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The bridge and the ‘ploys’
By Loucas Charalambous
(archive article - Sunday, January 7, 2007)

THE DEMOLITION of the bridge, which the Turkish Cypriots erected on Ledra Street, once again offered the opportunity for those who govern us to express their repugnant mentality. It is a mentality that clearly and without any trace of shame expresses itself almost officially as the policy of permanent partition. By now it is obvious that they would rather stay in power over half of Cyprus than step down in the case the country was reunified. And it is natural that they react to any action that aims to abolish the dividing line.

The provocative government response to the initiative from the Turkish Cypriot leadership was indicative of the disturbance but also the embarrassment it caused them. The government spokesman, surely under Papadopoulos’ instructions, was on the telephones of the television news bulletins before the news had even finished being broadcast. With his customary distasteful and provocative expression, he rushed to pronounce that the move was “media subterfuge” and he declared that the government “does not deal with the ploys of Talat”. He believed that in that way the issue was “cleared up”. These people have still not understood that their primitive political behaviour, which is characteristic of an era that ended 40 years ago, is one of the reasons no one wants to meet with them abroad anymore, not even those who until yesterday were friends and supporters of Cyprus: the Finns, the Swiss, the Estonians, the Spanish and even the French. Christofias responded in more or less the same miserable way.

The statement by the president that followed left no doubt whatsoever as to his intentions. For Ledra to open, he said, they must officially end the occupying army patrols and remove the symbols and the structures that refer to as customs or a frontier station. It reminds one yet again of the proverb: “Whoever does not want to knead for 40 days sieves.”

One could respond to Papadopoulos as follows:
First of all the symbols – that is to say the flags, both Turkish and Greek – exist at all of the other crossing points that opened with his consent. Do flags bother him only at this specific place? Second, there are structures at all of the other locations, both on our side as well as on the Turkish Cypriot side. Some are used by police officers who inspect the approaching people and some by insurance agency employees. In fact on the Turkish Cypriot they no longer use police in uniform for control but rather young women that don’t look anything like border guards. And on the Turkish Cypriot side there are no customs, no customs inspection takes place, and they do not confiscate goods that Greek Cypriots take as gifts to their Turkish Cypriot friends. Exactly the opposite takes place on our side – except we have a customs station! Fourthly, at no other crossing point does the Turkish army conduct patrols and it is obvious that they will not take place at Ledra either. Our side could have brought this up during the necessary consultations with UNFICYP and I don’t think this would have been a problem. Fifthly, both Talat as well as Soyer have repeatedly over the last few months suggested demilitarisation, not just in Ledra but in the entire Nicosia area. There was no response to this proposal either from Papadopoulos or from Christofias, who are wailing now about the distancing of a few soldiers from only one spot covering an area of several square metres!

I will finish with a question I raised last year, writing about the same issue: can these political leaders, who don’t want to open a road and who scheme a thousand tricks to avoid such a thing, solve the entire Cyprus problem? Is there really any moron who believes that these people want a solution?