesman Stephanos Stephanou also took a few indirect swipes at Big Al, but the real fireworks came at the Aussie’s Tuesday’s meeting with the comrade. According to Phil, the president “gave Downer a dressing down” and told him that his comments were not helpful to the talks.
We hear there had been quite a heated exchange at the meeting and it was made public as part of the government’s campaign to discredit Downer. Of course it was preaching to the converted as everyone, apart from the Fuhrer, has been publicly pillorying the big man, and demanding his withdrawal for months now.
If the comrade was hoping, with this pathetically childish trick, to convince any non-Greek Cypriot that the Aussie was to blame for the failure of the talks, he is staking a claim for mukhtar of the year, because he sure thinks and acts like one.
THE OFFICIAL ‘down with Downer’ campaign has renewed the calls for his replacement. All the bash-patriotic party chieftains, TV bosses and newspaper columnists have been pressing the government, for some time now to write to the UN Secretary-General and ask him to send a new Special Representative, presumably because Big Al was in too much of a hurry to get an agreement.
Do these guys seriously believe there is even a 0.001 per cent chance of this happening? Do they think the talks are like a football match and the UN Secretary-General has several substitute special reps warming up on the touchline, ready to replace Downer as soon as the electronic sign with the Aussie’s number is lifted by Christofias? Perhaps in the next initiative, the UN should consider having a couple of substitute mediators on stand-by, just in case we do not like the man they send us.
THANK GOD we still have Russia, which always takes a stand on principle with regard to the Cyprob, on our side. This support was supposedly confirmed during our foreign minister Marcos Kyprianou’s meeting with his counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Monday.
Lavrov ‘puts them in their place’, said Phileleftheros, claiming that he had blocked attempts to derail the Cyprus peace process and to change the ‘international legal basis for a settlement’. Harvghi was ecstatic as he had sent a ‘clear message’, of Moscow’s opposition to ‘artificial time-frames’ and efforts to impose a solution, ‘on either side’. Everyone, conveniently ignored the fact that Lavrov’s assertion, that a settlement could only be ‘voluntary and based on the agreement of the two sides’ also applied to the Turkish side. So did his conviction the UN should not impose unacceptable terms.
Last year the comrade president put in an €100 million order for Russian tanks we did not need, in the belief that this would ensure Russia’s continued diplomatic support.
This was mukhtar diplomacy in action, when you consider that the volume of annual trade between Russia and Turkey is 40 billion bucks. And what should Turkey be demanding from Moscow in exchange for the contract it signed with a Russian state company for the construction of a nuclear power plant worth $20 billion?
It is simple business logic – 20 billion bucks can buy a lot more principled stands than 100 million euro. Even a communist mukhtar can understand that, but could never admit it in public because without Russia, Kyproulla would have no big country on its side, apart from China, which however refuses to sell us any weapons.
SO GOOD was Ethnarch Junior in rubbishing the government’s economic measures during the last week, we considered offering him the presidency of the neo-liberals association. But unfortunately, his neo-liberalism does not go beyond economics. When it comes to politics he is a bit of neo-authoritarian.
He is so intolerant of people who do not share his bash-patriotic views that he condemned the appointment of Andreas Petrides as chairman of Broadcasting Authority, on the grounds he had received £14,000, from UNOPS, via an NGO, to support the Annan plan “which was blatantly against the interests of Cypriot Hellenism.”
Did he not realise that the persecution of ‘yes-voters’ came to an end when his father’s enlightened rule came to an end?
JUNIOR’S neo-authoritarian attitude was also displayed in the latest dispute that sprang up at The English School. The school’s board decided that from the new academic year, two Muslim holy days would be holidays. The Parents Association which is currently run by bash-patriots has been fighting this decision and Junior has come to their help.
As House Finance Committee chairman, Junior has blocked the €340,000 that would go to the school from the state budget on the grounds that he wanted to examine the school’s expenses more closely. Although he has refused to comment, the rumours are that he threatened not to release the money unless the plans to observe the Bayram holidays were scrapped. Observing Bayram is blatantly against the interests of Cypriot Hellenism.
THE BICKERING between bash-patriotic parents and the board of the English School continues unabated. Relations have become tenser, since the bash patriots took control of the Parents Association and the Tof government appointed a loser, leader of a micky-mouse Turkish Cypriot party to the board.
Izzet Izcan, leader of the United Cyprus Party, which takes less than two per cent of the vote in the north, is bosom buddy of Andros Kyprianou and the comrade; his party may even receive some funding from AKEL. He is treating the board as his fiefdom and the other Akelites follow his diktats because they see him as the comrade’s man.
The trouble at the school has multiplied since his appointment, but what do you expect when you give power to a failure of a politician? And the bash-patriotic Parents Association are not helping matters. If they want their kids to attend a school that promotes Greek nationalism and respects the symbols of Hellenism why don’t they send them to a gymnasium?
It is not very bash patriotic to send your kids to a school where they are taught in English and English educational values are promoted. There is a big risk they may end up being open-minded and reject their parents’ bash-patriotic principles.
THE ECHR awarded peanuts for loss of use and moral damage in nine applications against Turkey by Greek Cypriots. While the total claims were in excess of €8 million, the Court awarded, in total, €1.2 million, just 300 grand more than Turkey had offered in settlement. In short its valuations were much closer to those of the Turks.
‘What do we do now’ was the question being asked on the morning radio shows. The above mentioned decisions would make it impossible for people unhappy with the low compensations offered by the Turks’ Immovable Property Committee (IPC) to appeal to the ECHR. So what should refugees do?
Human Rights lawyer Christos Clerides had the answer – they should not apply to the IPC he told two radio shows on Wednesday morning. What was the alternative? “They should wait for a solution,” he said. And what if the solution they wait for is similar to the one of 2004 which Clerides campaigned against?
THE WORLD Cup entered the knock-out stage yesterday and should liven up after some mega-boring matches early on. Hopefully we will now see a few inspiring performances by the game’s much-hyped superstars who have yet to show us anything exciting and help us go into hero-worship mode.
So far the star of the tournament is a past hero – the small, squat, overweight, bearded, Argentina coach, who wears bling, including a watch on each wrist, and an ill-fitting grey suit that looks like it was bought in charity shop – Diego Maradona, the greatest footballer ever (or ‘the cheat’ as the English affectionately refer to him).
When not playing, Diego, like most geniuses, was always a madman, a quality he has been displaying from the touchline in South Africa. Apart from always trapping the ball with exquisite skill when it lands in his technical area, he jumps up and down, like a demented rabbit, constantly gesticulates and puts on an amazing repertory of facial expressions.
He also has a habit of hugging and kissing every player he substitutes when the man walks off the pitch, which is a cute touch in a sport in which most coaches look mean and nasty and the only emotions they display are anger and disgust.
In a TV interview on Tuesday, his touchy-feely side was brought up by an English hack who asked the following: “You’re very affectionate with your players; lots of hugs and kisses. Can love win the World Cup and are you naturally affectionate with everybody or is this what you learnt as a player? Do you respond better…”
At this point Diego, who was having the question translated into Spanish, turned solemn, started moving his head very deliberately from left to right and his eyes bulged at the implication that he was not all man. Then he said: “I prefer women, I am dating Veronica, she is 31 years old. She’s blonde and pretty.”
We never found out whether love, hugs and kisses can win the World Cup and I doubt that a coach who thinks Jonas Gutierez is a better right back than Xavier Zanetti can win it either. Still, we hope Argentina progresses, because their mad coach provides the most entertaining moments of this World Cup.
IN ARGENTINA’S first match, the CyBC commentator was so fascinated after watching Maradona trap the ball in his technical area that two minutes later he told us that “Maradona will take the corner”.
The CyBC’s sports hacks have not treated us to as many gems as in previous World Cups, probably because cult commentator Andreas Poyadjis has been given studio-hosting duties. However, there were two gems in last Sunday’s match between Brazil and Ivory Coast that have already become legend.
When a Brazil header went narrowly wide of the post, the commentator astutely informed us that “if the header was more to the left it would have gone in.” And when Brazil’s Fabiano scored the second goal after some skilful ball-play, the commentator wet himself and gave us all the superlatives he could think of.
The goal was “beautiful, wonderful, a moment of magic” and Fabiano was a great player who scored the best goal of the tournament so far. Then we saw the action replays which showed that Fabiano had twice used his hand to bring the ball under control during his display of awesome skill. But the commentator was unmoved, insisting that “the handball takes nothing away from the excellence of the goal.” He repeated his idiotic assertion another two times.
THE JOKE doing the rounds in the UK is that the 2010 World Cup is just like World War II. The French left early, the Americans arrived at the last minute and England had to fight Germany on her own. The similarities with WWII could end this afternoon.
