TEMPERS flared yesterday as President Tassos Papadopoulos refused to meet with leaders of farming organisations protesting outside the Presidential Palace.
Three hundred or so farmers from all districts parked their tractors outside the Palace determined to meet with Papadopoulos. At first, the President refused to see them, but in the evening he finally came out.
“I shall see your demands on my return from abroad,” he told them. “If I need anything, I will call on you.”
Earlier, farmers had worn placards around their necks and placed them on their vehicles’ windshields. They read: “Honour your word Tassos…We are drowning in our debts… Don’t take away our livelihood.”
The farmers handed a list of their demands to the president 10 days ago and yesterday gathered to hear his answer. But, according to the Undersecretary to the president, Christodoulos Pashardis, their request to meet with Papadopoulos was impossible as the president’s schedule was too hectic.
The farmers unions’ leaders, meeting with Pashardis inside the Presidential Palace gates, said they only wanted five minutes with the president as a show of respect for the men and to mark the start of negotiations with them.
But Pashardis questioned what more they could have to tell Papadopoulos than what was already listed in their memorandum. He said: “The president has said no. He wants to examine the memo and your demands and to think about how to respond. He is going abroad tomorrow and will be back in four or five days. I cannot commit him to meeting with you then, but I can commit him to answering your memo.”
But Grain Union president Andreas Theophanous asked why the farmers had not been informed that the president had not yet looked at the memo and said they would have given him more time instead of staging a demonstration. “Why didn’t anyone bother to make a phone call? We would have given you more time instead of coming here today,” he said.
Pashardis replied: “I’m telling you now.”
Panagrotikos president Kyriakos Hadjiyiannis suggested the farmers wait until the president found time. “I think it best out of respect, when over 300 people are outside. It will also show them that they have the state’s support. We’ll wait to see him, even if it’s at night,” said Hadjiyiannis.
Although the small group of union leaders waited hopefully for Pashardis to return with a positive answer, a presidential aide was sent out half an hour later informing them the answer remained no, because it was impractical.
The union leaders returned to the farmers outside the Presidential Palace at around 1.30pm to inform them their request had been ignored.
Within minutes, the crowd’s mood changed. Emotions quickly moved from disappointment and dejection to anger.
“We are out here begging them. Practically kissing their feet and he won’t even meet with us. What do they want us to do,” one shouted.
Suggestions followed about what steps to take next: “Let’s block the roads. Let’s block the highway. Let’s camp out here until he’s forced to see us.”
Eventually the Grain Committee, headed by Andreas Thephanous, agreed to remain outside the Presidential Palace, rain, hail or shine until the president met with them. The farmers decided blocking roads would only disrupt the public’s lives, which would put people against them, when all they wanted was to be listened to.
Theophanous called on all 5,400 farmers all over Cyprus to join their struggle, reminding them that the new status quo affected them all.
He said of the president’s response: “Do they think we are idiots? I find their attitude inexcusable. If they had informed us that they hadn’t seen the memo we wouldn’t be here today. I feel humiliated and humbled.”
Hadjiyiannis added: “The Presidential Palace’s attitude was one of contempt and arrogance.”
At this news, the farmers erupted: some screaming, others nearly crying. “What are we going to do? Does no one listen? What about our families? How are we going to pay our debts?”
A priest from Sia village, who also farms grain, said the anxiety among the farmers had reached alarming proportions.
“It’s a painful situation. Farmers are afraid of a new day dawning because they don’t have money to fill their tractors with diesel,” he said.
Many said they had been forced to sell their products for a loss because they had to get rid of the crops before they went bad.
PEK’s Nicosia district secretary, Christos Papapetrou, said: “Before, farmers were secure. The Cyprus economy had a lot of protection. Then overnight it was liberalised and this has caused a lot of problems for all farmers, not just the grain growers. I agree with liberalisation, but it should have been done slowly to help farmers adjust. The situation changed from one day to the next. The right measures to help people adjust were not taken. In the end, the farmers are footing the bill for harmonisation and having to delve into their pockets to ensure their farms keep in line with EU requirements.”
A 72-year-old farmer, who has been farming since the age of seven, said: “We came to the Presidential Palace as farmers, not to threaten. But it appears the president only accepts to see people, not animals (farmers). In all my life I have never experienced treatment like this. Even Makarios met with us when we came to him years ago.”
The farmers said they had been treated like second and third class citizens; that they had been lied to and treated with contempt.
The elderly man added: “Does the president ever go a month unpaid? So what about us? It was my fate to be a farmer and I’ll work until I die, but I cannot live on £200 a month.”
As the day turned into afternoon and the heat began to take its toll, Theofanous said: “When we came to (President Glafcos) Clerides with our demands he gave us water, this government hasn’t even given us water. Our lips are parched.” Thirty-five minutes later, with instructions from the Police Chief, over 100 50ml bottles of water were brought out.
The day wore on and the farmers continued to sit around on the pavement, leaning on the wall and ordering sandwiches, determined to stick to their guns. At some point over two dozen of them climbed into their tractors and started revving their engines and blasting their horns in an obvious show of defiance. Even when heavy showers started to pour down, instead of rushing home, they all climbed into their tractors and those without closed tractors ran for shelter under the Nicosia Hospital Oncology Centre Committee’s tent, set up over a month ago when cancer patients and relatives started, and are continuing, a separate protest.
Many said they had voted in the wrong president, based on the lies he told during his presidential campaign. Others said they longed for the old government, irrespective of its support for the Annan plan, as that would have been better than their current fate.
With the farmers showing no signs of leaving, the President finally emerged to seem them in the evening.
Satisfied, the farmers began to leave in stages, in an effort not to cause traffic chaos by leaving all at the same time.
