OVER 10,000 Turkish Cypriots rallied in protest against an Ankara-inspired austerity package in northern Nicosia yesterday, amid fears that deep cuts in public sector jobs will spark a new wave of emigration.
“This package will lead to mass emigration over the next ten to 15 years,” Cagatay Karaer, a 42 year-old civil servant told the Cyprus Mail at yesterday’s demonstration.
Dubbed the “destruction package” by a platform of 28 trades unions and NGOs, the raft of austerity measures will cut civil service salaries by up to 40 per cent, and will change the way promotions within the service are given. It also foresees the selloff of a number of ‘state-owned’ corporations such as the electricity and telecommunications providers, along with the north’s largest university, the Eastern Mediterranean University (EMU), to powerful Turkish business interests.
Many at yesterday’s rally believe the economic austerity package implemented by the ruling National Unity Party (UBP) administration on January 1 was handed down by the Turkish government in Ankara, and accuse the north’s ‘government’ of allowing direct rule from the Turkish capital.
“I’m against colonisation by Turkey. That’s why I am here,” said Dogus Derya, a 31 year-old university lecturer among the crowds yesterday.
“It is not that we don’t need economic measures here. We do. But this can’t be regarded as the same as the austerity that is happening elsewhere. This is not a normal country, and this is not a normal situation,” Derya said, adding that the only way to resolve this issue would be though the reunification of the island.
Another demonstrator Handan Mert, a 43 year-old physiotherapist, expressed an oft-repeated view that Turkey was “trying to wipe out the Turkish Cypriots” by making public sector employment so unattractive people would leave the country.
“The population is changing every day,” she complained. “The Turkish Cypriots are leaving and in their place come people from Turkey”.
The authorities say they will not budge on full implementation of the package, and accuse union leaders of using the current economic crisis to rally opposition against the ‘government’ in order to “express their personal political agendas”. However, they claim to have frozen citizenship applications to the breakaway state from mainland Turks in an attempt to allay immigration fears.
Yesterday’s rally-goers expressed strong feelings that a solution to the Cyprus problem was the only way out of their economic predicament.
“We are stuck between Turkey and the Greek Cypriots, and if there is no agreement [on the Cyprus problem], the Turkish Cypriots will disappear,” Cagatay Karaer said.
The rally ended peacefully, except for a minor scuffle over a banner calling for Turkey to “get your hands off the Turkish Cypriots”, which a group from Serdar Denktash’s Democrat Party (DP) found offensive.
Over 12,000 Turkish Cypriots work in the north’s public sector. A similar figure are also on the payroll, but are either retired or have been told not to turn up to work because of their political party affiliations. Turkey, which annually gives 500,000 US dollars to the breakaway state, has said it wants to see the territory showing greater self-reliance and has said it will switch aid and funding from the public to the private sector. Per capita income in the north fell from a peak of 15,000 US dollars per annum in 2007 to 13,500 last year.
Left-wing Greek Cypriot trade union PEO yesterday issued a statement to express its solidarity with their Turkish Cypriot counterparts.
“Today in the conditions created by the world economic crisis as a result of the capitalistic globalisation and the neo-liberal policies, the position of working people all over the world is deteriorating,” it said.
“Now is the time for all the working people to react and resist the neo-liberal policies, the neo-liberal attack on workers’ rights and gains.”
