THE HOUSE Institutions Committee yesterday decided to discuss the UN leaked documents in two closed sessions, after rows between MPs resulted in AKEL and DISY effectively taking the decision by majority vote.
The Committee had originally postponed its discussion on the leaked documents, detailed in a book called “Simademeni Trapoula” (Marked Cards) until President Demetris Christofias returned from his recent New York meeting with UN Secretary-General (UNSG) Ban Ki-moon and Turkish Cypriot leader Dervis Eroglu.
The books contains a series of UN correspondence on the Cyprus issue, politicians and the media.
The UN Secretary-General’s special adviser for Cyprus Alexander Downer had been invited to the house to give explanations by a number of outraged deputies, even though they had been advised by ruling AKEL that such a move would not do the Greek Cypriot side any favours.
Yesterday, following a suggestion by DISY’s Andreas Themistocleous, backed by AKEL deputies, it was decided that an open discussion could harm the state’s interests, as well as violate the constitution when it came to the examination of personal telecommunications.
Speaking after the meeting, Committee Chairman, EVROKO’s Rikkos Erotokritou, one of the original proponents of calling Downer to task, launched a scathing attack against AKEL and DISY, saying their proposals were opportunist and aimed at serving other interests.
“I won’t accept the argument that personal data rights will supposedly be violated, when for months now, these documents were made public through the media and no one from Downer’s team expressed any objection,” said Erotokritou
He wondered whether the two parties would rather the documents were presented through varying versions in the media, instead of being officially and openly discussed at parliament.
“I wonder which one of the journalistic versions they accept,” said Erotokritou. “Does DISY accept the version that the documents were stolen by the DISY president and leaked to the media? I wonder if AKEL accepts Makarios Droushiotis’ version in Politis newspaper, which claims KYP [the Cypriot secret service] stole them on behalf of the government.”
He wondered whether it was because they accepted these two versions that they insisted on the meeting being carried out behind closed doors.
However, Themistocleous strongly rejected the Committee Chairman’s claims, saying the discussion hadn’t been cancelled altogether.
“I categorically reject Mr Erotokritou’s claims that DISY had even accepted that these documents were the result of theft,” said Themistocleous. “DISY never wanted the discussion to stop, never accepted that the documents were stolen and never felt it would harm the Republic of Cyprus if the meeting was closed. But we feel the general interests of our state demanded this.”
During the meeting, AKEL’s Yiannakis Thoma said an open discussion of the matter would be bad for Cyprus. “We feel the discussion should be avoided altogether, in fact,” said Thoma. “It is well known that even after closed parliamentary meetings, nothing stays within the walls. There are always leaks and they are usually distortions of the truth.”
DIKO’s Andreas Angelides said yesterday’s development was a “massive defeat of freedom to carry out parliamentary examinations”. “It should have been an open discussion so the Cypriot people are informed.”
He added that the fact that the UNSG’s reference to “the south” instead of the Republic of Cyprus proved that the discussion should have in fact been carried out before the New York meeting.
EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos agreed, adding that the specific documents had been made public ages ago, anyway. “None of those affected made any comment on them or denied them, nor did they implement measures to stop the book from being published,” he pointed out.
