THE COUNTDOWN to the EU summit in Copenhagen, at which the future of our sun-drenched plantation of love and bananas will be determined, has begun. It kicks off on Thursday and by Friday night, or Saturday morning at the latest, we will know how our future has been charted.
By the end of the week there could be signatures on the infamous Kofi Annan peace plan, and the plantation could be well on the way to full EU membership. There are countless other possibilities, but I have no intention of boring customers with them. They should be left to enjoy their last Sunday of freedom (the last Sunday they will not obliged to wear a fez) because after Copenhagen, as our freedom fighters keep warning us, ‘Turkification’ of the entire plantation begins.
Contrary to what our enlightened and wise political leaders have been telling us, if the EU gives Turkey a date for the start of accession talks (this depends on the Germans lifting their objections), el presidente will also have to sign the first section of the detested peace plan. As one insightful customer remarked, while sipping his skettos with 15 bubbles, it is highly unlikely Glaf will be given the option to ‘take it or leave it’.
The only option he will be given is to ‘take it or take it’, unless we stand firm and argue our case aggressively, in which case we will be given the option to ‘take it and shut up’.
IT WILL certainly be no holiday in the Danish capital for el presidente and his much-maligned advisers, which is probably why our enlightened party leaders have selflessly decided not to accompany him. I suspect our fun-loving leaders do not want to be burdened with a share of the blame for agreeing to the signing of the plan, so they will stay in Nicosia and leave el presidente and his advisers to carry the can.
How things change. In the past, whenever el presidente had to go abroad for meaningless rounds of talks with the Denktator, when nothing at all was expected to happen, the party chiefs forcefully demanded that he take them with him. On the one occasion he decided not to take them along they made life hell for him back in Nicosia. They popped up on television every night during his absence, criticising him and claiming that he was keeping them in the dark about allegedly ‘critical’ developments.
These attacks worked a treat, and el presidente never left them behind again when he went abroad for talks. The summer before last, we paid for our illustrious leaders to stay at the Waldorf Astoria in New York for three weeks, supposedly advising Glaf how to conduct talks that were going nowhere.. One of them, God rest his soul, was given a suite and took his wife and had his brother-in-law and wife to stay, while another went for a long weekend break to Las Vegas. A little later we paid for them to stay in some super-luxury hotel in Switzerland overlooking Lake Geneva. Again, they were there to confer with el prez about nothing in particular.
They have been on countless all-expenses paid luxury holidays abroad on the pretext that their presence, in order to confer with Glaf, was a matter of the highest national importance. But the one and only time that accompanying him is not only justified, it is an historic imperative because decisions that will affect us and future generations will have to be discussed and taken in the space of a few hours, they have decided that their presence is not necessary.
I’m sure that if they knew nothing would happen next week, our fun-loving holidaymakers would be telling us that it is in the national interest for them to be in Copenhagen.
THEN AGAIN we could be wrong. There may even be very good political reasons for this decision that cannot be divulged for fear of our enemies rumbling our cunning diplomatic tactics for the summit. Cucumbers (as we say in Greek in moments of levity).
First, Copenhagen has never been good for shopping: it is very expensive and there are no department stores like those in New York. Second it will be bloody freezing in Denmark this time of year, not the best weather to go shopping in. Third, Clerides will be staying there for only four days, which is far too short a period for a real holiday and there would not be enough time for real Christmas shopping. And fourth, Copenhagen, apart from the statue of the mermaid, is a bit boring.
But I shouldn’t be too flippant. The real reason may have something to do with the fact that all the suites in Copenhagen’s luxury hotels are booked up, as there will be thousands of politicians, diplomats, bureaucrats and journalists in town. Our party leaders would have to stay in second-rate accommodation, a humiliation our well-bred aristocrats simply could not tolerate. Can you blame them?
THEY DID try to explain why they would not be going, but a five-year-old would have come up with a more convincing excuse. Only the Führer and Dr Faustus, never one to turn down a free trip, were in favour of going, but closet rejectionist Papa-Dop Tassos, supported by bash-patriots Koutsou and Perdikis, argued that they should not go, and Commissar Christofias also agreed with him.
The reason? Tassos argued that the presence of the National Council would make it easier for the summit to blackmail el presidente into negotiating and signing a provisional agreement on the Annan plan. Tassos is reported to have said that the absence of the party leaders would “give Clerides an additional argument, that before agreeing to anything, he would have to confer with the National Council”.
Can you believe this argument, from supposedly the shrewdest politician on the plantation? EU leaders will prepare the summit decisions and resolutions, with Turkey prepared to sign the Annan agreement, but they will put everything on hold for a week to give Clerides a chance to return to the plantation and consult Koutsou, Perdikis and Tassos!
Decisions on EU enlargement, European security, Turkey’s accession date and the peace plan, all of which are inter-related, will have to wait for the National Council to convene before they are finalised. No doubt EU leaders will call in Clerides and tell him: “Don’t worry, Glaf, you don’t have to sign anything because you need to consult the members of the National Council. We understand they’re not here because they had more important business to attend to in Cyprus. Take your time talking to them because we certainly don’t want you to sign anything without first securing the approval of Messrs Perdikis and Koutsou….”
THIS IS ALL part of the mythology that our party leaders have been selling gullible Bananiots ever since the peace plan appeared. The National Council has pompously declared that Clerides is going to Copenhagen for our EU accession and will not negotiate on the Annan plan. (This was another reason, according to Tassos, for the leaders not accompanying el prez.) But what if accession is conditional on signing the plan, without any negotiating? El prez will be sticking to the Council decision by signing.
We accepted the Annan plan as a basis for negotiation only, but this would mean we also accepted the time-frame of the plan, which sets December 12 for the signing of the initial agreement. Would the UN allow all its work, which is based on using the EU summit to force both sides to sign the agreement on December 12, go to waste? Especially as the EU fully supports the peace plan and wants the Cyprob solved before the plantation joins?
THE JUICIEST pork pie of the week was served by chubby AKEL spokesman Nicos Katsourides, who insisted on a TV show that the party leaders had consulted el presidente about accompanying him to Copenhagen, and he had agreed that they should not go. According to the dapper Kats, el prez had agreed with the ingenious argument (see above) put forward, by the plantation’s shrewdest politician. We checked with the palazzo and discovered that Kats was being a little economical with the truth. El prez wants the leaders to go with him and will keep trying to persuade them. Perhaps if he can book them suites in Copenhagen’s top hotel they might still be persuaded to go.
THE LUNATIC behaviour sparked by the peace plan is still going strong. Here is this week’s round-up of choice moments.
DISY parliamentary spokesman Demetris Syllouris, at a meeting up the palazzo, praised el presidente to high heaven for his skilful handling of the peace negotiations. A day later, he pilloried the Greek Cypriot negotiating team’s clumsy handling of issues, which resulted in a settlement being linked to Cyprus’ EU accession. His criticism, he said, was directed at all the members of negotiating team including Attorney-general Alecos Markides. Until a few weeks ago, Syllouris was doing all he could to persuade his party to back Markides as presidential candidate instead of Yiannakis Omirou.
Bird-loving freedom fighter Giorgos Perdikis lambasted government traitor Michalis Papajudas, because the latter had the audacity to say on a radio show that militarily we do not stand a chance against the Turks. Bash*-patriot Perdikis attacked Pap for his defeatist attitude and for undermining the National Guard. If we counted Guard reservists, the insufferably pompous tree-hugger turned unbearably sanctimonious military expert said, we have more troops on the plantation than the Turks and therefore more firepower.
(*bash- Turkish word for chief; i.e. Archbishop is Bashbishop)
One thing seems clear — Perdikis is unable to cope with the demands of the celebrity status he has acquired if his public suggestions are anything to go by. Ten days ago, the legislature approved a bill requiring impresarios of cabaret artistes to have a secondary school leaving certificate (even pimping has to become respectable as part of EU harmonisation), and a slight problem arose because several practising pimps did not have one. Perdikis suggested that the law should have a provision forcing them to go to night school and get their leaving certificate. It would not affect their jobs as they didn’t start work before midnight, he insisted.
A delegation of DISY deputies visited the palazzo this week to be briefed by el prez on the banana problem talks and the accession drive. They spent half the time there urging poor old Glaf, as if he did not have enough things on his mind, to give the potato farmers the compensation they were demanding for their destroyed crop, which was a few millions more than the government had offered (see below).
Kyrenia mayor Costas Orologas, the great crusader against the Annan plan, had something to lift his spirits after the shock realisation that he would not be returning to his home town after all. The remuneration of all mayors of occupied municipalities was increased by about 33 per cent from £3,600 to £4,800 per annum plus expenses. Bash-patriot Orologas will now take home about £500 a month for essentially leading a municipality that does nothing apart from organising a couple of social events a year. And then we wonder why he is opposed to a settlement that will put an end to the joke of the occupied municipalities.
Meanwhile Kyrenia councillor Costas Tzavellas wrote to newspapers on Friday to protest because Famagusta councillors were being paid much more for their services than those of other occupied municipalities. It’s all about the moolah in the end.
Crafty Paralimni mayor Nicos Vlittis came up with a classic excuse on Monday for failing to keep his promises to put together a town planning scheme for the past 13 years (as a result, half the buildings in Paralimni are illegal). Vlittis had this excuse for the House Interior Committee. “Sirs, you say that we have been delaying (the plan) for 13 years. I tell you that the Cyprus problem has been discussed for 25 years.” Obviously the Turks have not yet agreed to the Paralimni town planning regulations.
Bishop of Paphos Chrysostomos gave a bash-patriotic sermon against the peace plan which would ‘Turkify’ the whole of Cyprus. People were deluding themselves if they really thought we would create a properly run state that would join the EU, if the 130,000 Anatolian settlers stayed on the island. “They (settlers) would never become Europeans even if we baptised them,” he announced. Look at us — we’ve been baptised.
There is no shortage of loonies in Turkey either, as a columnist of hardline nationalist rag Istanbul Ortadogu, founded by the late Alpaslan Turkes, father of the Grey Wolves, showed. He wrote: “If Bashbug (Turkes’ nicknmane) were alive today, and he was asked about Annan’s peace plan, he would give the following answer: ‘What f***ing plan are you talking about’? And you know what he would have told Annan about his plan? ‘Take it and shove it up your arse’.”
A WORD of phoney sympathy for poor old Rauf Denktator, who returned to the plantation yesterday after a brief stopover in Turkey. Weakened and demoralised by his illness, Rauf has also had to suffer the indignity of being completely marginalised by the new regime in Ankara because he has outlived his usefulness. He may still be barking about separate sovereignty and the presence of ‘two nations’ on the plantation, but nobody is paying any attention in Ankara.
His patrons Ecevit, Gurel and Cem have all departed and none of new politicians in Turkey has been supporting his silly utterances. If anything, the new Turkish government seems rather embarrassed by his outbursts. It was Turkish officials, not Denktash’s advisers, who drafted the response to Kofi Annan, while Ankara has made it clear to mediators that it is ready to sign the plan so long as it receives a date for the start of EU negotiations.
The irrepressible Denk continued with his usual pranks anyway. On Wednesday he failed to keep his promise to submit his response to the Annan plan at the specified time, thus embarrassing our side which had sent it. The following day he said he had not sent it because his fax machine was broken.
A pathetic excuse if ever there was one, but it inspired the headline of the year, published in Friday’s Politis. In Greek letters it said “Mr Denktash fax us again”. In Greek there is only one ‘a’ sound, u see.
THE NATIONAL problem has stopped us from dealing with domestic issues of high importance but we hope to resume normal service soon. For example, did you know that Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis, who has been keeping an unusually low profile, went to Council of Ministers meeting on Thursday demanding greater compensation for the destroyed crop of the potato farmers?
The finance ministry had calculated the compensation based on a costing done by the agriculture ministry which included all the expenses of the farmers, from wages to land rent, and from interest payments to depreciation. But Rolandis still argued that the farmers should be given £4 million pounds more than they were entitled to. The reason? Because this is what the farmers wanted.
POWER appears to have affected new Nicosia Mayor Michael Zampelas, who this month completes his first year in office. Zampelas, who got a new black Merc recently, seems to be suffering delusions of grandeur. He has placed the Nicosia Municipality flag on the car, as if he is a head of state or some foreign big-wig. Someone should tell him that he’s just the mayor. Next week, read about Zampelas’ radical new policy on the consumption of tyropittas on municipality premises and his revolutionary plan aimed at currying favour with journalists.
In the meantime, Happy Copenhagen.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“A man is only as old as the women he feels.”
Groucho Marx
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.
