The Bicommunal Experience

The work of the bicommunal community is now a half-decade old, providing some perspective on how well it's worked, its problems and opportunities.  Below is a presentation by one very active Turkish Cypriot woman who is well known to this community.  Canan Oztoprak delivered this paper to an international conference in California in the summer of 2000, a conference convened in part by a former Fulbright scholar, Marco Turk.  The paper goes over some history and discusses the current efforts of bicommunalism in Cyprus.

THE EXPERIENCE OF BI-COMMUNAL CONTACTS THROUGH THE EYES OF A TURKISH CYPRIOT:

FACTS AND FICTIONS

There are lots of conflict areas throughout the world, some bloody and violent yet others, more psychological. Each of them is equally harmful to humanity and inhibits the progress of the society. I am from one of these conflict areas: Cyprus, which is a beautiful Mediterranean island. Living in one of these conflict areas means fear of war, death, uncertainty of your future, feelings of hate and injustice. As a person who has been involved in peace initiatives and activities for over 20 years, I consider myself lucky to be able to participate in this valuable conference. I am sure we will gain a lot just from hearing each other’s experiences and I would like to thank the organizers of this conference.

The methodology I used in my paper is an evaluation of peace activities in Cyprus from a Turkish Cypriot’s point of view. I will elaborate on peace activities by putting them into various categories and try to analyze their impacts in various ways to show which are working and which needs to be rearranged or improved. The formation of my paper is coming from my experiences and observations in peace activities and a small survey which I did for answering the questions of this conference. At the end of some parts I will put my personal experiences to give a better understanding of human part of a conflict or conflict resolution efforts.

History of the Conflict:

Cyprus is an Island in the eastern Mediterranean, that can have influence over Europe, Asia and Africa, due its location. Throughout its history, it captured the interests of the surrounding states and those who had a vested interest in the region. That is why the island was invaded throughout the history by a great number of kingdoms and empires. The Ottoman rule started in 1571, gave its place to the British in 1878, exerted their rule until the founding of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960.The national liberation struggles throughout the world after the Second World War saw the world divided into two blocks. This further increased the strategic importance of Cyprus, where military and strategic wars were waged.

The two communities were used against each other during the uprising against the British rule. The strategic and the vested interests, together with the ‘national historical mistrust’ between Turkey and Greece, (the motherlands of the two communities in Cyprus), the two communities came face to face with ENOSIS (Union with Greece) and TAKSIM (Partition of island) and the inter-communal conflict was further provoked. From time to time, the positive relationships created by the progressive peace activists of both communities were curtailed by the reactionary fanatics on each side. The Republic of Cyprus was founded in 1960 with the contribution of Turkey, Greece and Great Britain all becoming guarantor states. In 1963 the demand for changing the 13 clauses of the constitution by President Makarios is seen as the spark of the inter-communal conflict. The underground movements EOKA and TMT rekindled the mistrust increasing the tension and leading the way for a physical separation of the two communities. The UN Security Council in 1964 decided to form a UN Peace Keeping Force for Cyprus and up to this day it is still on the island. While Turkish Cypriots had to live in enclaves during this period, the inter-communal fights continued at different intervals, at different places until 1967.After this period the inter-communal relations seemed to have started to reconcile. At this time marathon meetings were held between the two leaders, Mr. Clerides and Mr. Denktash in order to find a solution to the Cyprus problem.

As inter-communal agreement foreseeing local autonomous rights for Turkish Cypriots were being discussed, the basis of a new period was being created for Cyprus. However a coup d’etat aimed at uniting Cyprus with Greece, organised by the fascist Colonels’ Junta in Greece halted and altered these peace efforts in 1974.This coup against Makarios was seen as a betrayal of the Republic of Cyprus by Greece. The other guarantor country, Turkey contacted England according to the relevant process and proposed to intervene in Cyprus. The two countries could not agree to act together so Turkey acted alone and undertook a military operation. After this intervention, UN Security Council passed resolution number 3212 which called upon:

        -All states to respect the sovereignty; independence; non-alignment and territorial integrity policy of the Republic of Cyprus.

        -Talks and relations should start between the two communities on an equal basis, under the auspices of ‘the good -offices of the Secretary General’

        -relations and talks should continue with the aim of freely reaching a mutually acceptable political solution, based on basic legal rights of both communities.

After this date, following various meetings and mediation initiatives, the two leaders finally came together under the UN umbrella and Denktash and Makarios signed the High Level Agreement comprising four principles which could be the basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem.The Ghali set of ideas was another important document discussed for a long time. This set of ideas foresaw a bi-zonal, bi-communal, politically equal, territorially integral and a sovereign structure of the state. Its sovereignty would derive from the two communities and it would have one international identity.

There have been some improvements, long impasses in inter-communal talks. Still there is no solution and none is foreseen in the near future. The island is highly militarised, separated by United Nations buffer zone. Turkish Cypriots living in North (%20 of the population and %37 of the land area) and the Greek Cypriots in South represented by Cyprus Republic. There are two different administrations, neither of which recognises the other. The Turkish Cypriot Administration (TRNC) is recognised only by Turkey. There are economical, political and social embargoes applied to the North. This makes the Turkish Cypriots totally dependent on Turkey. Due to these economical problems together with the uncertainty of the future, there is a high degree of migration of Turkish Cypriots from the island. On the other hand a substantial number of people are coming to settle from Turkey to North Cyprus. Consequently the Turkish Cypriot demography is changing rapidly.

My early childhood memories dating back to late 1950’s was of fear and panic as I remember frantically banging at the front door trying to get myself heard over the ever so loud police sirens. At the time there was a curfew and I should have been indoors. Those few minutes, which my mother took to answer the door, were like going through eternity amongst approaching police cars and raving people. Although I don’t remember, during these troublesome years our house was burned down. This I learned later when I noticed some of my childhood pictures were burnt at the edges. Many years later after 1974 when I met Greek Cypriot friends asking for their pictures they had to leave in their homes in North I realised how lucky I was to have these pictures even half burned.

For a while we lived in a mixed village where T/C and G/Cs were living together. I don’t recall any close relationships or scuffles in the village but suddenly in 1963 we found ourselves as refugee in one of the enclaves where the T/Cs were living. To this day I still don’t understand why we had to leave our home. Even worse experiences were to follow in 1974 when we became prisoners of war. Later when we were released I had the strange sensation of moving into a Greek Cypriot refugee’s home. Feeling the pain of being a refugee it was extremely difficult for me to be comfortable in the house and I know that a lot of T/Cs share the same feelings. I live in a place not recognized as a sovereign state and even if I may understand some of the reasons behind this non-recognition it still does not prevent me from being frustrated and humiliated especially when I have to travel with a piece of paper as I did to this conference.

PEACE BUILDING ACTIVITIES AND THEIR IMPACTS ON TURKISH CYPRIOTS AND PEACE PROCESS

Among Turkish Cypriots Peace building activities can be classified in 3 categories:

Civic initiatives for peace

Bi-communal trainings

Bi-communal meetings and activities

These activities started mono-communally by progressive NGOs and Political parties. During the periods where there were opportunities to meet for the two communities some bi-communal or parallel activities took place. Like organising bi-communal picnic or distributing leaflets for pushing the peace process which was organised by women on both sides. These initiatives channelled to other bi-communal activities under the current circumstances where a third party is needed to organise bi-communal events in order to get permission from the T/C authorities. Their role is mostly limited to raising the sensitivity and responsibility among the T/Cs to promote peace.

These are one of the most important categories in peace activities. Nearly all of them are organised by Fulbright Commission and all the trainers come from the United States to offer programs on conflict resolution, facilitation, mediation, negotiation, etc. These topics besides giving the participants these skills to use in their lives or professions also enable T/Cs and G/Cs to come together. In order to analyze better I will look at positive and negative ways of these training from the T/C perception.

1.The main advantage of bi-communal trainings is that it provides a safe and neutral environment and a good reason for Cypriots from both communities to get together. This is very important from the T/Cs point of view, since there are regulations and difficulties to access the buffer-zone where these bi-communal trainings take place. They need an invitation for a training, for a reception or a conference organised by a third party. Being invited to these trainings means that the T/Cs are able to participate and gain many other important benefits.

2.The skills taught in these meetings are chosen with the best of intentions. The participants are not only empowered with these various skills but also start to look at their own problems from a new perspective and are able to see the Cyprus problem from a wider angle. This is a very important indirect outcome of these trainings.

3. These trainings enable the participants to learn the concerns, fears, pains and expectations of the ‘other’ in an indirect way without any political bias. For instance the empathy of the other party is reached during the lengthy role plays performed by each participant.

4. In turn, the participants help the community by forming various training groups. The Mediation Group for example has already been established as a formal association and is on its way to functioning as an NGO, providing valuable services to all sections of the community.

5.The trainers are well selected who are experts in their fields and this leads to trust and respect for individuals to participate in these trainings. Louise Diamond, Diana Chigas, Benjamin Broome and Marco Turk are some of these trainers.

6.The equality in participant numbers in these trainings is a positive way for T/Cs to feel themselves safe and equal.

7.These trainings enabled the professional groups to work together and make some bi-communal projects like bi-communal lawyers group who managed to translate the laws in both sides to English. Unfortunately there are difficulties in funding these projects due to the political reasons which will be explained further down.

8.Since some of the trainings take place off the island, this attracts a great deal of attention and motivates the prospective participants. This also has a forcing influence for lifting the ban for the trainings and meetings abroad. For example two mayors from the ruling party participated in a bi-communal meeting which was held in the United States amidst opposition from their party. This gave the other participants a reason to insist for the same privileges to participate in such meetings.

9.Inviting participants from different political views goes a long way towards eliminating the prejudices to these meetings. Especially the conservatives who are quite content with the status quo because of their personal gains or concerns for safety. Involving them in these trainings where they gain these skills make them overcome their concerns and fears and not only support these activities but also put effort to change the negative attitude of their political parties towards these meetings. Some of these participants are now in decision making bodies and they are having positive impacts on lifting the ban to these bi-communal meetings.

10.The flexibility to re-arrange these trainings as mono-communal but parallel to the two sides helped T/Cs not to feel neglected and also increased the participation of the organisations which never took part in these trainings previously. Marco Turk’s mediation training is a perfect example of this. He managed to train one group bi-communally before the ban was imposed by T/C authorities. It was so much appreciated by the T/Cs that he started immediately the mono-communal ones in the North, and for the first time T/C police officers were allowed to participate in these trainings.

11.These trainings and workshops introduced various techniques in conducting effective meetings. Nearly all the participants are using these techniques to conduct more productive meetings in their organisations. First there was a great deal of skepticism towards these workshops as they were looked upon as inappropriate to our culture but in time the participants realized that these kinds of meetings are more affective, less time consuming and involves less effort. Now it is used by various sectors. This will increase the participation of future trainings in these fields.

1.The trainings are conducted by foreign trainers and are all in English. This eliminates a big portion of communities who don’t speak English from the process. Even for the ones who speak it is not so easy especially to express feelings in a foreign language. This leads to some reactions or feeling being excluded.

2. Much effort is put to the actual trainings by the organisations offering them, however there is a clear lack of support when it comes to setting up coordination centers for these groups to apply heir skills or even to conduct their meetings. Some of the Bi-Communal groups lost their contacts with its members due to this difficulty. In most of the meetings with Fulbright or other interested parties this need is constantly being expressed. This is one of the main reasons why the groups can not come together to make a loud reaction for the ban to the bi-communal activities. If there was a center for these bi-communal groups the much required coordination and support to push on.

3.Coordination of these trainings and meetings are poor. There are a lot of groups meeting regularly either for training or discussion but they are unaware of what the other groups are doing.

4.There is the problem of choosing the participants for these trainings. The sides in the political spectrum accuse the organizers of these trainings or meetings of being bias in favor of the other side.

5.The selection of participants for the bi-communal trainings abroad creates even more problems. Some persons participate only in the trainings conducted abroad and they never follow through when they are back.

6.Some trainers stay for only 9 months or a year which is not enough to learn the culture or the dimensions of the problem. In most of the cases they have to leave when they are involved. Also in most of the cases there is a gap between the trainers who leaves and who arrives. This also creates problems for the continuation of the process.

7.One other disadvantage of these trainings is that they are dependent to other factors than the decision of the participants such as having to get permission from the authorities. These permissions became a bargaining factor even in the official diplomacy. Not only there are impasses in the negotiation processes of the Cyprus problem, but also the negotiation process of EU-Turkey effects the permissions. For example, the ban on the bi-communal meetings was reinforced of this after the 1997 Luxembourg Summit of EU where Turkey was rejected to apply for EU membership. After the Helsinki Summit in 1999 where this rejection was removed the ban became more flexible, first for international events and now for some bi-communal contacts.

8.In the 2 years restriction period (1997- 1999) the bi-communal contacts could take place only in the only mixed village on the island. This is a remote place and lot of the active members of these groups became tired and inactive after long journeys for each meeting/workshop.

9. The trained groups becomes dependent to the trainer/facilitator and when he or she leaves they loose motivation. The new means of communication such as the internet and e-mail is helpful in overcoming this obstacle. The groups can communicate with their trainers from miles away like our group does with Marc.

Various countries which are connected to Cyprus problem such as USA, England, Germany, Norway, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden, European Union and United Nations conduct these meetings and activities. They are conducted either by their embassies or through an NGO registered in these countries. These meetings mostly have topics related to the Cyprus problem. The approach here is to prepare a document which will represent the expectations of the two communities in a solution. They are conducted in different fields such as women groups, university groups, youth camps, educators, trade unions, political parties, businessmen groups, professional groups, municipalities etc. The activities are mainly receptions arranged by various Embassies for different occasions where both Turkish and Greek Cypriots are invited. The most important of these are the open days organised by UN on UN day once a year. On these days thousands of Greek and Turkish Cypriots comes together sometimes old friends from same university or same village can meet. They ask questions about the other side may be about their homes or towns. Somebody observing these days never distinguish who is a Turkish Cypriot and who is a Greek Cypriot. Once a concert was organised at buffer-zone and a Turkish and Greek singer took stage together. For the first time Turkey’s official TV channels transmitted such an activity.

1.Some of these meetings are conducted for track one people from both sides like the politicians, MPs, high level officials. There is change a to make a bigger delegation on the negotiation process rather than only the leaders. Actually the party leaders were included in the delegations at the last two sessions in the United States and in Switzerland. These leaders from both the government and the opposition parties had not participated in these negotiations before. The good news is that these leaders were all participants of bicommunal activities of some sort in the past.

2.These meetings mostly aim to show the parties the positive outcomes of a solution especially the ones conducted by EU. Even though not always successful at least they plant the seeds of peace in the minds of each participant.

3.In some of the groups, the Oslo Group for instance, a working document was prepared and it was a motivation for the group to work further on the project. On the other hand the Curriculum Development Group made up of educators produced an English curriculum for middle schools common to both sides.

4.One important category of these activities are the youth camps. They are sponsored by Fulbright. I participated in the one organised by Seeds of Peace as escort and delegation leader and realised the importance of coming together especially for youth who are under influence of nationalistic education. For many kids it is the first time for them to see someone from the other community who were considered their ‘born-enemy’. They have the opportunity to discuss, talk, sing and dance. Before long they realise that they share many common traits. Also since this is an international camp mainly for the kids from Near East Countries such as Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt the kids have the opportunity to see that there are others who suffer from conflict and that they are also trying to reach a solution. Some of these kids continue to communicate even in these difficult periods and they manage to organise events such as tree planting days at the mixed village where Turkish and Greek Cypriots live together.

5.These meetings since most of them are organised for a limited time, enable the people who don’t have time to attend a continuing process of trainings. The Cypriot trainers are able to use their skills in these workshops or meetings. Unfortunately they are neglected at the off- island meetings and workshops.

6.Bi-communal activities like UN day or bi-communal concert or picnics or bi-communal choir enables the people who don’t speak enough English to meet and enjoy.

7. In some of these bi-communal meetings the people from all walks of life come together. This helps to build friendship and trust between these participants especially if they are from different political views. They see that they share same concerns. This is also valid for personal transformation where each person discovers hidden thoughts and pains which they can come to terms with.

In an international conference held by the Commonwealth, I met a Greek Cypriot after long years in 1992, hundreds of miles away from our island, in London. The conference was organised by an important and influential NGO "Westminster Foundation for Democracy". Until then there were no connection between Turkish and Greek Cypriots and no attempt by third parties to start the process. There we criticized UN for acting as peace keeping force and not supporting peace activities. We suggested the Commonwealth to organise a special conference for Turkish and Greek Cypriots only. The suggestion was approved and two years later in 1994 15 T/Cs and 15 G/Cs were invited. We as the T/C group didn’t know each other and was made up from various political views and did not have prior meeting. In one of the sessions one of the officials from EU came for a presentation. He began his speech with a question:

-Who wants to see Cyprus affiliated into the EU?

There were 15 hands raised and 15 which did not react. He was so surprised that he asked if we understood him correctly. It was the Turkish Cypriots who did not react. We gave the reason: ‘This question does not apply to us. When you say Cyprus you mean the Cyprus Government and we are not represented there.’ This was a shock for the G/Cs, observers and for me as well. Until then I never imagined myself sharing the same political ideas with the conservatives that were represented in that conference. I think they also thought the same for me. In another bi-communal meeting, we were making future plans for the group. I suggested organizing cross visits to North and South to see other half of our island and may be our homes. One of the girls very young maybe not even born before 1974 reacted in a very angry way:

‘I will never go back to my home as visitor I will go back as an owner.’ I did not mean to offend her and thought it will be good to share my experiences of being a refugee, so she would feel better having heard others have also suffered from the conflict. I told her how our house was burnt down and we became prisoners of war. Afterwards, I remember feeling slightly guilty telling her all this because I must have came across like a nationalist rather than a true peace activist that I know I am. Later, when I shared these feelings with others I realised that a lot of the participants lived similar experiences. From that point I realized that each of us must first be honest with our feelings and concerns to be able to respect ourselves and have respect for others.

1. These meetings and activities are organised by gathering participants according to their profession, gender, age, political view etc. No consideration is given to the fact that they may have had any communication and conflict resolution skills. Due to this handicap and since most of these group topics are related to politics most of them waste their time debating for days and at the end a rounded declaration ends the meeting. My observation is that the groups with participants who were familiar with these skills are more successful in their meetings.

2. The groups, which are formed by NGO or political party representatives, face with more difficulty in terms of reaching a consensus in the bi-communal group. Brussels Women Group is an example of this. Members of NGOs and political party representatives as well as persons who attended on their own formed the group. It was extremely difficult to reach a consensus since the participants had to cover their own feelings and expectations or empathise with the other side since they felt themselves bound to their organisation’s views.

3. If the facilitator of these meetings are not familiar with the problem or has not lived on the island for a while to gain trust of both sides, the progress is much more difficult and some times impossible.

4. The attitude of authorities to a bi-communal activity or meeting depends on the political relations of government with the organising country or organisation. For example when the relations were bad with the EU there were more difficulties for the groups funded by the EU.

5. The attitude of the decision making bodies towards these groups are mostly negative since they see these people a threat to their positions in case an overall settlement is reached.

INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS

Turkish and Greek Cypriots are sometimes invited to international meetings or conference. Currently there are common projects with Ireland and Israel-Palestine. These initiatives are very important as far as recognizing that there other countries with similar problems around the world. Seeing their struggle for peace gives us the added motivation as well as the reality that the Cyprus problem is perhaps not one without a solution. It was a big motivation for me to hear the success of Jerusalem Link in a conference for Balkan women. Also these international events lead to networks between various peace initiatives and it seems they will be more powerful in the future.

BI-COMMUNAL PROJECTS

This is one of the most important aspects of peace process, which would lead to mutual benefit through collaboration. Unfortunately these projects are very limited due to funding procedures and the rigid political positions of the two sides. The money for these projects has to come to Cyprus through Cyprus Government, which is not acceptable for the T/C side. The only continuing projects are the ‘ sewerage plant’ project of Nicosia and restoring of the old city of Nicosia. Here the money is given directly to the contractors each side.

Last year UN formulated another channel to give funds directly to NGOs which was a big hope for T/C NGOs. This new channel was UNOPS. There were preparatory workshops for NGOs to show them the importance of NGO activities and how to make projects to get funding. One of the prerequisites of these projects was to have a bi-communal aspect which was actually for the collaboration of NGOs in both sides. About 30 projects were submitted to UNOPS. After a long silence T/C NGOs received a message from UNOPS that their projects would not be funded since T/C authorities rejected this direct funding of NGOs. What they learned was that their projects were submitted to T/C Foreign Ministry for approval before asking the opinion of the project owners. This created a big disappointment on T/C NGOs. Now UNOPS is in the process of accepting projects again from T/C NGOs. If they manage to fund projects of NGOs in North it will contribute to development of civil society and will empower the T/Cs. Also it will give the idea to T/Cs that there is something to gain in peace process.

When we look at the overall success and positive impacts of these bi-communal activities, we can say that they have a positive contribution to peace process.

The participants who have attended these activities as whether a training or others, they express their positive feelings to these activities. Since these people are active in their community coming from different groups or professions, they have the ability to spread the effects of these activities throughout the community. Still there is a gap to be filled in terms of reaching these activities to grassroots level. The main disadvantage here is the lack of appropriate activities for these people to attend and meet each other. Another disadvantage is the absence of bi-communal newspaper and radio, TV which will give objective news. Unfortunately the mass media in North gives very little coverage to these events. The level of coverage depends on the official attitudes to these activities which is negative at compass periods of negotiations. These activities get support from newspapers of some political parties which support these activities. When the negotiations are on good track the attitudes of officials are positive. These bi-communal activities produced an influential and big group of people which has some effect on changing the negative attitude of officials to positive in election campaigns most of the parties advertised that they will work on lifting the ban to the bi-communal events.

After the tragic earthquake incidences in Turkey and Greece the people of both countries developed a friendly atmosphere. Especially Greece’s lifting of her veto for Turkey’s accession to the EU made the relations much warmer between these two countries. There are lots of groups from Turkey and Greece coming together to develop further collaborations on various sectors. There are efforts to include Greek and Turkish Cypriots as well to these activities.

Currently, where bi-communal activities seem to be starting, the Trainers Group has an important potential to re organize the bi-communal events. They are from different sectors of life and can organise different groups for training or meetings which will reach to a large number of people and hence help the peace process in the indirect ways mentioned before. What is needed for this group is coordination and a center to be organised from.

In summary we have to include more and more people to this peace process even those who are against this process, showing them the benefits of peace. Finally, seeing so many of you here today wanting to listen and learn about our problems makes me very optimistic about our future I whole-heartedly believe we will have peace in Cyprus. And Cyprus will once again be the "Crown Jewel of the Mediterranean".

Thank you for your attention and I hope you all find the peace you are looking for.