THE government defended the police yesterday for obstructing the potato farmers as they descended upon the Presidential Palace and for arresting them after they blocked the road at the Rizoelias roundabout, calling the move “completely justified”.
The potato farmers plan to again head towards the Presidential Palace today, but this time in pickup trucks, not tractors.
Potato farmers set off yesterday morning for Nicosia but police blocked their path short of the Rizoelias roundabout. The farmers then abandoned their tractors and walked 2.5km to the Rizoelias roundabout where they staged a mass sit-in, blocking the roundabout.
After warning them to leave, police forcibly removed all 104 of them from the highway, arresting and charging 54.
The Dhekelia-Rizoelia highway remains closed in both directions because the tractors are stationed in all four lanes.
Government Spokesman Kypros Chrysostomides yesterday defended the police, stating that the fact that the fact the potato farmers closed the Rizoelias roundabout “proved that the potato farmers had intentions to close down roads”.
Chrysostomides then followed a different line of defence for the police actions, claiming that the sheer number of tractors and trucks that were to descend upon the capital would have created “chaos” in the capital.
“It’s incomprehensible that a group of citizens can scheme to besiege the Presidential Palace and on top of that with trucks or tractors,” Chrysostomides said.
The Government Spokesman claimed the police “showed patience” and offered the farmers plenty of forewarning to leave the road before arresting them by “using only the required amount of force needed to remove them from the road”.
But the President of the Pancyprian Potato Growers’ Association, Andreas Karios, told the Cyprus Mail yesterday that Chrystostomides’ claim that the potato farmers set off with the intention to block roads was “false” and that the potato farmers were “very sorry that a Government Spokesman, from misinformation, has made such a claim.”
Karios added that the potato farmers had openly stated that they were heading to the Presidential Palace peacefully and were not planning to obstruct traffic.
The potato farmers intend to report the government and the police to the European Union for “preventing their efforts to demonstrate peacefully”.
DISY head Nicos Anastassiades has taken the initiative to mediate the process between the potato farmers and the government, and is calling upon the potato farmers to come to discussions with the government and for the government to sit down with the farmers.
Earlier efforts by Anastassiades to bring the two parties to the table failed when Agriculture Minister Timis Efthymiou did not accept the potato farmers at his office as promised, instead asking the potato farmers to send their requests in writing to the Ministry.
House Speaker Demetris Christofias meanwhile said he is “not going undertake any mediation for these few potato farmers who are creating these situations.”
Many of the parties have also come out against the potato farmers. EDEK head Yiannakis Omirou dismissed claims that the police used too much force in handling the potato farmers.
“Others have had to endure dictatorships and fascism in this area,” Omirou said.
The potato farmers will gather just outside Nicosia in their pickup trucks at 10am today. They will then drive towards the Presidential Palace to meet with the President, asking for immediate financial relief.
It is unlikely that their demands will be met, however, as the President said yesterday that there was no chance the government would reimburse the potato farmers for the losses they incurred in the export market.
Head of the Association of Potato Growers Nicos Vasilas, meanwhile, said that they were taking action because all the times they had been asked to sit at the table they had been “mocked”.
