The Dayton Agreement on Bosnia Points the Way for Cyprus Solution

By Namik Korhan

It is likely that the one person most closely associated with negotiating an end to the Bosnian conflict, Richard Holbrooke, will easily recognize the similarities between Bosnia and Cyprus. Having helped end Europe's worst incidence of post-World War II ethnic cleansing, one may expect Mr. Holbrooke to contribute to the settlement of the dispute on the small island, 40 miles off the Turkish mainland. After all, the Serbs, in their bloody campaign against the Bosnian Muslims, took more than a page from Greek Cypriots—they read the whole book on ethnic cleansing.

The similarities between Bosnia and Cyprus are indeed striking. In Cyprus, as in Bosnia, a Muslim population lived side by side for years with a larger Orthodox Christian community. In both countries, extremists launched violent attacks against their vulnerable Muslim compatriots to drive them from their native lands. Three years after the British ceded power to the Republic of Cyprus, created in 1960 by the London and Zurich Agreements, Greek Cypriots expelled all Turkish Cypriots from the national government, denied us our guaranteed rights as equal partners and launched a reign of terror against their Turkish Cypriot neighbors.

The tactics used by the Greek Cypriots and the Serbs were the same—annihilation of entire communities, forced relocation and unchecked brutality. The immediate results were eerily similar as well: the aggressors got away with it. Here is how Rene MacColl and Daniel MacGeachle of London's Daily Express reported on the initial stages of the violence on Dec. 28, 1963:

"We went tonight into the sealed-off Turkish quarter of Nicosia in which 200 to 300 people had been slaughtered in the last five days. We are the first Western reporters there and we have seen sights too frightful to be described in print and horrors so extreme that people seemed stunned beyond tears and reduced to a mirthless giggle that is more terrible than tears."

Three days later, London's Daily Herald reported: "A few days ago, 1,000 people lived here, in their solid stone built homes which hug the coast road to Kyrenia, 13 miles from Nicosia. Then in a night of terror, 350 villagers—men, women and children—vanished. They were all Turks." Substitute "Bosnian Muslims" for "Turks" and both accounts could have been written from Tuzla, Mostar or Sarajevo.

These and other reports were followed up with very little official action to halt the slaughter. In Bosnia, the West hemmed and hawed for months, while snipers rained bullets on civilians and shells exploded in downtown Sarajevo. In Cyprus, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was deployed in 1964 and still remains there more than 30 years—and hundreds of lost lives—later.

And, in both cases, the aggression did not end until a third party asserted itself. For Cyprus, that was Turkey, which assumed its right as a guarantor to protect the Turkish Cypriot community after a Greek-engineered coup on the island. Ten years into UNFICYP's ineffective mission, Turkey intervened to stop what the U.N. and the West would not—the systematic, government-sponsored elimination of the Turkish Cypriot community. In that respect, the 1974 Turkish military intervention was one of the great humanitarian acts of this half century, accomplishing what the U.N. failed to do in more than a decade of "peacekeeping."

But if an agreement can be reached in Bosnia, there is reason to believe that a similar solution might also prevail in Cyprus. In fact, the Dayton Agreement gives us hope precisely because it contains many of the same elements that the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has long contended must be part of any solution on Cyprus. Foremost among these is the inviolate principle that we will never agree to any solution that does not explicitly guarantee the security of the Turkish Cypriot community, which will only occur under a system that acknowledges our full political equality. Once the Greek Cypriots accept and respect this incontrovertible fact, the basic elements of a solution will fall into place, including:

* Recognition of the sovereignty of the Turkish Cypriot community. In 1960, the Turkish Cypriot community entered into a partnership with our Greek Cypriot countrymen to form the short-lived Republic of Cyprus. We will never again place our families in the position of relying on the good will alone of the Greek Cypriots. Sovereignty, born of true political equality, is the only safeguard we have.

* Establishment of a Federal Republic. Once the Turkish Cypriot community is accepted as an equally sovereign partner, the next step will be to create a bi-zonal, federal state that will allow both communities significant powers to manage their own affairs. Such a state would have a central government with representation from both sides, and would be responsible for managing the fundamental issues affecting the entire island.

* Respect for the United Nations negotiations. UNFICYP aside, the U.N. has made a sincere effort to resolve the post-1974 Cyprus situation through negotiations. In 1994, TRNC President Rauf Denktash formally accepted virtually all of the U.N.'s Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) for Cyprus which, if enacted, would have laid the foundation for serious long-range negotiations. The Greek Cypriots initially expressed approval of the CBMs, assuming the Turkish Cypriot side would reject them. When TRNC President Denktash said yes, however, the Greek Cypriot side quickly changed its position to no. The same fate befell the 1985 and 1986 U.N.-brokered Framework Agreements.

* Conceding the "enosis" fantasy. The Serbs dreamed of creating a "Greater Serbia" from Bosnian territory. The Greek Cypriot equivalent is "enosis"—annexation of Cyprus by Greece, over the dead bodies of Turkish Cypriots if necessary. In 1974, Greek military officers who felt the ethnic-cleansing campaign was not progressing fast enough staged a coup against the Greek Cypriot administration, which triggered the legal Turkish military response. Part and parcel of recognizing the equality of the Turkish Cypriot community is giving up the pan-Hellenic notion that Cyprus will ever become a Greek possession.

Each of these broad themes has been incorporated into the Dayton Agreement with the consent of the Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims. Yet the Greek Cypriots, despite years of lip service, have demonstrated no seriousness in reaching an agreement based on these themes. In fact, it is quite the opposite.

The Greek Cypriots have engineered a cruel embargo on the TRNC that has left the economy in dire straits. They routinely shut off water and electricity to the north. Their duplicity at the bargaining table has left U.N. negotiators at their wits end for decades. They have laid claim to the title "Republic of Cyprus" and misrepresent themselves as speaking for the entire island's inhabitants. Unfortunately, the unthinking recognition by the West of the Greek Cypriots as the "government of Cyprus" has emboldened them to reject sharing power with Turkish Cypriots. Instead of coming to terms with us, they would rather pursue membership in the European Union—which we also support—provided a just solution is first achieved. These actions clearly demonstrate that the Greek Cypriots have no intention of accepting our one immutable requirement—equality for the Turkish Cypriot community.

Now that international attention once again is turning toward Cyprus, we Turkish Cypriots find ourselves in a peculiar position. There is no denying the outstanding lobbying capabilities of the Greek Cypriots, who, in an Orwellian twist, would have the world believe they are the victims. They continue to press their case against us and Turkey, diligently crossing the 't's and dotting the 'i's of their legal briefs, pressuring European governments into taking harsh measures against the TRNC and obfuscating the issue by focusing international attention on the Turkish military presence, rather than addressing core issues. (Incidentally, the Athens Court of Appeals ruled that the intervention was legal and that Turkey acted entirely within its rights as a Guarantor Power to save the Turkish Cypriots.) Meanwhile, south Cyprus has become a money-laundering haven for the Russian underworld and a base of operations for international terrorist groups.

Having won the battle 21 years ago to stay alive, we are losing the public relations war to the very oppressors who caused the present situation. The Turkish intervention was the final chapter of a decade-long Greek tragedy forced on the Turkish Cypriots, not the beginning of it.

The Turkish Cypriot residents of tiny Sandallar, Murataga and Atlilar villages could attest to this. Many of them already had endured severe hardship until the night when, as they were called out of their homes by Greek Cypriots who knew them by name, they were gunned down. All 126 of them, including babies as young as 16 days old, were buried in mass graves. Today, all that is left is a quiet memorial listing the names of each of the murdered, the burning memory each Turkish Cypriot has of those dark days, and our commitment to ensure that it never happens again.

Namik Korhan is the Washington representative of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.