TWO DISY MPs yesterday vowed to block the release of a verdict into an investigation of the period 1967-1974, arguing that it is not up to politicians to write history.
At a news conference in Nicosia, deputies Christos Pourgourides and Georgios Georgiou said that a fact-finding investigation into the events leading up to and including the 1974 Turkish invasion was being hijacked for political purposes.
An ad hoc parliamentary committee – known as the Committee for the File of Cyprus – is nearing the completion of the investigation. The findings are expected to shed light on the highly charged events of the period. It’s also understood that the File of Cyprus will be released into the public domain.
A row has erupted over whether the committee’s terms of reference provide for issuing conclusions, after committee chairman, EDEK’s Marinos Sizopoulos, said he had begun drafting a verdict.
Yesterday, the DISY deputies reiterated that the terms of reference contain no mention of a report or verdict. The committee’s remit, they said, was confined to presenting the information to the parliament for archival purposes, without passing judgment on the findings.
“We disagree with the viewpoint that politicians should write history,” said Pourgourides.
“With all the political means at our disposal, we shall try to prevent such a thing from happening,” he added.
For his part, Georgiou said Sizopoulos had presented him with a draft conclusion which, on some issues, provided for several alternative versions.
“For issue A, there are four different versions, and then the draft states that so-and-so version is the likeliest.”
This was indicative of the slapdash approach to the investigation, he noted.
The DISY deputies also argue that, given the Hellenic Parliament and successive Greek governments have refused to provide the Cypriot Parliament with the Greek documents and papers from the period under investigation, to issue a report without these documents would constitute a “crude distortion of historical truth.”
Pourgourides said it was obvious that issuing a report would serve political agendas.
But Sizopoulos yesterday dismissed the objections, insisting that the committee’s terms of reference explicitly provide for the writing up of conclusions.
When the committee was first set up, he said, there was even a stipulation that the investigation would apportion both political and criminal responsibilities. However, the committee has since decided not to apportion any responsibility whatsoever.
Sizopoulos defended the committee’s workings, saying that it had received research support from respected academics from the University of Cyprus.
Asked whether he would release the committee’s terms of reference to settle the dispute once and for all, the EDEK deputy said:
“I will publicise them when the time is right.”
