Coup anniversary and conspiracy theories

President Christofias yesterday stressed he would do whatever is possible to reunite the country and its people and restore the sovereignty and territorial integrity of a unified, federal Republic of Cyprus. Speaking at an annual memorial service for those killed during the 1974 coup yesterday, he added that “on remembering this crime, we must draw lessons to forge our unity, but at the same time intensify our efforts to put an end to the invasion and to this unacceptable situation, which violates the freedoms and the human rights of our people, and which, if continued, will have even worse results”.

Justice Minister Costas Papacostas laying a wreath at the memorial said our aim is not to open old wounds. “Consent, harmony and accord cannot be built on forgetting the past and distorting history”, he said.

Addressing a special session of the House of Representatives, House President Marios Garoyan called of the people to support President Christofias in his efforts to achieve a just, viable and functional solution. “The House of Representativesis ready for a just compromise”, he said. “We are ready to make a historic compromise for a bicommunal, bizonal federation. But we would reject confederation or a two state solution”.

An editorial in Simerini headlined “Our state is our shield” says that the coup was the climax of a series of foreign plots with the cooperation of Greece in order to destroy the Cyprus state in an attempt to impose a solution on Cyprus that would serve their own strategic interests and those of Turkey. Nevertheless, although the coup failed and opened the door to the Attilla tanks, the Cyprus state stood strong as a rock and became the super strong foundation on which Cypriot Hellenism based its survival. We guarded our state against the Turkish insurgency in 1963, we didn’t allow the junta to pass, we stood up to the barbarian Turkish invasion which aimed at wiping us off the face of the earth and we stood unwavering before the coordinated effort to destroy it in April 2004 through the pretext of the Annan plan. We must continue to do so until a solution is found that will not give birth to a monstrosity but will guarantee the continuation of the Cyprus Republic in conditions that will safeguard the rights of all citizens and will not give rise to future adventures and tragedies.

Politis’ satyrical column Kata Varvaron says that each time a new effort to solve the Cyprus problem starts all sorts of conspiracy theories are published in the press. It goes something like this: certain foreigners, not having anything better to do, me e t up, hatch a plan that together with local informers, would hand Cyprus over to Turkey and its American allies so that they can better control the region, better than they already do, what with their bases in Turkey, in the north, the British bases, the south, the CIA installations in the south and all the facilities the various patriotic G/C leaders fall all over themselves to give them any time they wage a new war in the region. All these theories claim that every single solution plan is nothing but a trap that the foreigners are laying in order to shaft us.

Another such a conspiracy theory saw the light of day recently with the so-called Ergenekon scandal in Turkey, which brought to light a plot to hand over Cyprus to Turkey through the Annan plan. The generals, the story goes, were getting ready to overturn Erdogan with a coup in order to prevent the Annan plan from being passed, but when Tassos admitted in Strakka to his pal Serdar Denktash that we would be saying No to the plan, they realised there was no need to worry, much less to go to the trouble of staging a coup.

But if the Americans had proposed to hand over Cyprus to Turkey through the Annan plan, then the first who would have known about it would have been the generals. So the question that begs itself is… are the generals in Turkey stupid? Only stupid people would be preparing a coup in order to prevent a plan that would be gifting them Cyprus! Draw your own conclusions… but just remember… talks are coming.