UN ARE THE PROBLEM

HE UN is supposedly there to resolve international disputes, encourage international co-operation, assist in recovery from natural disasters, and enforce some international rules on internationally uncivilised behaviour. As a result, it might be the biggest “talking shop” in the world, but so what? “Jaw, Jaw” is better than “War, War”, as Churchill so wisely observed. 

Whilst people are talking, they are not killing each other, now are they? So far, so good. Well done the UN. The world is a better place for you being there, that is, unless you happen to be a Turkish Cypriot. Why? Have you not heard the latest UN, anti-TRNC, pro-Greek Cypriot inspired, salvo of unjustified complaints against the TRNC? No? Wait for it, you are about to.

Given the principled basis on which the UN was ordained, it should follow that peoples who are victims of aggression are the UN’s direct concern, now shouldn’t it? Generally, that appears to be the case, unless such desperate folk happen to be the victims of aggressive rogue states like Putin’s Russia and Red China (including those people who happen to be the unlucky citizens of these two oppressive regimes). Both China and Russia are members of the UN Security Council (which may explain a lot). In such cases, the UN huffs and puffs, lavishes wordy condemnations on the aggressor, threatens sanctions and, in effect, does nothing at all. Oh that were the case in Cyprus. Here the UN can’t even see who the real victims are. They lavish all the condemnation and embargoes on the wrong side. Their UN Cyprus experience should tell them different, but it never does. Hence the latest UN outburst.

Normally, if you are a victim of a smaller vicious bully than the likes of China, such as past tin pot dictators Robert Mugabe or Idi Amin for instance, the UN will rightly lavish resolutions and embargoes on your oppressor. They might even enforce those actions, or send in “peacekeepers” (effectively militarily neutered soldiers). All well and good, I suppose, unless those UN “peacekeepers” actually get in the way of the offending, aggressive forces, who usually just ignore them and then get on with their deadly business. 

Which is precisely what happened here in 1964 when the first UN “peacekeepers” arrived. The UN “forces” (a contradiction in terms if there ever was one) were “sent [to Cyprus] to prevent a recurrence of the inter-communal violence” that had begun in 1963. A fat lot of difference the UN presence made. By the end of 1964 the Turkish Cypriots were forced back into enclaves, for 11 years, covering just three per cent of the island, forced out of their homes across the island. Ethnic cleansing had taken place before the UN’s very eyes. Yet you would never know it. The UN still maintains the power-sharing “Republic of Cyprus” constitution still exists, despite 13 Greek Cypriot, 1963-promoted amendments to it, which effectively removed all Turkish Cypriot rights to participate in the Republic. That’s about as “power-sharing” as Genghis Khan managed after sacking some great European city. In other words – none at all.

Even the overthrow of this entirely Greek Cypriot “Republic of Cyprus” in 1974, by the Greek Cypriot Eoka-B terrorists and further attempts by them to eradicate the remaining Turkish Cypriot enclaves, have never budged the UN in its blind refusal to accept the fact that the Greek Cypriots have been the aggressors in all this, ever since Cypriot Independence in 1960. No Greek/Greek Cypriot Cyprus coup in 1974 and there would have been no Turkish intervention to save the Turkish Cypriots from genocide either. It would not have been necessary. To the Greek Cypriots, this is a Greek island and the Turkish Cypriots are an unwanted minority within it. Why can’t the UN see that? The evidence has been all around them for 58 years. Staring their “peacekeepers” repeatedly in the face. 

All this is bad enough, but the latest UN statement by the President of the UN

Security Council, condemning the TRNC for proposing the opening up of a further area of the empty city of Varosha, is totally beyond belief. 

What the hell are TRNC doing wrong? Are they proposing to fill up the place exclusively with foreign, Turkish or Turkish Cypriot souls? Shoving out the Greek Cypriots forever? No they are not.

Let us be quite clear about this. UN resolutions 550 and 789 clearly prevent the settlement of Varosha by anyone other than its “former inhabitants”. 

Is the TRNC proposing to do otherwise? No! They are certainly not. They are trying to facilitate the spirit of those resolutions by offering former inhabitants, including Greek Cypriots, the opportunity to return to their claimed properties by applying to the TRNC Immovable Property Commission (IPC). 

The IPC is one of the few internationally and legally recognised organisations operating in the TRNC. Tried and tested by many previous and present Greek Cypriot applicants. 

So why the big UN outcry and condemnation? In what way does the TRNC proposal to open up more of Varosha in any way conflict with the spirit of those UN resolutions? To put it bluntly, it doesn’t. What is does, is grant yet more legal authority to the IPC which the Greek Cypriots refuse to accept the legality or legitimacy of. 

As far as THEY are concerned, they are the government of Cyprus, they are the legal authority, and anything that questions that status, is a non-starter. So no wonder the Greek Cypriots run off to the UN, crying “foul” at the drop of a hat. I don’t blame them for that. I blame the UN for meekly falling into line with the “recognised” so-called “government of Cyprus” every time.

How the UN can carry on, unmoved by events, after all they have witnessed over the decades, seeing Greek Cypriot “No” after Greek Cypriot “No” to every UN-proposed Cyprus solution you can think of, is beyond me. 

All the UN have achieved is Greek Cypriot supremacy and never-ending isolation for the abused Turkish Cypriots. The UN are not the solution to the continuing Cyprus “problem” to a large extent, THEY are the problem.