SO FAREWELL Rauf Denktash, former lawyer, politician, community leader, pseudo president, terrorist, ultra-nationalist fanatic, committed Greek-hater, amateur photographer, big eater, English School old boy and Paphite.
Described as smart and witty by those who met him, he was also a ruthless, hard, arrogant and belligerent personality with dictatorial tendencies (which is why our establishment used to refer to him as the Denktator, when was in his prime) and the belief that he always knew best.
Denktash was the most successful politician Kyproulla ever produced as he was the only one who achieved his long term goals – to partition the island and set up an ethnically pure Turkish part controlled by Turkey. Just compare him with the big-mouthed losers who have been leading our side during the same period.
It may have taken him a long time, had a high cost in lives and human suffering, but this was of little concern to this Machiavellian nationalist, for whom the end always justified the means. It also helped that he had the support of the Turkish army.
His achievement might not have been in the best interests of the Turkish Cypriots who are on the way to becoming a minority in the north, but Rauf never much cared for them, making no secret of the fact that his allegiances were with Turkey and that he would not be bothered if all the Turkish Cypriots were replaced by Turks in the north.
We do not know if there is life after death, but if there is we are sure Rauf will have already started working for the partition of the other world, because he would be convinced that the angels could not live peacefully with the departed.
A GREEK uber-nationalist skettos drinker that occasionally visits our establishment referred to Rauf as the “last Greek politician on the island”, because he unwaveringly believed in the centuries-old, enmity between Greek and Turk and was convinced that the two communities could never live together peacefully.
The bald and overweight warhorse never subscribed to modern ideas like conflict resolution, confidence-building, healing of past wounds and other such nonsense, considering it a national duty to maintain the historic hatred, hostility and suspicion that poisoned Greek-Turkish relations for centuries.
Like a true Greek nationalist he never believed there was a Cypriot national identity, memorably saying that the only true Cypriot inhabitants of the island were its donkeys. And he spoke as much on behalf of the Greek Cypriots when he slammed re-unification by repeatedly stating that you could not have a successful marriage between two unwilling partners.
The problem was that as long as he was the leader of the Turkish Cypriots and blocked all re-unification attempts, the Greek Cypriots could live under the illusion they were willing partners. Only when Rauf was unceremoniously dumped by Ankara and the way was opened for the marriage, did we realise that he was right – we were unwilling partners as well.
Rauf’s funeral will be held on Tuesday and it would be fitting if some of our own Cyprob warriors turned up to show their respect for everything he did to keep our problem alive.
UN CHIEF Ban Ki-moon sent the letters inviting the two unwilling leaders to New York in what is believed to be his last attempt to force them into an unhappy marriage.
The comrade’s camp was so disappointed with letter’s content – asphyxiating time frame and multi-party conference – it was in denial for the first 24 hours.
The Turkish media reported its arrival and contents, giving an opportunity for the comrade’s sidekicks to imply there had been a UN plot – the Turks received the letter before us, they protested as if this were a big diplomatic conspiracy. All the hacks made an issue out of this instead of asking the obvious question, “So what?”
This suited the government’s propaganda purposes, as all talk was about the late arrival of the letter rather than its content. And when politicians or hacks mentioned its content the comrade and his spokesman expressed outrage, that they were citing the interpretations of the unreliable and biased Turkish media.
But they were still not prepared to release the letter so that we could learn the truth and not have to rely on the misinformation spread by the Turks.
HAD THERE been a UN conspiracy? The UN insisted that the invitations were sent out at the same time, so it could be that the comrade’s flunkeys did not check their boss’ Inbox on Saturday morning to see that it had arrived.
Or perhaps the plan was to pretend the comrade had never received it and therefore not go to New York next weekend, claiming that he had not received an official invitation. Eroglu messed up this plan by leaking it to the Turkish media.
On Friday the comrade wrote back to Ban accepting the invitation, while expressing reservations about the usefulness of the meeting in the light of Eroglu’s intransigence. It was sheer bad lack that Rauf passed away after the reply had been sent.
Had he died a bit earlier, the comrade could have declined Ban’s invitation on the grounds that it would be disrespectful to hold negotiations so soon after the death of Denktash, while the Turkish side was still in mourning for him.
EVERYONE now is terribly worried about what will happen at Greentree. Even Yiorgos Colocassides, the expelled vice chairman of DIKO returned from obscurity to express his anxiousness about the Tof-Ero meeting, on the show of the equally nervous Lazarus.
Our entire ruling elite are terrified of what would happen, particularly if the comrade is forced to agree to a multi-lateral meeting. It is difficult to understand why they are taking the whole thing so seriously, given that the cowardly comrade would never sign a deal.
The worst thing that could happen would be that our side might be blamed for the collapse of the negotiations and there would not be another UN initiative. This must surely be a cause for celebration, especially by all those who were against the talks from day one and warning that we were heading for the closure of the Cyprob.
IF ADDITIONAL confirmation were needed of our government’s embarrassing subservience to the Russian Federation it was provided this week when the Russian-owned ship, carrying some 60 tons of ammunition for Syria sailed into Limassol port seeking re-fuelling on Tuesday.
From the first moment it arrived and the government realised there was a dangerous cargo it started looking for ways to let it go. It avoided notifying the European Commission, in case it instructed us to keep The Chariot, and ordered the AG’s office to study the provisions of the EU sanctions against Syria in order to find a way round them.
It also contacted the Russian owners, to ask them to change the ship’s itinerary, removing Latakia in Syria as its destination and replacing it with Iskenderun in Turkey. Satisfied that The Chariot was not sailing to Syria the authorities allowed it leave and it duly arrived at a Syrian port.
A brilliant mind at the AG even came up with legal proof that Cyprus had not violated sanctions. Apparently, the sanctions prohibited the supply of ammunition and weapons to Syria “from the territories of member-states”. But in our case the great legal mind pointed out, the containers full of bullets went “through” and not “from” the territories of a member-state. Nobody can compete with Cypriot lawyers when it comes to splitting hairs.
THE AUTHORITIES did not even bother to check the content of the containers, less our Russian masters took offence. It was not because we did not want to do it, but because, according to our foreign ministry, it was not possible “due to the narrow confines of the ship”.
Do we expect anyone to believe these pathetically lame excuses which are of the type used by schoolkids w
ho did not do their homework? It would have been more convincing if the government said that its inspectors forgot to check the containers.
The government’s line was that “all appropriate action was taken” and more importantly “the interest of Cyprus were served”. And I thought it was only other countries that put their interests above international legality, conventional obligations and principles.
STEF-STEF’s assertion that “the interests of Cyprus were served” was a bit unfortunate. Is it really in our interest to supply the ruthless Assad regime with bullets to kill innocent Syrian citizens campaigning for democracy?
He obviously meant that it was in our interest to do what the Russian government tells us to do, as we are still awaiting two installments of the €2.5 billion loan that it has promised us. And if we alienated Russia she might not take a principled stand on the Cyprob again, or help change a couple of prepositions in Security Council resolutions.
COMMUNIST party mouthpiece Haravghi made sure that the government took the credit for the European Commission’s approval of our 2012 budget and measures to reduce the deficit. “The Cyprus government yesterday received the praise of the Commission for its decisiveness and ability to secure the viability of public finances… and received European kudos for its economic management.”
This is how commie propaganda works. The reality is that the viability of state finances was secured, by the political parties, in spite of the government and the president who opposed the cost-cutting measures and repeatedly criticised them in public. He even sent two of his kids to demonstrate and shout abuse at opposition deputies outside the Legislature when it was approving them.
Talk about twisting the truth.
I AM FED up of hearing politicians, hacks, businessmen and union bosses repeating, at every opportunity, that the Cyprus trade union movement had always displayed a sense of responsibility.
There is no bigger lie than this, but it has been repeated so often and for so long that everyone seems to believe it (it is the Hitler formula). The truth is that the trade union movement showed a sense of responsibility once, in the history of the country – after the devastation caused by the 1974 invasion – and we are still hearing about it 37 year later.
In the ensuing 37 years they have been unrelentingly irresponsible, self-interested and greedy, ensuring the closing down of important sectors of the economy like manufacturing and transit trade as well as jeopardising the future of tourism.
It is thanks to the sense of responsibility and public spirit of the trade union movement that Kyproulla is one of the most expensive countries in the EU to eat out or to have a coffee and households pay the highest electricity bills.
Thanks to the sense of responsibility of the unions we have the best-paid and laziest public employees in the world, whom the state can no longer afford to pay, highly-paid and lazy teachers who do not give a damn about their students and thousands of businesses struggling to stay afloat.
Our unions have never been responsible after 1974. They have been well-behaved – not calling strikes or taking disruptive action – only because all their demands, no matter how unreasonable and irresponsible, were always satisfied, in the name of social consensus. Their members received big annual pay rises, in excess of productivity increases, absurd allowances, 13th and 14th salaries etc.
And now everyone is complaining about the unaffordable cost of living, which is conveniently blamed on profiteering. It occurs to nobody that Kyproulla is so expensive because our trade union movement always displayed a sense of responsibility in ensuring sky-rocketing costs. So much so that we have inflation even in a recession.
