WE’RE ALMOST IN. We may regret it later, but now is no time for introspection or self-doubt. This is a time for carefree celebration and ecstatic joy — not only did we get the final go-ahead to join the big European family, but this was given without conditions or strings attached (as some of our professional doom-sayers had been predicting for weeks).
We didn’t even have to sign the much-detested Annan peace plan in Copenhagen. But we have the Turkish side to thank for that, as it entered sulk mode after failing to secure the start date for accession talks that it wanted. It must have been galling for the Turks to watch our tin-pot plantation glide smoothly into Europe without any difficulty, while the mighty regional power couldn’t even get the date it wanted.
Not for want of trying. Turkey not only got the Yanks to apply pressure on the EU, its politicians also tried to use threats to bully Germany and France into changing the start date they had proposed. They threatened not to award any contracts to companies from those countries and to ban German tourists from visiting Turkey among other things. They even withdrew a bill for democratic reforms from their Assembly.
This was an embarrassingly un-European way to behave, illustrating that the Turkish moustaches still have a long way to go before they can be regarded Europeans like the rest of us. They should have known that the politicians in civilised Europe do not make threats against other countries openly — this is generally done behind closed doors instead. And publicly offending the two most powerful and influential countries in the EU was an incredibly foolish thing to do.
Turkish politicians, who gave vent to their full repertoire in diplomatic lunacy in Copenhagen, make our own guys look like paragons of cool-headed rationality and restraint.
LET’S NOT exaggerate. Everyone wore a broad grin on Friday afternoon when it became clear that we would be joining the EU without having to sign a peace agreement first, but this was the happy ending to a roller-coaster week. You could feel the tension, fear and suspense in the air in a week which started with a sense of foreboding and then developed into full-blown public paranoia.
At the beginning of the week, el presidente and his advisers were being accused of betraying the Greek Bananiots, of gross incompetence in the negotiations, of selling out the plantation, and of becoming accessories to the dissolution of the Cyprus state. On Friday night he was being hailed by politicians, pundits and members of the public as a national hero, the man who took the plantation into the EU. This change of mood did not extend to his advisers, who remain unpatriotic good-for-nothings to the end (in the eyes of our bash-patriots).
All the trouble began on Tuesday when UN matinee idol Alvaro de Soto submitted a revised peace plan that would supposedly have to be signed in Copenhagen. After a long National Council meeting that finished at midnight, the party leaders, apart from the two hardliners, grudgingly agreed to accompany el presidente to Copenhagen. At Larnaca airport the next day they looked like condemned men heading for the gallows.
In Copenhagen, hacks knew what was going on just by looking at the facial expressions of our leaders. On Wednesday afternoon, Demetris Christofias and Papa-Dop Tassos were all smiles and laughter, because they thought there would be no Cyprus agreement and the presidential elections would go ahead as planned. Late at night, when they were told that de Soto would try to get a deal on Thursday, there was a major mood-swing, Christofias ranting and raving in front of the cameras about our side being openly blackmailed and the noose being tightened round our necks.
The smile came back to his and Tassos’ face on Friday afternoon, after de Soto’s mediation efforts collapsed. Now they could both concentrate on the serious business of the presidential elections — and to hell with a Cyprus settlement.
SAFE in the knowledge that the last hopes for a settlement were dead and buried in the freezing cold of the Danish capital, our wise politicians began to reiterate their commitment to finding a solution. Even those who rabidly opposed the Annan plan extended the hand of friendship to our Turkish Cypriot compatriots after Friday’s collapse, assuring them that they would continue efforts to find a just and viable settlement.
A tired and emotional Führer referred to “our Turkish Cypriot brothers” on Friday night, but his colleagues were more restrained.
With the Annan plan all but consigned to the round file of history, our wise politicians were free to resume serving up the old and familiar lies. Now we could work on improving the plan and making it more ‘workable’, they all argued on TV chat shows. They did not enlighten us of the chances of the Turks accepting a plan with ‘improvements’ aimed at satisfying Greek Cypriot public opinion. And why should they? We have our ticket into the EU, so now the politicians can revert to the old myths and lies of the type that all refugees will return to their homes and that the settlement will be based on UN resolutions and the Turkish Bananiots accepting minority status.
IN ONE SENSE, it was a blessing in disguise there was no agreement in Copenhagen because there was a real danger of civil strife erupting in plantation if it had been signed. The plantation has been divided into traitors (supporters of the plan) and lunatics (opponents) who would have started hostilities if el prez (traitor) returned waving a signed plan. The truth is that there are a hell of a lot more lunatics than traitors.
Fortunately the Turks bailed us out, their refusal to sign inadvertently restoring unity on the plantation and elevating el presidente from traitor to hero overnight. He will now go down in history as the man who took us into the EU instead of as the man who signed the catastrophic Annan plan. It is a fine line that separates glory from shame.
On Tuesday night the lunatics, led by Marios Madsakis, camped outside the palazzo blocking the gate and shouting abuse at the Party leaders who were forced to get out of their cars and walk. There was some pushing and shoving as the mob accused the politicos of treachery and selling their country down the line.
As always the mad doctor was the star of the show. He warned the leaders in front of the cameras not to return to the plantation if they signed a deal in Copenhagen and called on the people to go to Larnaca airport on Wednesday morning, when the politicians were leaving for Copenhagen, to demonstrate against the peace plan.
The turn-out the next day was a bit disappointing: only one person heeded the mad doctor’s rallying cry. There were five police cars full of mean-looking riot cops at the airport to ensure that Madsakis and his fellow loon did not misbehave, and they did not.
It is in this context that el presidente’s statement in the VIP lounge before his departure — “If I listen to some lunatics I will not sign an agreement” — should be viewed. A couple of the lunatics he was referring to were outside.
EL PRESIDENTE will never be forgiven for his ‘lunatic’ jibe by the Zeus media group, which had led the campaign by the lunatics against the peace plan. The group’s daily, Simerini, on Thursday carried a sanctimonious front-page editorial accusing the prez of “overstepping every limit of verbal propriety and of respect for the critics of his policy”. It accused him of “lying and self-negation” and of “lacking the biological fortitude to pursue the rights of this country”, whatever that means.
Yesterday the paper carried a letter from a reader urging Clerides to follow the example of Socrates, who preferred to take hemlock rather than agree to do something that he should not do. “Mr President, you must find the courage to do this before the end of developments,” the reader urged. Only on the plantation would a paper which carries such correspondence, and which has been dismissing Clerides and his aides as incompetent and naive bunglers conspiring to destroy the banana state, sermonise about “verbal propriety”. Surely it is adding substance to el prez’s point?
THE ZEUS group’s radio station, Proto, also provided a forum for the mad on the street. The afternoon phone-in show, hosted by agony aunt turned political pundit Yianna Loizidou, became a platform for the members of the resistance movement to express their views. The likes of Matsakis and Perdikis have been regular guests on the show, while Yianna has been lamenting the fact that the Annan plan will turn us all into Turks. (And this was one of the most sensible views aired on her show…)
Until Wednesday, callers were slamming the national traitors Clerides, Simitis, Papandreou, Vassiliou, Papapetrou and Markides. On that day one caller informed listeners (there may actually have been one or two) that our politicians would not be able to impose a constitution on us as was done in 1960. “Now we all have G3 rifles at home,” he said, inspiring Yianna’s admiration.
But by Friday the traitor Clerides had become the “brave old man who took us into Europe”, in the words of one of her callers. Another praised el prez for at long last securing ‘enosis’ through EU membership. The quality moment was provided by the guy who announced: “Now we are in Europe we can veto Turkey’s EU accession.”
THE OTHER Zeus protégé who has made a name for himself these past few weeks is Yiannos Charalambides, a humourless young man whose sense of self-importance is of caricature dimensions. Charalambides likes to take the role of Holy Inquisitor when he asks allegedly journalistic questions. He has pissed off government traitor Michalis Papajudas on countless occasions, and from what we hear there was a major fall-out in Copenhagen.
The young hack went to interview Pap and started with a ‘question’ implying that the spokesman was trying to sell the plantation down the river. Pap reportedly chased him out of the room and called Zeus to tell him never to send the young Torquemada to him again.
LUNATIC activity was somewhat subdued this week, although former foreign minister and failed presidential candidate George Iacovou returned to the public domain in a new re-incarnation — as a hard-boiled rejectionist. Has he sensed a presidential opportunity arising?
Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the resistance movement, Giorgos Perdikis, went to Greece to rally support against the plan. But the Loon of the Week Award goes to academic Costas Zouraris, who announced that he would file a legal suit against Kofi Annan for proposing a peace plan that was in violation of the UN charter, or something like that. He neglected to say whether we would do this before or after we veto Turkey’s EU accession.
THE MEGALOMANIAC boss of the bank workers’ trade union, Loizos Hadjicostis, seems hell-bent on ruining everyone’s Christmas holidays for no good reason other than to prove he has more personal power than the bank chairmen. He is a classic case of a man with a mega-chip on his shoulder, a bit like the villains in James Bond movies who want to take revenge on the world because someone stole their conkers when they were kids.
So now Hadjicostis has decided to ruin our Christmas by calling a strike at JCC, the company which controls the credit card business, unless the banks give in to his absurd demands. This miserable little man called the strike because JCC had hired an IT professional to a senior position without first getting his approval, as stipulated in the collective agreements. The mediation service of the Labour Ministry ruled the appointment to be in violation of the agreement and JCC had to cancel it and employ the IT man at an entry level position as the collective agreement dictated.
Hadjicostis claimed this was a mockery and called a strike, which was declared to be a violation of the Industrial Relations Code by the labour ministry. But did this union thug take any notice? Not bit of it: instead he has ordered the staging of sympathy strikes at all the banks. And what does this Saddam Hussein look-alike actually want? He wants JCC to sack the IT specialist. A union baron calling a strike in order to get a worker sacked is one of those classic plantation phenomena that are encountered nowhere else in the world.
Only here would a power-mad egomaniac be allowed to issue threats and bully the wealthiest and most powerful companies of the plantation — the banks. But it is not Hadjicostis’ fault that he has such power. It is the timid and cowardly bank chairmen who have always given in to his diktats rather than take him on. Whoever heard of giving some union thug the right to have a say in bank appointments and dictate bank opening hours?
Hadjicostis has threatened to step up measures if the person is not sacked, accusing the banks of intransigence! He doesn’t just look like a Turkish politician, he negotiates like one as well. So, ladies, if your husband doesn’t buy you and the kids a present or doesn’t take you out to dinner this Christmas, this is the man to blame. Power-mad Loizos will ruin your Christmas in defence of his personal right to run the banking system.
NICOSIA Mayor Michael Zampelas has found a nice little way to ingratiate himself with members of the journalists’ union. He has decided that hacks can park their cars in any of the municipal parking spaces, including parking meters, without paying.
The union issued an announcement to inform scribes about this little privilege extended to them by the magnanimous mayor. It did not explain the reason behind his blatant discrimination against all other people who visit Nicosia for work purposes. On what grounds should an ice cream salesman who visits Nicosia for his work have to pay? Is it because he is not in a position to write flattering articles about the mayor of the capital?
As for the union, which constantly claims it is protecting the independence and integrity of its members, why did it agree to compromise them in such a pathetic way? So it can boast that it has saved them 50 cents a month on parking? And I thought one of the main duties of a journalist was to ensure that all citizens are given equal treatment by the authorities.
ANOTHER of Zampelas’ great reforms was the ‘tyropitta instructions’. He has banned municipality workers from bringing in a tray of tyropittas and treating their colleagues when they celebrate their name-day. This is an old and noble custom in our plantation, but Zampelas disapproves because the tyropittas are messy and he does not like his employees eating cheese pies while they are at their desks. According to his instructions anyone who wants to treat his colleagues can only bring tyropittas or sweets that are in sealed packages, so the employee can take it home to scoff.
WHAT a great story, we thought, when we read the report in Politis about the leopards at Limassol zoo procreating despite having been fed contraceptive pills. But wait! It gets better. There was a further twist to the tale: the baby leopards had strayed out of their cage and gone into the bear enclosure, from which they did not escape alive. On checking we found the story to be six or seven years old. The leopards in question had been successfully sterilised five years ago and have had no cubs since. This must have been the oldest news story in the history of Cyprus newspaper publishing. That says it all.
A BRIEF word of sympathy here for Dr Matsakis, who has had his medical licence suspended for one year. Can we still call him the mad doctor and use the ‘Dr’ title in front of his name, or will get in trouble with the Cyprus Medical Association? We agree with you, Marios: it is a conspiracy to silence you politically. Not that one fewer inmate will make any difference in this lunatic asylum.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I cheated in the final of my metaphysics examination. I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”
Woody Allen
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.
