An Irishman’s Diary: Cyprus

An Irishman’s Diary
Patrick Comerford

Sir Garnet Wolseley: first British High Commissioner of Cyprus

Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived in the port of Larnaca on July 22nd, 1878, with 1,500 British troops, to a warm welcome from Bishop Kyriannos of Kitium. A week later, Wolseley took up residence in Nicosia as the first British High Commissioner or governor and commander-in-chief. Wolseley was an Irishman through and through, and a curious link in the inextricable association between Ireland and Cyprus, two islands at the north-west and south-east extremities of Europe.

The Wolseley family gave its name to Mount Wolseley in Co Carlow, while Garnet's younger brother, Frederick York Wolseley, gave his name to Wolseley motor cars. Both brothers were born in Dublin in Goldenbridge House, now part of the famous convent and school in Inchicore.

Garnet Wolseley (1833-1913) might have been destined for a life in holy orders: his grandfather, no fewer than six of his uncles, and four first cousins were clergymen in the Church of Ireland. But instead he entered the British army and followed a career that took him to Burma, Crimea, India, China, the Gold Coast, Egypt and South Africa.

Suez Canal

For much of that career, his aide-de-camp was Lord Charles William Beresford from Portlaw, Co Waterford, son of the fourth Lord Waterford, who was also a rector in the Diocese of Armagh. Wolseley’s stay on Cyprus was short if not sweet: he left within a year to become Governor of Natal and Transvaal. Later, he commanded the British forces in Egypt, where he captured the Suez Canal. His victory at Tel el-Kabir earned him a peerage from Gladstone and gave an exotic name to a Dublin dairy, the TEK. Wolseley’s expedition to save Khartoum arrived two days after Gordon had been killed; he earned himself another peerage for his pains.

After Wolseley and Beresford left Cyprus, the British administrators on the island were soon joined by other Irish-born officials: the future Lord Kitchener mapped the island, and was an enthusiastic curator of the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia.

The eventual departure of the British from Cyprus in 1960 marked the passing of just the latest in a long line of foreign rulers, including Ottoman Turks, Venetians, Genoese, French, Crusader knights, Arabs, Byzantines and Romans. But Cyprus never lost its essentially Greek character. In Greek mythology, this was the island where Aphrodite was born; philosophers know it as the birthplace of Zeno the Stoic; classicists treasure its Minoan remains; Biblical scholars know Paul and Barnabas preached the Gospel here; the world of theatre associates it with Othello; while lovers of literature know its links with Lawrence Durrell and the Nobel prize-winning Greek poet, George Seferis, who wrote many of his love poems at Ayia Napa and on the coasts and bays nearby.

Wedding business

Perhaps it was because this was the island of love, rather than military expediency, that Richard the Lionheart decided to have his wedding here during the Crusades. But when he married Berengaria of Navarre on May 12th, 1191, in Limassol, he could hardly have realised he was the forerunner of a healthy sector of the Cypriot economy: in recent years the wedding-with-honeymoon package-holiday business has been a major growth area of the tourist industry.

The Anglican chaplain in Paphos can expect up to 400 weddings this year, while his counterpart in Ayia Napa, the Rev Robin Brookes, former Rector of Drumcondra, is expecting about 150. “Last year it was, at times, pretty exhausting, when there were eight in a week, two weeks running – which also means there will have been eight interviews and eight rehearsals, as well as the wedding service for real.”

This year, he says, “the first wedding of the season was on Valentine’s Day, the last is at the end of October.” One recent wedding almost took place in the Lito Clinic because the bridegroom had a ruptured appendix. But the crisis was dealt with in time for him to come and make his vows at the small Ecumenical Gatehouse Chapel, shared by Anglicans, Lutherans and Catholics in the cloisters of Ayia Napa Monastery. “Another couple were totally on their own,” says Robin Brookes, “so that my wife Val and one of the tour company wedding reps had to act as witnesses.”

On Sunday evenings in summer, he leads a small congregation of holiday-makers in the Capo Bay Hotel in Protaras. But the congregation in Ayia Napa serves a population of “ex-pats” from disparate backgrounds, including Switzerland, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Britain and Ireland.

Irish parishioners

He was hardly surprised to find Irish clerical colleagues and parishioners when he arrived. They include a Baptist pastor from Northern Ireland stationed with the United Nations peace-keeping forces, and “Sue at the washing machine shop, who was in a Northern Ireland parish when the Archbishop of Armagh was the curate and youth leader!”

The use of the gatehouse chapel was a generous gesture, but was part of the long ecumenical tradition of the monastery. The original church had a double nave, serving both Greek Orthodox and Latin Catholic traditions, while the monastery has served as a conference centre for the World Council of Churches.

On the steps outside stands a sycamore tree where the poet Seferis was honoured after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1963. Some of his most romantic love poems and songs were inspired by the bays and beaches around Ayia Napa, and Sto periyiali to chripho (“On the secret seashore”), set to music by Mikis Theodorakis, has lost none of its popularity for Greeks and Cypriots alike.

The island of Aphrodite continues to inspire and attract both lovers and poets.

This feature was first published in The Irish Times on 9 May 2000

Nicosia waits for the Green Line to fade away

Letter from Nicosia
Patrick Comerford

In the fashionable pedestrianised shopping area of Nicosia, close to the Green Line dividing Cyprus, a little shop in Lidhras Street still sells John Hinde postcards of the Ledra Palace Hotel, dating back to 1963 and still praising it for its “extensive gardens … luxurious bedrooms and suites and the largest conference and banqueting facilities on the island”.

But the Ledra Palace has not been used as a hotel for more than a quarter of a century. Instead it serves as headquarters for the UN peacekeeping forces on the island, standing at the only crossing point in the world’s last divided capital.

All along the Green Line in Nicosia, sentry boxes are posted at every gap between buildings and tense soldiers stand guard. A few short metres from the postcard shop in Lidhras Street, an exhibition of photographs outside the police station is a reminder of the 1,619 Greek Cypriots still missing and unaccounted for in the 26 years since the Turkish invasion in 1974: a young boy in tears as he holds up his parents' wedding photograph, a group of women in mourning black, holding single photographs of missing husbands, brothers or sons.

From a viewing platform at the nearby checkpoint it is possible to peer into the buffer zone where Lidhras Street continues straight through into the northern sector, on towards the Kyrenia Gate in the Venetian Walls on the other side of city.

Greek and Armenian names can still be seen on the forlorn, empty shops: Artin Bohdjalian and Sons; an Avis car rental agency with its faded, rusting, signs in Greek; Loizos Theophanous, who sold Harrison worsted suits; the hang-over balconies of neo-classical and modern buildings, the deserted and abandoned shops and restaurants. A stray, mangy tomcat picking his way through the overgrowth and rubble of deserted Ermou Street is the only sign of life in the buffer zone.

But the barbed wire, bricked-up walls and sentry boxes fail to hide the fact that this is a mixed city, no matter what has happened in the past. No armies and no political stubbornness can mask the fact that Nicosia was – and still has the potential to be – a mixed and cosmopolitan city. The cafe at the checkpoint dividing Phaneromeni Street has two names that are equally apt: “Berlin 2” and “Check Point Charly”.

Sitting, sipping a Cypriot coffee – it tastes the same whether it’s called Greek coffee or Turkish coffee – in the shade from the noonday sun, I hear the bells from Phaneromeni Church in the square nearby mingle with the call to prayer from the twin minarets of the Selimiye Mosque, once Ayia Sofia Cathedral, a few metres away inside northern Nicosia.

Ermou Street continues through the northern side of the buffer zone to the Paphos Gate in the old Venetian walls, ending in the most anomalous enclave. Holy Cross Church, run by the Franciscans and used mainly by domestic workers from Sri Lanka and the Philippines, is technically within Turkish-Cypriot territory. But the street has been cut short and blocked off before its front door, and the rear of the building has been sealed off, so access to the church can be gained only from the southern-controlled side by passing through an unmanned UN barrier. The surrounding buildings have been sandbagged and blocked up.

But then, Nicosia is a city of anomalies and contradictions. There are mosques in the heart of the Greek Cypriot quarters, and churches in the Turkish-controlled areas. Ethnic cleansing is never clean, and it seldom achieves its intended aims.

At the opposite end, on the eastern side of the city, Ermou Street emerges once again into the government-controlled side of the Green Line, close to the Archbishop’s Palace with its larger-than-life statue of the late Archbishop Makarios. The surrounding Tahtakale and Khrysaliniotissa districts could be the settings for pretty postcards from sun-kissed Greek islands in the Cyclades or the Dodecannese, with domed churches, whitewashed houses and wrought-iron balconies.

The “dead zone” is narrower here, and houses and businesses are full of life and commerce right up to the barriers. Dozens of homes have been renovated for young families in an effort to bring new life into the area.

The mayors and officials on both sides have agreed that when the barriers eventually tumble, Nicosia should not confront the same problems that faced Berlin when the wall came down. Pedestrianised streets on one side continue on to pedestrianised streets on the other, at least on the maps; shopping areas match shopping areas; housing renovation projects complement each other, and there are surprising stories of co-operation when it comes to laying sewage pipes or supplying electricity.

But the Ledra Palace Hotel, with its UN checkpoints flanked by Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot barriers and photo exhibitions, remains the only legal crossing from one side of Nicosia to the other. Walking along Markhou Dhrakou Avenue as it changes into Ikinci Selim Avenue is a sad experience. Neo-classical villas of a similar vintage stand beside one another. But one can have all the happy signs of family life, and stand beside another caught behind the zigzag of the Green Line, deserted and dilapidated, with the unpicked oranges rotting on the trees in the overgrown garden.

The contrasts are sharp. Cypriots on the southern side are told they live in Europe’s fourth richest economy. In northern Nicosia, the pockmarked streets badly need repairing, poverty is visible in the side streets, shops are badly stocked, buildings are crumbling, and the overbearing enthusiasm of officials in the tourist information kiosk close to the Kyrenia Gate betrays the fact that this side of Cyprus gets few visitors compared to the 2.5 million tourists expected to visit the rest of the island this year.

There can be no doubt about who stands to make the most economic gains when Cyprus is reunited. Talking to the people in the streets on each side, there is no doubt that they trust each other, and possibly want to trust each other’s politicians. Before he underwent his operation yesterday morning, President Glafkos Clerides received a goodwill message from the Turkish-Cypriot leader, Mr Rauf Denktash.

Whether the politicians can offer each other concessions that match the generosity of people on the streets remains to be seen. A new round of proximity talks are due to begin once Mr Clerides has recovered. Sadly, there are no major concessions on the negotiating table to date.

This international news feature was first published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Saturday 6 May 2000

Cyprus on the fast track for EU membership by 2003

Easter came a week later for the Greek Orthodox world this year

By Patrick Comerford

Easter came a week later for the Greek Orthodox world this year. Last weekend, the churches of Nicosia were overflowing for three days, with crowds spilling on to the streets for the traditional services, processions, fireworks and bonfires.

Church bells rang out throughout the old walled city, mingling with the amplified call to prayer from the minarets of the mosques a few short metres away, on the other side of the buffer zone that divides Cyprus and its capital.

Tourists could be forgiven for thinking that this is a solidly traditional society for which little has changed since the Turkish invasion in 1974. But the Republic of Cyprus has seen successive, dramatic changes in its economy in less than a generation, putting it on the fast track for EU membership by the year 2003.

The Turkish invasion dealt a major blow to the island's economy. For example, up to 92 per cent of the tourist economy was concentrated in the invaded area. The two principal resorts, Kyrenia and Famagusta, were captured. After the invasion, there were few developed beach resorts in the government-controlled two-thirds of the island and the economy had to be rebuilt from scratch.

Small farms, the export of early crops such as new potatoes and citrus fruits, and small, light industries, including clothing and footwear, provided the base for a new start.

Since then, however, Cyprus has been transformed, with the rebuilding of the tourist sector, and in recent years the growth of the service sector, particularly offshore banking and facilities.

In the 1950s, agriculture was the mainstay of the economy; but today it contributes only 4.5 per cent of GNP, mainly through cash crops such as early potatoes and citrus fruits. Industrial output as a percentage of GNP has been declining each year and now stands at 11 per cent. With full employment and a labour shortage, the government is trying to shift industry away from labour-intensive manufacturing areas, such as clothing and footwear.

Labour in Cyprus ‘is scarce and expensive’, says Mr Antis Nathanael of the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the government needs to give incentives for industrial restructuring and investment in new technology. The models of the Republic and Israel are being cited for the development of hitech industries, although he is sceptical, saying: ‘I don’t think it’s going to be successful”.

Today, the services sector, including tourism and offshore banking, accounts for 75 per cent of the economy, according to Mr Georgios Georgiou, the planning bureau’s senior officer for economic relations with the EU. This is the sector “driving the economy of Cyprus”, says Mr Nathanael.

Both tourism and off-shore banking have built their success on the island's obvious assets: the sun, business skills and easy access to the Middle East. With up to 2.5 million visitors predicted this year, tourism is expected to bring in one billion Cypriot pounds (€2.2 billion) this year.

Other growth areas in the services sector include third-level education and private medical services, attracting customers and clients from neighbouring states in the Middle East and North Africa.

But the surprising growth area has been the international business provided by offshore companies.
At first, offshore companies were attracted to Cyprus after the Lebanese civil war forced many businesses to leave Beirut. More than 40,000 offshore activities are registered on the island, bringing in Cyp£400 million in annual revenue. The majority are name plates, but more than 2,000 actually operate in Cyprus.

According to Dr George Georgiou of the international business department of the Central Bank of Cyprus, there is no one identifiable specialisation, and they include a variety of companies, such as banking, trading, printing, ship management and marketing.

Mr Nathanael points out that “international businesses”, as he prefers to call the offshore sector, have located on the island “not because it is beautiful, which it is”, but because of the facilities provided by Cypriot banks, the large pool of well-trained and skilled lawyers and accountants, easy access to the Middle East and the former Soviet Union, an increasing number of double-taxation agreements, and the success of the new Cyprus Stock Exchange.

Other factors include the fact that English is widely spoken, the island is “relatively crime-free”, a relatively low cost of living, and, according to Dr Georgiou, the island has excellent infrastructures, including telecommunications.

Both Dr Georgiou and Mr Nathanael dismiss allegations that the stock exchange and the offshore sector have been used to launder money from questionable sources in Russia.

Dr Georgiou wants to maintain the offshore sector for as long as possible and believes Cyprus “is not prepared to abandon the whole sector, not even in the medium-run”. In the long-run, he accepts some changes will have to be made, but points out: “It is too important a sector for us to give up just like that.”

He points to other offshore locations that have benefited member-states, naming the Republic and Luxembourg, along with Gibraltar, Madeira and Trieste. He believes tax harmonisation may be a far more sensitive issue, but says: “We may not even see this in my lifetime.”

Cypriot membership would be no cost to the EU, according to the island's chief negotiator and former president, Mr George Vassiliou.

As Cyprus moves rapidly towards EU accession, the public debt, the continuing division of the island and the potential costs of reunification appear to be the main concerns for business in Cyprus, according to Mr Vassiliou.

The government plans to raise VAT from 8 to 10 per cent to reduce the public debt, and Dr Georgiou says the government is committed to raising VAT to 15 per cent.

Mr Vassiliou argues that a special levy on stock exchange transactions could easily produce the 1 per cent of GDP required to bring the debt under 3 per cent.

Mr Georgiou expects the current three-year programme will reduce the deficit to 2 per cent by 2002, leaving Cyprus ready for accession the following year.

However, the continuing division of the island could be a more difficult problem to wipe out.

This news feature was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Friday 5 May 2000