SUPER-COOL UN dude, Alvaro de Soto was back in the island of love on Wednesday. He arrived at Larnaca provincial airport wearing a blue t-shirt, shades and white slacks on the belt of which his mobile phone was fixed. His many female admirers swooned at the sight of the UN sex symbol on the telly, strolling like a matinée idol towards the VIP lounge, but to more detatched observers he looked like just another mature holidaymaker, of the more affluent variety, here for the sun and sea.
For all the rest of us, who hope and pray every day for an end to the banana split, Alvaro=s attempt at street cool was an ominous sign. Either he did not take his latest visit to the plantation too seriously, or he is going through a mid-life crisis trying to regain his long lost youth by dressing up like a twenty-something. Whichever it is, he did not seem mentally prepared for his task and there is the danger he will not apply the necessary rigour to kick-starting the talks
Wooing the biggest political prick-tease in the world, Rauf Denktator, to the negotiating table is a momentous task that requires all the guile and craft of a focused mind. It would probably have been easier (and infinitely more enjoyable) for Mr Cool to woo Julia Roberts into bed than fatso to the negotiating table (to the dinner table would have been simple). Indications are that the Denktator will eventually be persuaded to go to negotiations but it is doubtful that, once there, he will show any inclination to disrobe and have sex.
This has been the story of the banana peace talks for decades. UN mediators spend months wooing the Denktator to the negotiating bed, then engage in several days (sometimes weeks) of all forms of foreplay, but sex never happens. And without sex, how will a settlement ever be conceived. Our only hope now would seem to be an immaculate conception or in vitro fertilisation.
THE ONGOING uncertainty over the date of the talks has played havoc with the holiday plans of our party leaders, who had been hoping for a break at the Waldorf Astoria in mid-September, when the weather is still warm and pleasant in the Big Apple.
But with el presidente needing to be on the plantation for two scheduled official visits and then flying Down Under for the Commonwealth summit it would appear that our party holidaymakers will not be able to take their well-deserved break before mid-October. According to New Yorkers, autumn in the city is beautiful, even though days are shorter and there is a drop in the temperature.
I would not be surprised if the cruel and sadistic Denktator were refusing to commit himself to talks in order to crush the morale and spirit of our party leaders – just for the fun of it – by keeping them guessing, if and when they will go on their New York junket.
ALL-ROUND tough guy, Nasty Nik, in a courageous act of defiance, flew off to China as head of a DISY delegation sending a clear message that he will never accept a Turkish prick-tease denktating when a Greek Cypriot party leader can go on a free holiday abroad. His visit to China, according to a DISY press release, has been a resounding success.
“The delegation has been given a particularly warm welcome and has had contacts of a high political level, which received very broad coverage by the national and local television networks as well as the newspapers,” said a DISY announcement on Friday. During the meetings, Chinese officials ‘expressed their appreciation’ to the Cyprus government and DISY ‘for (Cyprus’) unstinting support for ‘one China, the unequivocal condemnation of the bombing the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and for the help in securing the 2008 Olympic Games’.
What would China have done without our support? Some of our regulars found it very strange that the announcement did not mention the position or name of the Chinese officials involved in the ‘high political level contacts’ with the Fuhrer. Perhaps this was an oversight on the part of the DISY press office, but the Chinese officials must have been very high-ranking for the meetings to be given ‘very broad coverage by the national television stations.’ Unless of course the DISY fuhrer is a household name in China and we didn’t know about it.
Of course all this is beside the point. As long as Nik had a chance to relax and unwind, then it was a useful trip, especially with the New York holiday looking doubtful.
WHILE Nik and his DISY disciples were strengthening our plantation’s diplomatic ties with China, our Foreign Minister Juan Cassoulides was in Moscow. According to a CyBC radio report, Moscow considered Johnny’s visit ‘particularly important’.
Our delusions of grandeur remain as strong as ever, and were given an added boost after old man Averoff announced that the plantation had become part-owner in some kind of satellite that would be sent into space over the next two years. The amount of nonsense churned out by representatives of our government about the capabilities of the satellite was mind-boggling: it would be used for spying purposes, for spotting illegal immigrants approaching the island and for the exchange of strategic information between Greece and Cyprus.
If our satellite had a few bedrooms as well we could also send Averoff and the party leaders out there for a long holiday in space.
AVEROFF might be a bit of a nerd, but he does have his moments, especially when he takes on those loathsome, arrogant union bosses. In an exchange with some commie union big-wig on Astra Radio on Friday over the government’s BOT (Build-Operate-Transfer) plans for the two airports, the diminutive minister with the old man’s voice had the last laugh.
Unions are vehemently opposed to BOT – whereby a private firm would foot the bill for the extension and upgrading of the airports and, in payment, be allowed to run it for a specified period of time – because they want the airports to remain under state control so that jobs of their members employed there would not be at risk. In the exchange, the union boss cited a report by the Cyprus Development Bank which gave a host of reasons why BOT was not a good idea.
Averoff, who had done his homework, informed listeners that the CDB report was against BOT because it had concluded that the privatisation of the airports was the best solution, a point the union man had omitted to mention.
SORRY to disappoint people who had picked up the paper to read about the intercommunal sexual shenanigans that take place at conflict resolution seminars abroad. We had promised to write about the matter in this issue, but our investigations have not been completed. This being a sensitive issue, we did not want to publish the names of individuals who had sexual encounters with members of the other community, unless we were absolutely certain about our facts.
There was however another conflict resolution seminar in Brussels recently at which the trainer was Fulbright Scholar Benjamin Broome, one of the top earners of the US-financed rapprochement industry. The seminar was attended by six Greek Cypriots, six Turkish Cypriots, as well as six Greeks and six Turks to underline the developing romance between our respective mother-countries. The Greek Cypriot participants were the usual mix of Turk-loving veterans of the rapprochement circus.
Surely it must have occurred to the organisers of these seminars that it is pointless to take people who are already committed to living in peace and harmony with their Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters as it a case of preaching to the converted. It should be Greeks who hate the guts of the Turks and vice versa who should be going for conflict resolution if we are ever to live in peace and harmony on the plantation.
At the Brussels meeting, Broome asked all the participants to list the perceptions their respective community has of the other community; and also to write their perception of their own community or country. According to the lists submitted by the Turkish participants, Turkish society sees Greeks in an exclusively positive light. Their society’s perception of itself was even more honest – apparently Turks see Turkey as a modern, democratic, European country.
And anyone, who disagrees with this view is thrown in prison.
SUBTLETY has never been a part of the Cyprus police’s PR techniques. As soon as the cops do something competently, they call a news conference to boast about it while the big Chief gives and exclusive interview to the official police TV station, Antenna. Friday’s papers all featured reports about our force’s contribution in the seizure of five tonnes of cocaine by the Spanish authorities.
Antenna led with an exclusive interview with the Chief, who was talking for about five minutes about the force’s co-operation with international agencies and the police of other countries. To cut a long story short, our police’s contribution to the whole operation was to pass on information about a shipment of cocaine to a US drug agency, after they had received a tip-off.
While they are busy busting international drug traffickers, car bombs continue to go off on a daily basis in Limassol, without these crimes ever being solved. Like our politicians, the top cops also suffer delusions of grandeur. Their game is big crime and they have no time for small-time crooks and car bombers.
They are not helped by the owners of the bombed cars. These people invariably claim that they do not suspect anyone and that they have differences with nobody. Then again you don’t expect them to tell the cops that they had defaulted on their repayments to a loan shark, that they were sleeping with someone’s wife or that they had refused to pay an underworld baron protection money.
The next day, the revelations would be all over the newspapers and television stations, with the cops boasting that they were on the verge of cracking the case.
OVERSEAS Cypriots gathered in the plantation this week for their two-yearly conference, which has become a forum for moaning. Whenever they gather here, they moan about the lack of financial and other support from the government for their federations. Without money how are they going to carry out their enlightenment campaign about the just cause of the Greek Cypriots, they ask in one voice?
But who would they enlighten if they were given the dosh? President Bush, Kofi Annan, Tony Blair or Jacques Chirac, Rupert Murdoch or Ted Turner? No, enlightenment campaigns are an excuse for our party leaders to visit exotic destinations (when there are no talks in New York or Geneva) to ask governments of inconsequential countries to support irrelevant UN resolutions for Cyprus.
The age of enlightenment was over two centuries ago in the rest of Europe, but the news has not reached overseas Cypriots or the party leaders.
ANOTHER oft-repeated complaint at the conference was that government=s service for overseas Cypriots was hopeless. This was a justified gripe. The service consists of two secretaries and the Commissioner for Overseas Cypriots Manolis Christofides, who is never in Cyprus.
Christofides, for whom the job (which carries ministerial salary and perks) was especially created, is the most travelled official in the history of the plantation. He has unearthed Cypriots in places like New Guinea and the Sudan and has made a point of visiting them, presumably to enlighten them about the Cyprus problem. We all know it is a joke position, created by Manolis’ friends in the palazzo so that the former minister will continue to have social status, a government car and respectable salary for doing next to nothing.
Another friend of the palazzo mini-junta, George Hadjisavvas, got a job dealing with the enlightenment campaign. After retiring as PIO director, rather than join the ranks of unemployed ex-civil servants, the mini-junta appointed him secretary of PSEKA on a full salary. PSEKA is the Co-ordinating Committee of the Cyprus Struggle and is meant to co-ordinate our enlightenment campaign abroad.
These two appointments are conclusive proof of how seriously our government takes overseas Cypriots and its enlightenment campaign abroad.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Sex without love is an empty experience, but as empty experiences go, it’s a pretty good empty experience.
Woody Allen
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
