Clashes in Cyprus may stimulate peace

CYPRIOTS of good will in both communities hope Sunday's violent clashes in the UN-controlled buffer zone - in which the Irish honorary consul was hurt - may concentrate the minds of the diplomats who have recently visited the island to try to restart settlement negotiations.

Most recent of these was Mr Kester Heaslip, representing the Irish Presidency of the European Union. He pledged to return to resume contacts with the two sides and to co-ordinate his efforts with those of the emissaries of the UN, UK and US who paid earlier visits to Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.

Greek and Turkish Cypriots have certainly been affected by Sunday's live television coverage of the brutal, beatings administered by Turkish militiamen to unarmed Greek Cypriot youths in the buffer zone at the village of Dherynia.

Viewers saw Greek Cypriots, caught and immobilised by barbed wire while retreating from the buffer: zone, surrounded and set upon by groups of Turkish and Turkish Cypriot men in civilian clothes. Among the victims was the sole fatality, a newly married 24-year-old who, after a severe beating, was dragged free of the wire by a UN soldier and carried out of the zone by a colleague.

Sunday's beatings could encourage Greek and Turkish Cypriots to make common cause against such violence and encourage them to seek a settlement. This is because, on the one hand, the Greek Cypriots do not blame ordinary Turkish Cypriots for the violence.

On the other hand, the Turkish Cypriot opposition leaders and press have placed the responsibility for the bloodshed squarely on the shoulders of the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash, and the commanders of the mainland Turkish troops based on the island.

While the mainland Turkish daily Jumhurriyet boasted that ultra-nationalist Turkish youths had "lynched" a Greek Cypriot, and the official Turkish Cypriot radio asserted, "Not a single Greek Cypriot crossed the border", several independent Turkish Cypriot papers spoke of Turkish "chauvinism" and "fanaticism", The leftist Yeniduzen revealed that the violence was perpetrated by "gangs" of armed ultra-nationalists.

On August 7th, Kibris warned that these elements had been ordered by the commander of the Turkish forces "to break the bones" of the Greek Cypriot bikers if they tried to cross into the north.

This was the fifth time the Turkish Cypriot authorities had confronted Greek Cypriot demonstrators by introducing ultra-nationalist militiamen into the buffer zone. On the first three occasions unarmed women, who crossed the buffer zone and the "Green Line" into Turkish-held territory, were met by Turkish troops and these plainclothes elements but there was no violence. But there was some violence during the fourth crossing by Greek Cypriot women, priests and a few men.

On Sunday the men of violence were out of control. Outside pressure on the Turkish Cypriot authorities and Turkish army command could ensure that this does not happen again if and when Greek Cypriots, frustrated by the division of their country over two decades, try again to walk or ride "home".

Sunday's clashes might persuade Greek Cypriot politicians to find a new approach to the problem of the occupation of the northern third of the island. Because the bikers' ride was popular with the man in the street, the government was reluctant to compel the organisers to cancel it until it was too late. Senior political figures, who could have advised against a mass attempt to "ride to Kyrenia", procrastinated.

As a result the bikers rejected the government's call to cancel and rode off to chaotic confrontations in the buffer zone. The tragedy of Sunday's clashes is that they need not have happened had there been firm leadership from the Greek Cypriot side.

A founder of the Women's Walk Home group, which organised the initial peaceful border crossings, said the authorities, the political parties and the Cyprus Orthodox Church had to stop urging Greek Cypriot youth to "struggle" physically to liberate the lost land. "They must define how young people can wage a peaceful struggle against the occupation instead of filling their heads with ideas of seeking glory on the Green Line."

SUNDAY'S clashes contrasted starkly with the carefree intercommunal get-together staged last October by the UN peacekeepers at the old Ledra Hotel in the Nicosia buffer zone. Some 7,000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots flooded into the hotel and its gardens to celebrate the UN's 50th birthday.

That was almost certainly the largest such gathering since the Turkish Cypriot leadership left the Cyprus government in 1963 after the then president of the Republic, Archbishop Makarios, suggested amendments to the constitution which would have deprived the 18 per cent Turkish Cypriot minority of the power of veto over legislation.

The boycott of the government led to the enclavement of the Turkish Cypriots and the intervention of mainland Turkish troops to "protect" them. The two communities lived separately until the early 1970s when the Turkish Cypriots came out of the enclaves to work.

In 1973 the two sides came close to a negotiated solution. This was followed by the coup against Archbishop Makarios in July 1974 and the Turkish invasion, the expulsion of Greek Cypriots from the north and the transfer, under threat from the Turkish army, of the Turkish Cypriot population to the north.

For 22 years Mr Denktash has permitted little contact between the two communities, in spite of UN and other attempts to promote reconciliation and reunification.

But, as last year's birthday party in the buffer zone demonstrated, Greek and Turkish Cypriots need not clash violently when they meet and clashes ordered by politicians who seek to preserve separation need not wreck the peace process.