What Every American Should Know About Europe

by Melissa Rossi

  Who long and work for that bright day,

  When o’er earth’s habitations

  No war, no strife shall hold sway;

  Who long to see

  That all men free

  No more shall foes, but neighbors be.5

  News you can understand: Slovenian News, http://slonews.sta.si

  27. CYPRUS

  (Kýpros)

  Adding Division

  FAST FACTS

  Country: Republic of Cyprus (aka Greek Cyprus); The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (aka Turkish Cyprus) only recognized by Turkey

  Capital: Nicosia (divided between Republic of Cyprus and TRNC)

  Government: Republic

  Independence: August 16, 1960 (from United Kingdom); TRNC formed separate “republic” in 1983

  Population: 784,000 (2006, including about 170,000 in TRNC)

  Head of State and Head of Government: President Tassos Papadopoulos (2003); TRNC: President Mehmet Ali Talat

  Elections: President elected by popular vote for five-year term

  Name of Parliament: House of Representatives/Vouli Antiprosopon; TRNC: Assembly

  Ethnicity: 77% Greek; 18% Turkish; 5% other

  Religion: 78% Greek Orthodox; 18% Muslim; 4% other (2004 estimate)

  Language: Greek, English, Turkish

  Literacy: 99% male, 97% female (2003 estimate)

  Famous Exports: Lace, wine, political headaches

  Per Capita GDP: Greek Cyprus: $21,600 (2005); TRNC: $7,200 (2004)

  Unemployment: 5.3% (2005 Eurostat figure, Republic of Cyprus)

  EU Status: Member since 2004

  Currency: Cypriot pound; Turkish lira

  Quick Tour

  A rocky outpost of jagged mountains surrounded by crystal waters, enticing Kýpros beckoned everybody who set an eye on her in the last 9,000 years to come on over. Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, Phoenicians and Persians, Greek and Romans, Crusaders and Turkish Ottomans are but a few who claimed this island adored for her beauty and valued for her strategic location. And they all left their architectural touches from ancient Roman villas to Venetian city walls, and from knights’ fortresses to miniature churches thick with Greek frescoes.

  YOU CALL THIS EUROPE?

  Much fought-over Cyprus is puny—about half the size of Connecticut—and it’s rather a stretch to even call her part of Europe. Given that she lazes in the very northeast corner of the Mediterranean—a mere forty-seven miles from Turkey and sixty miles from Syria—she’s much closer to the Middle East, and has long been considered part of Asia. So how did far-flung Cyprus, a problematic and divided island, become part of Europe and get into the European Union in 2004? Greece insisted on it, threatening to veto nominations for all the other new EU countries if Cyprus wasn’t on the list.

  Cyprus is literally layered with history: ancient amphitheaters rise up along lavish Orthodox churches, Apollonian temples nudge medieval monasteries, Crusader castles stand guard over citrus groves, slender minarets peer over hills blanketed in vineyards, and mosaic masterpieces glisten in the sun against a backdrop of deep blue sea.

  Legend holds that love goddess Aphrodite washed up in seafoam, spreading cheeriness and amour across the island as she flitted through woods and plunged into cool pools, with laughing Adonis (and hundreds of others) hot on her trail. It’s fitting to recall that Cyprus was also stomping ground of battle-prone Greek god Ares.

  The striking contrasts are obvious in more than her relics: in winter you can ski atop Mount Olympus, and then sun at the beach. Urban tensions in the capital city are forgotten in tiny mountain villages, where wine is served straight from the barrel and the mule serves as transportation. In the midst of the flower festival, the medieval festival, or the kataklysmo flood festival—when cities erupt in rollicking water wars—you’d never know there’s ever been the slightest turmoil on this island, and that blood soaked this land. If you can ignore the barbed-wire fences that divide the capital, or fail to notice the tens of thousands of troops on patrol, then you can happily sit in a taverna sipping the retsina with a hint of pine and delving into plates of tender lamb. Lapped by cobalt waters, Cyprus is a festive land of folk dances and boisterous wine festivals, where you can lounge at seaside resorts, explore medieval villages, scuba dive in Coral Bay, or hunt for turtles, and it can all appear utterly peaceful if you stay crocked and keep your eyes and mouth shut.

  Cyprus is so steeped in the past that developers, farmers, and archaeologists turn up lost cities and palaces every few years. The Cyprus tourist board claims that the missing continent of Atlantis might be lodged under the island—yet another draw to the “the island of love.”

  But the truth is that fun-filled vacation getaway Cyprus is patrolled by some 50,000 troops (from Turkey, Greece, and the UN), making her the most militarized place on the planet—outside of the line that divides North and South Korea. When you peel away the travel posters and postcard images, Cyprus is a fractured mess—geographically split, ethnically divided, economically unbalanced, and politically separated. Not that you can tell that from looking at an atlas: on maps, the island in the very eastern Mediterranean appears to be one country. But look more closely and you can see the 110-mile UN buffer zone—the Green Line—that runs through capital Nicosia and cleaves the island, creating two Cypruses that pretty much hate each other’s guts.

  Tranquil Kyrenia Harbor: Is Atlantis hiding underneath?

  CYPRUS: THE SPLIT

  The southern two-thirds of Cyprus—Greek Cyprus—holds ethnic Greeks, the northern third—Turkish Cyprus—holds ethnic Turks, and the two regions now run as separate countries, with separate governments and little overlap in economies. One hitch: nobody recognizes Turkish Cyprus as a legitimate country—except Turkey, which makes sense since Turkey had a major hand in creating her. The conflict that has raged here for decades has brought a strange division into Europe: even though the whole island theoretically came into the European Union in 2004, only the Greek part is practically in it: only Greek Cyprus can officially trade with the EU and access most EU funding—the two biggest draws for joining that club; only residents of Greek Cyprus can travel freely in Europe as EU citizens. And while the Greek part of Cyprus is growing relatively wealthy, with per capita incomes of $21,000, Turkish Cyprus remains undeveloped and poor, with per capita incomes of $7,000 a year. And Cyprus is now the only country in the world where the capital is divided.

  You can blame Cyprus’s division on geography—her location in the far East Mediterranean makes the island a strategic military post. Blame it on British control freaks who, back when Cyprus was a British colony, refused the islanders’ wishes and foisted their own plan on them; blame it on the U.S., Russia, and Israel, who profit from selling arms. Blame it on the hysterical grudge between Greeks and Turks, which goes back for centuries. And blame it on Cypriots themselves for not seeing how their chains were being yanked historically, and for being stubborn mules in solving the problems today. Or simply blame it on the human tendency to turn disagreements and power struggles into battles and massacres, and grudges into wars. But despite numerous attempts to glue the island back together again since 1974—when Turkey invaded the island to stomp out a Greece-sponsored coup—the split remains. Neither part of the island thinks the other one is legit—and the international community persists in recognizing only one Cyprus, the Greek one.

  THE CYPRIOT SOAP OPERA: MEET THE CAST

  Greeks and Turks had managed to live together on Cyprus for centuries—albeit not always happily—but the events of the last fifty years really ripped the island apart. What triggered that division: outside forces—namely Greece, Turkey, Britain, and the U.S.—just couldn’t keep their fingers out of the Cypriot pot, which they’ve continuously stirred and heated up until it reached a furious boil that spread across the island in a violent wrath.

  In this soap opera, the players include:

  Greek Cyprus aka the Republic of Cyprus: The tourist honeypot and th
e only Cypriot government that’s internationally recognized, Greek Cyprus is relatively wealthy, organized, and happy to keep Turkish Cyprus out of the EU; Greek Cypriots (who regard one-third of their island as occupied by Turkish Cypriots) are often downright haughty—and led by a president apparently determined to prevent reunion. Some 12,000 Greek troops are deployed here; in the south, two British military bases are now their own sovereign countries.

  Turkish Cyprus aka the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC): The Turkish Cypriot leader stormed out of the newly created government in 1963 and never came back. Turkish Cypriots were shoved north when Turkey invaded in 1974, and in 1983, T-Cypriot leaders declared the north an independent sovereign country. Recognized solely by Turkey, she’s ostracized, abandoned, and derided by Greek Cypriots as a “pseudo-state” with her own “president” and “prime minister.” Also a haven for criminals and base for 30,000 Turkish troops. Greek Cypriots are ticked that with 18 percent of the population, Turkish Cypriots control over a third of the Island, and say Turks have damaged many historical sites. Turkish Cypriots are ticked that now Greek Cypriots won’t let them back into the government.

  Greece: Never mind that her enemy Turkey is physically closer: Greece, which ruled Cyprus in ancient times, planted the seeds for today’s problems in the 1950s (and before) by inviting Cyprus (with her ethnic Greek majority) to join up with Greece—a nationalistic notion that also would have allowed Greece to expand her hold on the Mediterranean and establish military posts close to Turkey. Blocked in the attempt, Greece sent in guerrilla fighters—and later supported a 1974 coup to lasso Cyprus, which led to the island being divided.

  Turkey: The defunct Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled this island for the better part of 300 years, but the Brits (who took over in the nineteenth century) ensured they were never fully out of the picture. Turkey, along with Turkish Cypriots, was violently opposed to the Greek Cypriot wish to join Greece: Turkey lobbied the Brits, who blocked that union. Turkey almost invaded a few times: when Greece sponsored a coup on Cyprus in 1974, Turkey sent in her armed forces and split the island.

  Britain: Britain, which ran Cyprus as a colony from 1925 until 1960, refused to let Cyprus unite with Greece (because Brits would have risked their dominance in the Mediterranean and because they need Turkey’s aid as a NATO partner) and created Turkish guerrilla groups to battle Greek Cypriot guerrilla groups. Cyprus is alarmingly dysfunctional because most Cypriots never wanted the independence that the British foisted upon them.

  U.S.: Arms, anyone?

  The most recent attempt to shove the country together as one was a hard-peddled UN peace plan—called the Annan Plan—which aimed to remap the island, rearrange people, and, most importantly, bring the two governments back together in one confederation. In April 2004, just before Cyprus entered the EU, Greek Cypriots in the south and Turkish Cypriots in the north were asked in separate votes whether they would accept the Annan Plan to reunite Cypriots. The Turkish north—which wanted the benefits of EU membership—voted yes, overwhelmingly. The Greek south—which did not want to share EU funds with Turkish Cypriots—voted no, overwhelmingly. Thus, the island stayed divided. When Cyprus came into the EU, the Turkish north was locked out. (However, the international community was so hacked off at the Greek Cypriots that the U.S. lifted a trade restriction on Turkish Cyprus, and special EU funding is going to the north.) And that’s only one illustration of the tension that lingers on this island where time does not heal wounds. This Siamese twin of a country is the problem child of the EU, bringing drama and confusion not witnessed anywhere else in today’s European Union. Until reunification, the northern third of Cyprus remains pretty much out in the cold.

  History Review

  The Greeks who settled on Cyprus back in 333 BC did more than introduce pagan gods, mosaic-covered walls, and statue-lined temples to the island of peaceful bays, dusty mountains, and cypress trees. They also introduced the bloodline that is still the most dominant on Cyprus; for all of the island’s existence since, most Cypriots have been ethnically Greek and have spoken the Greek language. Romans ejected ancient Greeks in AD 58, but the Greeks’ descendants saw a flurry of governments as everyone from Byzantines, Franks, and Venetians to Richard the Lionheart and the Knights Templar took turns running the place.

  Richard the Lionheart, on his way to the Crusades, conquered the island in 1191, quickly taking a bride. His honeymoon wasn’t blissful. Villagers killed his prized hawks, so he knocked down a few villages in response,1 then hastily left, handing the island to the Knights Templar, whose pigheaded rule made them hated: they’d barely unpacked their bags when the Cypriot masses revolted, driving them out in 1192.

  Besides the ancient Greeks, the most influential group ever to shore up were Ottoman Turks, who conquered Cyprus in 1571. In some ways extraordinarily advanced, the Muslim rulers tolerated the religions of whatever lands they took, and recognized the church’s highest leaders as shepherds of the local flock.

  By acknowledging the Eastern Orthodox Church, which was then losing power, the Ottomans established it as the powerful leading religion of Cyprus—and also relegitimized the Church internationally.

  There was a price to pay, literally, for the Ottomans’ religious tolerance: non-Muslims paid high taxes, and the taxes soared during the three centuries of Ottoman rule, while the actual level of tolerance plummeted. Some Christians converted to Islam to avoid the annual dues; some dressed as Muslims by day, but practiced as Christians by night. Those who didn’t convert struggled to pay the taxman, who began using any method necessary to extract payment. Violence, desecration of churches, and rape became increasingly common, and by the 1800s the situation was intolerable. Greece fought off the Ottomans and won independence in 1829—and even back then some Cypriots longed to join up with Greece.

  Russia inadvertently brought freedom for Cyprus. As a result of losing a war to Russia in 1878, the Ottoman Empire had to give up most of her territories. Not wanting Russia to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean, Brits pushed in and ended up controlling the island, with a nod from the Ottoman Empire, which retained background power—and most Turks who had lived on Cyprus simply stayed. Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean was a fetching complement to another British colony, Gibraltar in the western Mediterranean; together, they gave the British navy dominance over the entire sea.

  * * *

  When the Ottoman Empire fell in 1925, Britain took complete control of the island—and many Turks remained, making up about one-sixth of the population. The British presence kicked off an independence movement and guerrilla war: many Greek Cypriots wanted enosis—to become part of Greece—and militants wanted Brits off their island, even if it required shipping them off as corpses.

  By the end of World War II, the signs were everywhere: across the island, posters demanded “Enosis, and only enosis!” The Greek Orthodox Church, headed by Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus, loudly supported the enosis idea, and priests passed out petitions, which were duly signed by the devout. The Church organized a referendum: most Cypriots voted yes on unifying with Greece. In 1954, Greece asked the United Nations General Assembly to endorse the union of Cyprus with Greece. After Turks and British had weighed in on the matter, the UN decided not to take a formal stand. At that news, Cypriots blew up, calling a general strike. Britain responded by essentially banning the idea, threatening that supporters could be jailed for five years, and in 1956 deporting Archbishop Makarios, while sending in 40,000 troops. But still most Brits on Cyprus didn’t grasp how the grassroots enosis movement was snowballing.

  The enosis movement was not homegrown. Most Cypriots knew little about Greece, and seemed blissfully ignorant of the poverty in the Hellenic state that was usually run by a dictator. The calls to join Greece—and re-create the ancient Greek Empire—were actually planted and orchestrated by Greece, which also shipped over guerrillas to help the cause. Greece’s Radio Athens (picked up on Cyprus) blared propaganda extolling the joys of being
back together, but Greece’s motives were as much militaristic as nationalistic. Greece wanted a foot in the waters off Turkey, long their mortal enemy. Manipulated by powers in Athens, Cypriots saw reunion with Greece as a step into the great promised land.

  The British who taught in Cypriot schools—including writer Lawrence Durrell—laughed off the proenosis petitions their pupils passed out. Few took note of the increasingly passionate masses given by Archbishop Makarios. So on April 1, 1955, Brits were shocked when the typically sleepy island erupted in violence. Granted, the bombs that exploded a police station mailbox and a radio station were crude; the enosis flyers that blew down the streets were almost comical, having been signed by Dighenic, the Cypriot mythological superhero who could bound across whole islands. Some Brits brushed off that first attack as an isolated incident. It wasn’t.

  EOKA: THE FIGHT FOR UNION

  In the mid-1950s, Greece shipped over her WWII resistance hero Colonel George Grivas, a former guerrilla leader. His goal: to cause enosis through civil uprising. His method: molding minds through EOKA, or the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters. Grivas recruited from schools where the entire student body frequently signed up with the secret society. At first, EOKA members peacefully collected signatures on petitions and attended rallies. But by summer 1955 they began attacking Brits, Turkish Cypriots, and Greek Cypriots who didn’t support enosis. Twelve-year-old girls assaulted police with soda bottles; groups of laughing boys on bikes tossed bombs into crowds; students beat up teachers believed to be against union with Greece. The flags of EOKA and Greece soon fluttered over schools; Brits demanded they be taken down. Petrified, the school board instead shut down the schools, and thousands of school kids followed Grivas, the pied piper of EOKA, into the woods, where the group ran paramilitary training camps. EOKA had secret members everywhere—at newspapers, in the government. And EOKA’s attacks over the next four years became bloodier. EOKA torched Turkish Cypriots’ homes and ran Turks out of Greek Cypriot villages. Murders were everyday events: a British officer was shot down in downtown Nicosia while holding his toddler’s hand, Turkish Cypriot women and children were slaughtered, Greek Cypriots who didn’t make enosis their life cause had their work places bombed. Nicosia’s main drag, Ledra Street, was so frequently coated in blood that it was dubbed “Murder Mile.”