MANY of our politicians, we hear, are having sleepless nights, terrified of the traps and conspiracies awaiting our comrade president in New York where the Cyprob circus moves to on Thursday for a gig with UNSG Ban Ki-moon.
House President Marios Garoyian looked particularly anxious and stressed last weekend in Paphos talking about his “very serious worries” regarding the possibility of the procedure changing. He had black rings under his eyes and was irritable, both indications of stress-related lack of sleep, according to shrinks.
But could you blame the guy for being anxious about the future of the Cyprob, on which he has built his sparkling career and dull political persona? He even wrote to the president expressing his anguish about “the traps that must be avoided”.
Concerned about the health of our party leaders, all of whom have shown the same symptoms as Marios, our establishment has taken the liberty to send them sleeping pills and anti-depressants that will help them get through this very difficult period for the Cyprob, which may be heading for a premature closure.
AS IF the anxiety caused by the Big Apple meeting was not enough, our leaders also had the devious machinations of perfidious Albion to cope with in the last week.
Articles, calling on the UN to quit the Cyprob, appeared in leading English newspapers. On Monday former foreign secretary Jack Straw, in an article in The Times, argued that if the latest peace drive failed, the British government should consider partition as a possible solution. Straw’s meddling was greeted with mass outrage by our politicians and hacks whose stress levels peaked on hearing about the latest British duplicity.
Furious EDEK chief Yiannakis Omirou said he wrote to the Labour Party leader, reporting Straw for his unacceptable views. Nobody knows what Ed Milliband’s response was but Labour Party insiders have informed us that he was seriously considering spanking Straw’s bottom.
I WAS a bit surprised to see that the champion of bash-patriotic negativity, Phil, also took great exception to Straw’s views, its commentators and editorial writers penning articles against the suggestion of partition.
This was bit peculiar considering that some months ago the paper distributed free with a Phil Sunday edition a book by a Cypriot doctor, arguing in favour of partition. Around about the same time, it was carrying Church-funded propaganda leaflets, against re-unification.
However none of its writers were moved at the time to write anything against partition, creating the impression that the paper endorsed these views. Was this because the supporter of partition had paid to have his book distributed free with the paper and Phil, like any well-run business, adheres to the rule that the customer is always right?
It also adhered to another of its golden rules – anything a British politician says is wrong and bad for Cyprus.
I WAS also rather disappointed that Phil appears to be losing its conspiracy-spotting abilities. It failed to question the timing of Straw’s article, which appeared just 10 days before the New York meeting with Ban.
While it mentioned that the prospect of partition is always brought up before crucial meetings for the Cyprob, as a way of forcing our side to make concessions, it completely missed the conspiracy evidence. It did not occur to the paper that Straw may have written his article at the instigation of Big Bad Al, who wanted to remind us that failure of the talks would lead to partition.
There must have been co-operation between the two when they were both serving as foreign minister and Al may have asked Straw to do him a favour. How could Phil, which has been waging a merciless war against the Aussie, have failed to make the connection?
THE THREAT of partition was also raised in The Economist Intelligence Unit’s recently-published report on Cyprus. The Intelligence Unit put “the chance of finding a solution” during the forecast period (2011-15) at “about 20 per cent.”
It added that a UN report that was due to be published this month “could recommend that talks cease on the grounds that they are going nowhere. This might eventually result in a focus on a negotiated partition including recognition of TRNC.”
The person who penned this report, from what we know, works for the Downer team and may have been repeating the Aussie’s views. This was another connection Phil, disappointingly, failed to make. I am fed of doing the paper’s work for it, and for no pay.
INSTEAD of focusing on Big Bad Al’s fear campaign, the paper insisted on playing up the stolen e-mails issue, on which the Aussie has every right to complain. Phil spotted on the web an article written by Al about the e-mails saga led its Monday front page with the banner headline “(Downer) Insults and provokes”.
Instead of dealing with the content of the private e-mails, the ‘offensive and provocative Downer’ wrote that “the only non-correct thing that about the e-mails issue was the ‘violation of the law’,” complained Phil’s writer, who referred to the ‘stolen’ e-mails. He obviously did not believe they had been stolen.
On Friday, in a story under the headline, “Downer a maitre at leaking documents,” Phil cited three incidents Down Under in which Al was allegedly involved. In 2003 he was reportedly questioned by police for the leaking of a highly classified document on Iraq, the paper said.
Were we to conclude that maitre Al had leaked his secretary’s e-mail folders to Cyprus media, given his record for leaking document? Perhaps the writer was trying to make the point that it was hypocritical of him to complain, a bit like opposing partition while giving out free books championing it.
THE GOOD news is that comrade president has finally achieved unity on the home front. Party leaders unanimously backed the absolutely negative stance he would take at his meeting with Ban on Thursday. Prior to meeting the party chiefs, he had sought assurances from Al about the agenda of the meeting.
The comrade made it clear he would not accept any pressure, a change of the procedure, any convergence proposals by the UN, asphyxiating time-frames, arbitration or an international conference. He also insisted that there would be no joint communiqué issued after the meeting and that nothing would be put in writing. The only thing he failed to demand was for Ban not to speak at the meeting.
In negativity we have found unity. Suddenly, even the opponents of the talks have fallen in love with the procedure they have been slamming every day for the last two years and do not want it changed. They have finally understood, what our visionary leader, knew right from the start of the talks, that a Cypriot-owned procedure would lead nowhere at a snail’s pace. That is why we want it preserved at all costs.
EVERYONE felt sympathy for the Eurocypria employees when the closure of the company was announced but they have become quite irritating with their ongoing demonstrations and claim that they are the most hard done by workers in Cyprus.
There are 25,000 unemployed people, the majority of whom were made redundant just like the Eurocypria staff, but we never saw them marching on the streets, peddling their victimhood – making their kids demonstrate in order for added sympathy was pretty cheap – and demanding princely compensation from the taxpayer; a demand, need it be said, that has been fully backed by our low-down populist deputies.
Euroko deputy Rikkos Erotocritou, could not hide his disgust at the fact that the government had allocated €30 million in its 2011 budget for lazy third-world immigrant scroungers but could not spare €10m to compensate Eurocypria’s 320 workers, who as state employees are entitled to much bigger redundancy compensation than ordinary proles.
THE ANGRY Eurocypria mob gave our former friend Charilaos the fright of his life as they waited for him outside the legislature on Tuesday. He had been advised by police not to attend the House Finance Committee meeting as they could not guarantee his safety, which was rather pathetic.
Our police wouldn’t have to protect Charilaos from football hooligans or neo-fascist thugs, just some air-hostesses and well-heeled pilots. In the end Charilaos and his ministry’s perm sec ignored the cops’ advice and turned up for the meeting. The angry mob, shouting abuse, closed in on them, but they managed to squeeze through surrounded by cops.
Not a single deputy condemned the demonstrators’ behaviour and nor did the government, because in Cyprus the mob, like the customer, is always right. Public sympathy is guaranteed for Eurocypria staff after the kitsch demo by their kids.
HAVING defied the angry mob, Charilaos found the guts to warn the House committee that Cyprus Airways would follow Eurocypria’s fate if there was no drastic cost-cutting. The overpaid Cyprus Airways workers who are currently demanding pay rises were outraged but they needed their wings clipped.
They have been speaking condescendingly about Eurocypria’s problems, as if they were working for some robust, profit-making airline. Charilaos told the House that there was no hope for an airline which was paying its pilots €150,000 in annual salaries, double what much better run airlines were paying.
The chairman of the Securities Commission took umbrage at Charilaos’ comments and his forecast of €30m losses for the year. As Cyprus Airways was listed on the Stock Exchange the board should have made the losses forecast. If he is going to be a stickler for the rules, should he not also suspend the company from the Exchange, given that it is now in negative equity?
TWO ACADEMICS, two hacks and a diplomat were sitting at the bar of the pretentiously named Chateau Status, opposite the Ledra Palace Hotel, having a drink when they spotted a couple of the customers smoking. A person from the company told the smokers that they were breaking the law and should leave the bar.
The smokers were a bit stroppy, but eventually left the bar and finished the fags outside. However the non-smokers demanded that they spoke to the owner of Chateau Status to complain. When he arrived, he told them that people were allowed to smoke in the bar because his establishment was situated in the buffer zone and was not covered by the laws of the Republic.
“Does that mean we can snort cocaine as well,” asked one of the customers. This infuriated the owner, who told the group to get out of his bar if they did not approve of people smoking. They all got up and left. Does the buffer zone status of Chateau Status, exempt it from paying VAT as well? If this is the case many of us will be moving our businesses to the area.
FIRST they christened Romanian lamb Greek Cypriot, then they christened Turkish red mullet Turkish Cypriot and now they are even christening potatoes.
Phil, which has developed an expertise in the christenings of different products, reported on Tuesday that Cypriot potato farmers were up in arms because French potatoes were being imported to Cyprus and, believe it or not christened Cypriot. The reason they were being christened Cypriot was so that the importers could make huge profits, as they bought the French spuds at much lower wholesale prices.
If they did not christen them Cypriot and sold them as French, 50 per cent cheaper than the local potatoes, I bet our farmers would still be complaining.
THERE is no room to write about the activities of the ultra-nationalist fascists, posing as concerned defenders of our national purity from the threat posed by impoverished illegal immigrants. I will just mention what the leader of one of these ultra-Greek movements told the Lazarus patriotic show. The entry of illegal immigrants to the Republic via the British Bases was “an act of war by Turkey supported by Britain.”
Why are bash-patriots not taking up arms to defend the motherland? They should attack the Turks instead of beating up poor, defenceless immigrants.
