OUR PLANTATION has been renowned for attracting spies, undercover agents and intelligence chiefs. During the last decade of the Cold War especially, our reputation as a regional centre for spying operations was unrivalled with the Americans, Soviets, British, Chinese, Israelis, Iraqis, etc. all reportedly having spooks based here.
Being at the crossroads of three continents, next door to the Middle East conflict area, having excellent telecommunications services, frequent flights to the rest of the region and an abundance of darkly-lit bars for the secret agents to meet in, we became an important base for the espionage operations of all the major powers. Even James Bond passed through here once.
Those days are long gone. With the Cold War over and the huge advances made in spying technology (read: Echelon) the plantation lost its importance. The spooks moved out and, sadly, the darkly-lit bars closed down. Most of the spying is done behind closed doors, by people sitting behind computer screens at the British Bases processing info collected through the Madsakis antennas.
Apart from the Mossad, which still has a presence, only a few low-level intelligence agents, usually employed by embassies remain, collecting info about trivialities. The plantation’s golden era, as the world’s spying centre is over for good, but we locals have not given up the popular hobby of spy-spotting.
A foreigner need only take out his camera, within 100 yards of an army camp, and we are ready to make a citizen’s arrest; if he looks a bit too strong we call the cops. Seven years ago, during the Estragosha missile crisis, citizens spotted a couple of Israeli agents with surveillance equipment and the cops arrested them but that was the last spy-spotting success, reported until March this year.
March was when Natural Therapist Petros Evdokas claimed he had uncovered a Yank spy by the name of Alexander Ernyey, who had infiltrated UNOPS as a computer expert and used devious web-design techniques to promote the A-plan. Evdokas’ finding was posted on the internet, under the headline, ‘Spies, Murderers and Creeps – Management of the free dialogue in the Annan plan’.
WHY DO I mention this? Apart from the fact that there is a dearth of material to report this time of year, other than the government’s sincere efforts to re-unify the island, the issue has been in the news because the US embassy complained to the cops about the above-mentioned article, provoking the customary political outrage.
The Yanks reported Evdokas to the cops for his article and the cops investigated by paying a visit to Petros’ father, Dr Takis Evdokas, and questioning him. They had gone to the father because the author of the offending article was in the US of A, where he is a citizen.
Takis, who had stood against Makarios in the 1970 presidential elections and was pelted with yoghurts by cops during his campaign gatherings, for the disrespect he had shown our great leader, was outraged by the cops’ visit and complained to the newspapers. What business did the Yanks have ordering our cops to investigate someone because they objected to his views? What about free speech?
Everyone was outraged by the Yanks’ arrogance and heavy-handedness and had to go through the standard anti-US routine, which, for a change, seemed justified. What were they doing, making a fuss about the inane ramblings of some space-age, hippy, healer posing as a world revolutionary? The guy is about as subversive and dangerous as an AKEL anti-bases march, so why did they take him so seriously? Was some embassy security guy feeling bored and wanted to cause a bit of stir?
THE OFFENDING article, ‘Spies Murderers and Creeps’, which can be read on the cyprusindymedia.org website, is a gem of the ‘loony lefty unearths another evil US conspiracy against innocent people of the world’ genre. It is pretty entertaining.
As Petros writes, the article is for people who, “like to understand how it is exactly, that the intelligence operations of the Empire knowingly lead to the massive butchering of people around the world and to the destabilization of the globe so that the Empire can administer it ‘in Peace’”.
How did he find out that Alexander Ernyey, a American computer expert doing work for UNOPS was behind a conspiracy to impose the A-plan? He saw the UN website, featuring the A-plan, which was designed by Ernyey and was convinced. He writes:
“First: have a look at the graphic, depicting the UN logo. It is made to look cheap, fuzzy, to create the impression that the page was created by ‘independent’ and poor web designers, like us. A lot of pages online have that appearance, which creates the feeling that the designers don’t have money for high-technology graphics, or any ‘special’ knowledge to make the images come out smooth… It is designed to create subconscious sympathy for the page designers, making the work appear as if it is from ‘the people’.”
More proof of the conspiracy was that the website was hosted on server that only does work with businesses and governments. “So why did they choose that “poor” appearance for the website?” asked Petros. “Is it just a “little propaganda thingie” to win subconscious sympathy?”
It was all a plot by the web designer Ernyey, of whom Petros writes: “If there was ever a real spy, a real enemy of the people of the world among us, he would be the best man fitting that description.” The reason was that he had done work for different US government departments and had fought in the first Gulf War.
How did Petros find out about agent Ernyey’s past links with the US government? It is all written in the spy’s website, which features a detailed CV. It is a new development for secret agents to reveal who their employers are on the internet, as well as the line of spying they are in.
Having provided conclusive proof, the subversive healer suggests a natural remedy and its does not involve rubbing Ernyey with nettle cream. “This is a man who should be immediately deported by the Government of Cyprus (it’s obvious that the Government has never shown an interest to do what is right for these criminals, that is to arrest and charge them as spies and war-criminals)”.
BUT WHO is Petros Evdokas apart from a natural healer, urban guerrilla, website deconstructionist and spy-catcher? According to his profile, “my physical location is on the island of Cyprus.” No mention of his spiritual location but he goes on:
“I am one of a small group of volunteers who work together in providing Natural Therapy to persons in need, who are struggling with all sorts of health conditions and personal situations. Our group is also politically active in the radical section of the green movement, especially in its anti-war, anti-racist and feminist dimensions which are positive to the lesbian, gay, bi- and transsexual identity and desire.”
Now if this guy was a threat to US security and had to be investigated by the cops, then I am a feminist transsexual, Mossad agent, whose physical location is Saturn, during the weekends and Venus on working days.
ACCORDING to the Coffeeshop’s counter-espionage department, the US did not complain to the cops about what Petros had written. What they objected to, reportedly, was the publication, with the article, of a picture of Ernyey’s daughter.
As Ernyey’s wife was an employee of the US embassy, the picture was putting at risk the children of embassy staff which the Yanks, are pretty paranoid about. The website article, at present, features only a picture of the spy, but it may have had a picture of his daughter in the past. It is difficult to know when your spiritual location is a dingy little coffeeshop in downtown Nicosia.
SPEAKING of crackpots, one has to mention Demetris’ Mamas new Antenna series about junkies. Tuesday’s show, which was so popular it was repeated yesterday, managed to turn the horrors of heroin addiction into a bit of joke. Was it the format or Mamas’s blatant siding with the junkies that did it, I do not know.
There were three studio guests, a Drug Squad psychiatrist, a middle-aged addict and the head of a detox centre. In the other studio, shown in a window on the screen was a twentysomething addict and former drug dealer who had done time, called Andreas, with his back turned to the audience. Andreas had twice gone in for treatment, and neither time lasted more than two days. It was not his fault, he explained, but that of the nurses and the doctor in charge, who was in the studio, that he did not stick it out.
He kept interrupting the others and for the first hour Mamas pandered to him, endorsing the attacks on the doctor, who threatened to walk out. Then Mamas got fed up and started telling him off and ordering him to shut-up. The other addict, then accused the cops of protecting the big traffickers, while the Drug Squad man accused the former of offering to become a police snitch. He denied this but agreed that he had asked the police to give him 10 grand to help them in investigations about a heroin death.
When Andreas heard this, he offered to give the cops the names of the main heroin dealers in exchange for the money to go for treatment in Israel! Seeing the popularity of the show Antenna has scheduled three more for this week. Mama is back, but how long he will last at Antenna this time, depends entirely on Papa.
OUR ESTABLISHMENT has heard that a private concert was given by Greek heart-throb, Sakis Rouvas in the palazzo grounds on Monday night for the benefit of our presidential family and its friends. Is Tassos a Rouvas fan, or was it held for the benefit of our first lady. The concert was intended to raise money for charity and tickets were 60 quid each.
Plenty of people turned up to watch Sakis shake it and there loads of cops outside directing traffic and telling drivers where to park. What was particularly weird was that the cops were advising people to park their cars on the pavements surrounding the palazzo and opposite the foreign ministry. Is it not illegal to park on the pavement when you are visiting the palazzo?
How much did the event raise for charity? If the cops did not encourage the illegal parking and fined all the drivers, who parked on the pavements, I bet they would have raised more money for charity than the palazzo gig.
THE PRO-GOVERNMENT lynch-mob, led by DIKO bully-boy Nicos Cleanthous, was baying for the Führer’s blood again all week. Poor old Nik’s crime was to have picked out the inconsistencies and subterfuge that featured in an interview of the Ethnarch (special permission was granted by the bored to mention him) published by Phil last Sunday.
Responding to accusations that he did not know what he wanted, Tassos, replied that those who needed to know what changes to the A-plan (special permission) he was seeking, had been informed. But who were those who needed to know? The first lady, his doctor, Sakis Rouvas or Super-Mario? No foreign government knows what he wants – not even that of Greece which is getting a bit nervous about Tassos’ games – and neither does the EU.
So who was the recipient of the document containing his desired changes, that he claimed in the interview to have sent out? He also said he would not be informing the National
In short, Tassos, the father of the nation, decides what is good for his country and dumb people, informs nobody about it, apart from one person somewhere, and we have an obligation to follow him loyally, because daddy always knows what is best for his children.
THIS IS what the Führer took exception to and was dismissed by Tassos’ lap dogs as agent of foreign interests and supporter of the A-plan. The bully-boy was particularly scathing in his attacks and even had to find something bad to say about Nik’s meeting with Talat last Friday, which was the most significant political act by a Bananiot politician in years.
The timing was wrong, said Cleanthous, a sentiment repeated by the indescribably unoriginal Omirou. But when would the timing have been right? When Cleanthous became the leader of DIKO perhaps? Apparently Tassos had written to DIKO informing it that he would be stepping down as leader, thus paving the way for the bully-boy to take over.
But things are not going smoothly for the deputy-leader with the charm of a nightclub bouncer. Within hours of receiving Tassos’ letter party members were urging him to stay on, from which we can conclude only one thing – they do not want heir-apparent Cleanthous as their leader. It seems DIKO members have more sense than we have been crediting them with.
In order to deflect attention away from this painful truth, the bully boy decided to take out his frustration on Nik. Bad idea – an intellectual lightweight from Larnaca cannot taken on the Führer and expect to come out on top. If he could he would not still be the deputy leader of a party that has been without a leader for a year-and-a-half.
NOW THAT we have joined the EU our cops should have some lessons on racial issues. Friday morning’s biggest-ever police operation against illegal immigrants in the Nicosia area was so blatantly racist it defied belief. Anyone dark-skinned or Asian-looking was rounded up and taken in to MMAD headquarters so their immigration papers could be inspected. Some 729 people were picked up.
How many fair-skinned, blue-eyed foreigners were arrested? Our cops might not realise it but arresting people because of the racial features is considered blatant racist persecution in more advanced democracies than our own. They also picked up a few Pontians, who, I am told, are recognised as Pontians because they have flat-top heads and angular chins.
