Campaign against unethical Annan plan
If you give way, you will
instantly have to meet some greater demand, as having been frightened into
obedience in the first instance; while a firm refusal will make them clearly
understand that they must treat you more as equals. Make your decision
therefore at once, either to submit before you are harmed, or if we are to go
to war, as I for one think we ought, to do so without caring whether the
ostensible cause be great or small, resolved against making concessions or
consenting to a precarious tenure of our possessions. For all claims from an
equal, urged upon a neighbour as commands before any attempt at legal
settlement, be they great or be they small, have only one meaning, and that is
slavery.
[Speech of Pericles - Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Chapter V]
Campaign against Annan plan travels to London
By Philippos Stylianou
Cyprus Weekly 12-19 March 2004
THE intensified campaign against the Annan plan was carried to the UK Greek
Cypriots this week with three of the plan’s most outspoken critics presenting
their views before a packed audience in London, at the invitation of the UK
Movement of Cypriot Citizens.
Socialist Edek honorary president and former House President Vassos Lyssarides
MP warned that the rush developments might force the Cypriot people to ignore
their leadership.
Diko MP Andreas Angelides criticised collectively the state leadership for
disregarding the Constitution and wanting to shift their responsibilities to
the ordinary citizen by placing them before the dilemma of an unconstitutional
referendum.
New Horizons MP Christos Clerides highlighted the property aspect of the Annan
plan, saying that the guarantor powers - Britain, Greece and Turkey - as well
as the new Cypriot state would be violating the European Convention of Human
Rights for forcing the Annan plan on the Cypriot people.
Clerides described the “new state of affairs” the plan purports to create as
reminiscent of the apartheid regime of South Africa. He said it aimed at
legitimising the illegal consequences of the Turkish invasion and occupation of
Cyprus, by dividing Cyprus into two states along ethnic lines, in contravention
of EU law and internationally recognised human rights.
Political equality
The speaker drew mainly on a reply prepared jointly with fellow lawyer Xenis
Xenofontos to an earlier speech in London by Turkish Cypriot Alper Riza QC, who
based his arguments on the political equality of Greek Cypriots and Turkish
Cypriots. Clerides argued back that political equality was “misconstrued into a
procrustean arithmetical equality and two sovereign states in Cyprus.”
Elaborating on this he said that the principle of “equality’ under
international and constitutional law deals primarily with persons, in the sense
that a Turkish Cypriot is equal before the law along with an Armenian Cypriot
or a Greek Cypriot. Even when there could be such a term as “political
equality” between two or more groups, Clerides asserted, those groups would
have to be of comparable numbers if they were to treated ‘equally’ in numerical
terms.
He went on to say that the Turkish Cypriot side and Ankara had deliberately
distorted the meaning of political equality, in order to create the notion of
two peoples in Cyprus, despite the fact that today the Turkish Cypriot
community makes up only 11.6% of the legitimate people of Cyprus against 85% of
those belonging to the Greek Cypriot community.
Clerides reminded the audience that the British Prime Minister himself at the
end of the London Conference in 1959 that led to the establishment of the
Cyprus Republic had stressed that Cyprus was recognised only as one people. And
he had added:
“It is an arrangement that recognises the Greek character of the majority of
the Cypriot people, but at the same time an arrangement which protects the
national character and culture of the Turkish Cypriot community.”
The speaker then referred in particular to the property provisions of the Annan
plan, which had been the main theme of Riza’s London presentation, and argued
that they could not withstand the rigour of Protocol 1 of the European
Convention of Human Rights enshrining the right to possession and peaceful
enjoyment of property.
He said the proposal in the Annan plan for the striking out of pending cases
before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) concerning property issues was
based on a misinterpretation of Article 37 of the ECHR, because it does not
guarantee restitution of the affected property.
Legal opinion
Any fresh application under the Plan will have to be filed against another
entity, the Greek or Turkish Cypriot state or the United Republic of Cyprus,
although the individual would still be entitled to compensation against Turkey
for the loss of use and to restitution, the latter not offered by the Annan
plan.
Furthermore, the speaker referred the proponents of the plan to the legal
opinion given to the Republic of Cyprus by ten leading experts in international
law on the “Legal issues arising from certain population transfers and
displacements on the territory of the Republic of Cyprus.”
It emerges from this expert opinion that the United Kingdom, Greece and Turkey,
as well as the United Cyprus Republic, will be violating article 1 of the
European Convention on Human Rights by forcing the Annan plan on the Cypriot people.
The relevant extract from the expert legal opinion is as follows:
“Article 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires High Contracting
Parties to secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms
defined in section I. Article 1 makes no distinction as to the type of rule or
measure concerned and does not exclude any part of the member State’s
jurisdiction from scrutiny. It also extends to arrangements or provisions which
result from other international agreements.
”Thus the states parties to the Convention are responsible under Article 1 for
the consequences resulting from international instruments entered into
subesquent to the coming into force of the Convention.
“This means that relevant parties to any scheme will bear responsibility under
the Convention for violations ( ... ) resulting from it. Thus any arrangement
related to the properties of persons focribly transferred in Cyprus since 1974
will be subject to scrutiny by the European human rights organs at the instance
of individuals affected. This scrutiny cannot be excluded by any separate
status that may be accorded to any part of the territory of a member state, or
by any subsequent treaty or other arrangement between particular States subject
to the jurisdiction of the Court.”
Clerides pointed out that even if the majority adopted the Annan plan in a
referendum, this cannot annul the right to property, which is a basic human and
individual right.
“The system proposed by the Annan plan does not give the right to challenge the
decision for compulsory taking over of the properties en masse; this decision
remains unchallengeable and any claims are confined to compensation or exchange
of properties except in a few cases,” the speakers said, and added: “Such a
system will not stand the test of the jurisprudence of the European Court, with
very sad and unfortunate political consequences.”
He also noted that the property provisions of the Annan plan did not serve the
public interest, as some claim, because the expropriated properties would be
distributed to individuals and not be used for building roads or used in any
other way for the public interest. Besides, as stipulated in the Annan plan,
the aim of the expropriation ran contrary to the principle of non-discrimination
on grounds of race or ethnic origin, or even age at times.
Angelides: ‘Take responsibility’
DIKO MP Andreas Angelides supported the view that the institutional
organs of the Cyprus Republic should uphold their constitutional
responsibilities and demand the military withdrawal of Turkey from Cyprus,
following the Republic’s accession to the EU on May 1st.
Angelides explained that Article 34 of the Cyprus Constitution expressly
prevented the kind of separate referenda proposed by UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan in his plan for a solution to the problem.
The constitutional provisions clearly state that there is nothing giving the
right to any community, group or individual through any action to seek the
undermining or the abolition of the constitutional order, or the rights and
liberties or their curtailment in any degree.
“This constitutional provision in combination with the fact that the Republic
of Cyprus exists and is internationally recognised as a country with a specific
Constitution, people, territory and jurisdiction, is the starting point for any
recourse to the people through referendum,” Angelides said.
He added that any referendum should conform with the Constitution and related
laws which prohibit the abolition of the constitutional order and protect
individual freedoms.
“It is on this Constitution and these laws that the President, the Ministers,
the Deputies, Judges and independent officials of the State take their oath of
confirmation, vowing loyalty and respect,” he stressed, noting also that it is
with these institutional organs of the Cypriot state that the EU has entered
into agreement for its enlargement.
Elaborating, Angelides said the 1989 law on referenda passed by the House does
not empower any organ of the Republic to put before the people a “yes” or “no”
dilemma for the abolition of the Constitution and the emergence of a new one.
This is even more so, he said, when the people are confronted with the dilemma
not through a dialogue of the people with their leadership, but because the UN arbitrator
has so demanded.
The Diko MP stressed that the Constitution does not absolve any state official
from their constitutional responsibilities if they go against the mandatory
legal principles that raised them to their office. Therefore, he suggested,
there can be no such thing as having recourse to the “personal choice” or
“personal responsibility” of each citizen in two separate referenda.
“No one is above the law, nor may act outside the law, regardless of how high
is the office he holds. Nobody has the right to act against the Constitution
and the law in force. No one may lead the people contrary to constitutional
procedures through a referendum or otherwise to say “yes” or “no”. No one may
abandon their constitutional rights as a simple citizen. No people may abandon
its human rights,” Angelides concluded.
Lyssarides: ‘The people can ignore leadership’
In his LONDON speech, Socialist Edek party honorary president Vassos
Lyssarides noted that the Annan plan had been accepted only as a basis for negotiation
and wondered what had happened in between to have made acceptable an
arbitration role for the UN Secretary General.
“No people assigns its fortunes unquestonably to foreign factors; not even to
an elected president of their own country,” Lyssarides stressed.
He said the Greek Cypriot side sought its entry to the European Union rightly
believing that more favourable circumstances would be created and its
negotiating power would be strengthened.
“The 1st of May could become a constructive landmark in the course of the
Cyprus problem. Are we going to transform it into a destructive boomerang?”
Lyssarides wondered and went on to make the following warning:
“On the 1st of May the Republic of Cyprus shall be dissolved and its President
abolished. The protocol of establishment will be deposited at the US and the
European Union by the co-presidents and community leaders Papadopoulos and
Denktash, who will rule together for 2 1/2 years.
“If during this time Turkey creates a deadlock - something which would be very
easy to do given the ‘constructive ambiguities’ and the complexity of the
system - there will be two recognised equal co-presidents, each for a separate
state, which will not be put in inverted commas any more. So, with our
endorsement and with the mandatory acquiscence of the EU, Cyprus will be
partitioned with the Turkish Cypriot state participating. Is this how we make
good of the accession benefit?”
Human rights
Lyssarides also described how human rights are violated under the Annan plan,
with the refugees even having to pay money on top for getting their property
back.
He noted that Turkish occupied areas would not be returned immediately for the
resettlement of refugees and so any deadlock could lead to a cancellation of
the territorial Annan plan provisions.
The retention of Turkish guarantees, extended to cover both the whole of Cyprus
and the constituent states separately did not augur well either. Turkey could
easily cause the Turkish Cypriots to emigrate, thus creating an homogeneous Turkish
state in the north and a mixed one in the south, with Turkey threatening to
intervene allegedlly to protect the Turkish Cypriots living in the Greek
Cypriot constituent state.
The Edek honorary president said there were those who intimidated the people
telling them that rejection of an unacceptable plan would result in partition.
He stressed that partition would come about if the Annan plan were accepted in
its present form.
He furthermore said that there should be no illusions about Kofi Annan adjusting
his plan to the just demands of the Greek Cypriot side. Besides, he said, the
Americans have assured Turkey that they will exercise their influence on Annan
in their favour.
“We therefore state clearly and categorically that we shall not endorse the Annan
plan as it stands or with cosmetic changes. The people has not given any
mandate on this basis. Let them make a better appraisal of what we are capable
of doing. Because in times like these the people can ignore leaderships and
leaders.”
Analysis of the Unethical Annan Plan
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