The Dysfunction of the Division of Cyprus

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

April 7, 2008

Another gate in one of the world's last cities to be divided by ethnic hostility has opened, and before it closed again for absurd reasons a day later, over 2,000 Cypriots had crossed the UN-maintained corridor in Nicosia to see what had been closed for 44 years. Unfortunately for the keepers of the fragile order during the opening, a band of flag-waving Greek Cypriots instigated a confrontation with Turkish police, who entered the neutral zone to pursue them. Within moments, the short sunshine of tolerance was darkened, and both sides reverted to banal finger pointing as to who violated the agreement first. The short confrontation was serious enough to tug Greek Cypriot leader Dimitris Christofias home to oversee the situation, having left London in a hurry to underscore the importance of talks this summer with his Turkish counterpart on reuniting the island. There is a good chance that an easing of tension can be obtained, mainly because both sides have found that the division is no longer appealing to the island as a whole.

The problem with Cyprus is the uneasy history of the Turks and Greeks who have lived there together for centuries. It was shortly after the Venice took control of the island in 1489 that the Ottoman Turks began bombarding the Greek ports, looking to take the island from their rivals in trade on the Mediterranean- the Venetians. The Greeks of Cyprus suffered raid after raid, and while they were given weapons to defend themselves, the attacks on low-lying ports were overpowering; by 1580 the Venetians had abandoned the Greeks, and it is here that a very unusual history of coexistence begins. Under Ottoman rule, the Greeks were not only allowed to maintain their religion, but the new Turkish land owning system had inadvertently freed an entire agrarian peasant class from feudalism. As a result, the Greeks on the island were able to form a state within a state, and despite the abusive bureaucracy and high taxation exacted upon them by the Turks, the Greeks gained more and more autonomy as the years went by.

Ownership of the island changed literally after the 1878 Russo-Turkish War when the British managed to lease the entire island until the middle of the 20th century. Greece on the European mainland had won its independence in 1830 after a bloody war with the Turks, and now Greek Cypriots under British rule were hoping for an English fast-track to reunification with Greece proper. The first accurate census for the island came in 1872, and it measured about 44% Turks and 56% Greeks, making any negotiations between the two tricky and elusive. But the Turkish population would shrink to a number easily dominated by the Greeks once Turkey lost any claims it had on the island in 1925; from that point on, it looked as if the Greeks would once again have the upper hand on Cyprus.

But the harmony was not meant to last. In 1950, Great Britain was all but bankrupt and had no resources to control the uppity Greeks and their nationalism, and the forced divisions between ethnic neighborhoods gave way to independence in 1960. In this way the Greeks and Turks were finally left to themselves to form a government, and that lasted all but 4 years before the UN had to launch a peace keeping force to keep the two ethnic communities separate.

And this is where it stands- an island divided by a UN-enforced Green Zone. It can also be said that beyond Korea, Cyprus represents one of the UN's greatest failures, in that it has not been able to solve the problems, just douse them temporarily. Interestingly it was the Greeks and Turks themselves who were finally able to start talking again- 44 years after they last shared a common island. While Greeks and Turks may never get along famously, it won't be the first time that sworn enemies have managed to actually co-exist and thrive. Economically, Cyprus is suffering from the "Zax" syndrome- the practice of both sides being too stubborn to take the first move. The lure of EU membership and a greater share in the tourist industry have so far proven powerful, and with the opening of Ledra Street in Nicosia we just might see the division eventually going the way of the walls in Northern Ireland, Berlin and the Iron Curtain.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.