Cyprus

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The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of the writers of the 1980 edition of Cyprus: A Country Study, edited by Frederica M. Bunge. Portions of their work were incorporated into this volume.

The authors are grateful to individuals in various United States government agencies and international, diplomatic, and private institutions who gave of their time, research materials, expertise, and photographs in the production of this book. Special thanks are owed to the Embassy of Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot Office, both in Washington, D.C. Thanks are also due to Ralph K. Benesch, who oversees the area handbook program for the Department of the Army. The authors also wish to thank members of the Federal Research Division staff who contributed directly to the preparation of the manuscript. These people include Sandra W. Meditz, who reviewed all drafts and served as liaison with the sponsoring agency; and Marilyn L. Majeska, who managed editing and book production.

Also involved in preparing the text were editorial assistants Barbara Edgerton and Izella Watson; Duncan M. Brown, who edited chapters; Cissie Coy, who performed the prepublication editorial review; and Joan C. Cook, who compiled the index. Linda Peterson sndd Malinda B. Neale of the Library of Congress Composition Unit prepared the camera-ready copy under the supervision of Peggy Pixley.

Graphics were prepared by David P. Cabitto, who also designed the volume's cover. Gail Oring designed the illustrations on each chapter's title page. David P. Cabitto, Harriet R. Blood, and the firm of Greenhorne and O'Mara prepared the maps from Tim Merrill's drafts.

Cyprus - Preface

This edition of Cyprus: A Country Study replaces the previous edition published in 1980. Like its predecessor, the present book attempts to treat in a compact and objective manner the dominant historical, social, economic, political, and national security aspects of contemporary Cyprus. Sources of information included scholarly books, journals, and monographs; official reports and documents of governments and international organizations; and foreign and domestic newspapers and periodicals. Researchers of Cypriot affairs face both feast and famine. There is much information about the origins and development of the island's complex intercommunal problem, some of it of a high quality. But readers curious about less vital political issues, or searching for economic or social data, often will find information sparse or of dubious validity.

The contemporary place-names used in this study are those approved by the United States Board on Geographic Names, as set forth in the official gazetteer published in 1953. The Turkish name of towns or geographic formations located in the Turkish Cypriotadministered area are provided in parentheses after the placename 's first appearance in a chapter. Greek Cypriot names are transliterated as they commonly appear in English-language publications. Because the United States government does not recognize the Turkish Cypriot state created in Novemeber 1983, its name, the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"), is placed within quotation marks.

The body of the text reflects information available as of January 1991. Certain other portions of the text, however, have been updated. The Bibliography lists published sources thought to be particularly helpful to the reader.

Cyprus - HISTORY

THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS was established in 1960, after the former colony gained independence from Britain. Since 1974, however, a de facto division of the island has existed, with the Greek Cypriot community controlling 63 percent of the territory, and the Turkish Cypriots, backed by Turkish army units, 37 percent. The scene of constant anticolonial and intercommunal strife since the mid-1950s, Cyprus assumed an importance out of proportion to its size and population because of its strategic location and its impact on the national interests of other nations. The island's location in the eastern Mediterranean Sea has made it easily accessible from Europe, Asia, and Africa since the earliest days of ships. Its timber and mineral resources made it important as a source of trade goods in the ancient world, but attracted conquerors, pirates, and adventurers in addition to merchants and settlers. About the middle of the second millennium B.C. Cyprus was subjected to foreign domination for the first time, and from then until 1960, almost without interruption, outside powers controlled the island and its people.

Christianity was introduced early in the Christian Era, when Cyprus was under Roman rule, by the apostles Paul, Mark, and Barnabas. The martyrdom of Barnabas and the later discovery of his tomb are particularly important events in the history of the Church of Cyprus and were instrumental in its becoming autocephalous rather than remaining subordinate to the patriarchate of Antioch. After doctrinal controversies split Christianity between East and West, the church survived 400 years of attempts by Roman Catholic rulers to force recognition of the authority of the pope in Rome. After Cyprus's conquest by Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century, the sees of the Orthodox bishops were reestablished, according to the Ottoman practice of governing through a millet (a community distinguished by religion) system. Provided a millet met the empire's demands, its leaders enjoyed a degree of autonomy. The head of the Greek Cypriot millet, the archbishop, was therefore both a religious and a secular leader, and it was entirely consistent with historical tradition that, in the anticolonial struggle of the mid-1950s, Archbishop Makarios III emerged as the leader of the Greek Cypriots and was subsequently elected president of the new republic.

After Greece had won its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, the idea of enosis (union with Greece) took hold among ethnic Greeks living in the Ionian and Aegean islands, Crete, Cyprus, and areas of Anatolia. Britain ceded the Ionian Islands to Greece in 1864, and after control of Cyprus passed from the Ottoman Empire to the British Empire in 1878, Greek Cypriots saw the ceding of the Ionian islands as a precedent for enosis for themselves. Under British rule, agitation for enosis varied with time. After World War II, in the era of the breakup of colonial empires, the movement gained strength, and Greek Cypriots spurned British liberalization efforts. In the mid-1950s, when anticolonial guerrilla activities began, Turkish Cypriots--who until that time had only rarely expressed opposition to enosis--began to agitate for taksim, or partition, and Greece and Turkey began actively to support their respective ethnic groups on the island.

After four years of guerrilla revolt by Greek Cypriots against the British, a compromise settlement was reached, in Zurich between Greece and Turkey and in London among representatives of Greece, Turkey, and Britain and the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. As a result of this settlement, Cyprus became an independent republic. Independence was marked on August 16, 1960. In separate communal elections Makarios became president, and Fazil K���k, leader of the Turkish Cypriots, became vice president. In the early 1960s, political arguments over constitutional interpretation continually deadlocked the government. Greek Cypriots insisted on revision of the constitution and majority rule. Turkish Cypriots argued for strict constructionism, local autonomy, and the principle of minority veto. The result was stalemate. Intercommunal violence broke out in December 1963, and resulted in the segregation of the two ethnic communities and establishment of the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP). Even with United Nations (UN) troops as a buffer, however, intermittent conflict continued and brought Greece and Turkey to the brink of war in 1964 and 1967.

The irony of the divided Cyprus that has existed since 1974 is that the stage was set for Turkish intervention by the Greek government in Athens. The military junta that controlled Greece came to view Archbishop Makarios as an obstacle to settlement of the Cyprus problem and establishment of better relations between Athens and Ankara. A successful coup was engineered in Cyprus in July 1974, Makarios was ousted, and a puppet president installed. Turkey, as one of the guarantor powers according to the agreements that led to Cypriot independence, sent troops into Cyprus to restore order. Britain, as another guarantor power, refused to participate. Meanwhile, in Greece the junta had collapsed, and a new government was being established. After a short cease-fire and a few days of hurried negotiations, the Turkish government reinforced its troops and ordered them to secure the northern part of the island.

Turkish forces seized 37 percent of the island and effected a de facto partition that was still in existence at the beginning of the 1990s. Turkish Cypriots declared the establishment of their own state in 1983, but as of 1990 only Turkey had recognized the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus." Although more populous and considerably richer, and enjoying international recognition, the Republic of Cyprus had not been able to regain its lost territory. Increased military expenditures could not offset the considerable Turkish military presence on the island. Years of laborious negotiations at numerous venues had also achieved little toward ending the island's tragic division.

Cyprus - ANCIENT PERIOD

Human settlements existed on Cyprus as early as 5800 B.C., during the Neolithic Era or New Stone Age. The Neolithic Cypriots' origin is uncertain. Some evidence, including artifacts of Anatolian obsidian, suggests that the setters were related to the peoples of Asia Minor (present-day Turkey). The discovery of copper on the island around 3000 B.C. brought more frequent visits from traders. Trading ships were soon bringing settlers to exploit the mineral wealth.

During the long progression from stone to bronze, many Neolithic villages were abandoned, as people moved inland to settle on the great plain (the Mesaoria) and in the foothills of the mountains. Also during this era of transition, Cypriot pottery was distinctive in shape and design, and small figurines of fertility goddesses appeared for the first time. During the same period, Cypriots were influenced by traders from the great Minoan civilization that had developed on Crete, but, although trade was extensive, few settlers came to Cyprus. The Minoan traders developed a script for Cypriot commerce, but unfortunately extant examples still await decipherment. The cultural advances, thriving economy, and relative lack of defenses invited the attention of more powerful neighbors, and during the Late Bronze Age (about 1500 B.C.), the forces of the Egyptian pharaoh, Thutmose III, invaded the island.

After 1400 B.C., Mycenaean and Mycenaean-Achaean traders from the northeastern Peloponnesus began regular commercial visits to the island. Settlers from the same areas arrived in large numbers toward the end of the Trojan War (traditionally dated about 1184 B.C.). Even in modern times, a strip of the northern coast was known as the Achaean Coast in commemoration of those early settlers. The newcomers spread the use of their spoken language and introduced a script that greatly facilitated commerce. They also introduced the potter's wheel and began producing pottery that eventually was carried by traders to many mainland markets. By the end of the second millennium B.C., a distinctive culture had developed on Cyprus. The island's culture was tempered and enriched by its position as a crossroads for the commerce of three continents, but in essence it was distinctively Hellenic. It is to this 3,000 years of Hellenic tradition that the present-day Greek Cypriots refer when arguing either for enosis or for their own dominance in an independent state.

Later Greek poets and playwrights frequently mention the early influences of Cyprus. Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and beauty, was said to have been born out of the sea foam on the island's west coast. The most important of many temples to Aphrodite was built at Paphos, where the love goddess was venerated for centuries, and even in modern times young women visited the ruins to make votive offerings and to pray for good marriages or fertility. Aphrodite is mentioned by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey, as is a Cypriot king, Kinyras, of Paphos.

The Late Bronze Age on Cyprus was characterized by a fusion of the indigenous culture and the cultures brought by settlers from the mainland areas. This fusion took place over a long period and was affected by shifting power relationships and major movements of peoples throughout the eastern Mediterranean area. Cyprus was affected particularly by the introduction of iron tools and weapons, signaling the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age, near the end of the second millennium B.C. Iron did not displace bronze overnight, any more than one culture immediately displaced another (pockets of native Cypriot culture, for example, existed for several more centuries), but the introduction of iron heralded major economic changes, and the numbers of Greek settlers ensured the dominance of their culture.

An important eastern influence during the early part of the first millennium B.C. came from a Phoenician settlement. The principal Phoenician concentration was at Kition, the modern city of Larnaca, on the southeast coast. Three thousand years later some Turks and Turkish Cypriots would try to use such influences to prove that eastern cultures predated Greek influence on the island. On this basis, modern Cypriots were said to be descended from Phoenician Cypriot forebears. Greek Cypriots responded that, even though visits by Phoenician traders probably occurred as early as the third millennium, colonists did not arrive until about 800 B.C. The Phoenicians settled in several areas and shared political control with the Greeks until the arrival of the Assyrians.

In 708 B.C. Cyprus encompassed seven independent kingdoms that were conquered by the Assyrian king, Sargon II. During the Assyrian dominance, about 100 years, Cypriot kings maintained considerable autonomy in domestic affairs and accumulated great wealth. The number of city-kingdoms increased to ten, one of which was Phoenician. The Cypriot kings were religious as well as secular leaders and generally commanded the city's defense forces. When Assyrian power and influence began to decline, near the end of the seventh century, Egypt filled the resulting vacuum in eastern Mediterranean affairs.

The Egyptian pharaohs had built a powerful fleet of war ships that defeated the combined fleets of Phoenicia and Cyprus, setting the stage for Egypt's domination of the eastern Mediterranean. During the Egyptian ascendancy, the Cypriot kings were again allowed to continue in power after pledging themselves vassals of the pharaoh. The main impact of Egyptian domination was the reorientation of commerce, making Egypt the principal market for Cypriot minerals and timber.

When Egypt fell to the Persians in the late sixth century, Cyprus was made part of a satrapy of King Darius. By the time of Persian domination, Salamis outshone the other city-kingdoms in wealth and splendor, and its kings were looked on as first among equals. Petty kings ruled at Amathus, Kition, Kyrenia, Lapithos, Kourion, Marion, Paphos, Soli, and Tamassos, but leadership in the fifth and fourth century struggles against the Persians stemmed from Salamis. The king of Salamis, Onesilos, is remembered as the hero who died leading the revolt against the Persians in 498 B.C.

The Cypriot kings continued to enjoy considerable autonomy while paying tribute to Persia, and were even allowed to strike their own coinage. They remained culturally oriented toward Greece, and when the Ionians revolted against the Persians, those of the Cypriot kings who were Greek also rebelled. The revolt was suppressed quickly, apparently without retaliation.

In 411 B.C. another Greek Cypriot, Evagoras, established himself as king of Salamis and worked for a united Cyprus that would be closely tied to the Greek states. By force and by guile, the new king brought other Cypriot kingdoms into line and led forces against Persia. He also allied the Cypriots with Athens, and the Athenians honored him with a statue in the agora. As the Salamisian king gained prominence and power in the eastern Mediterranean (even attacking Persian positions in Anatolia), the Persians tried to rid themselves of this threat, and eventually defeated the Cypriots. Through diplomacy Evagoras managed to retain the throne of Salamis, but the carefully nurtured union of the Cypriot kingdoms was dissolved. Although Cyprus remained divided at the end of his thirty-seven-year reign, Evagoras is revered as a Greek Cypriot of uncommon accomplishment. He brought artists and learned men to his court and fostered Greek studies. He was instrumental in having the ancient Cypriot syllabary replaced by the Greek alphabet. He issued coins of Greek design and in general furthered the integration of Greek and Cypriot culture.

Cypriot freedom from the Persians finally came in 333 B.C. when Alexander the Great decisively defeated Persia at the Battle of Issue. A short time later, the Cypriot kings were granted autonomy in return for helping Alexander at the siege of Tyre. The death of Alexander in 323 B.C. signaled the end of that short period of self-government. Alexander's heirs fought over Cyprus, a rich prize, for several years, but in 294 B.C. it was taken by Ptolemy, one of Alexander's generals, who had established himself as satrap (and eventual king) of Egypt. Under the rule of the Ptolemies, which lasted for two and one-half centuries, the city-kingdoms of Cyprus were abolished and a central administration established. The Ptolemaic period, marked by internal strife and intrigue, was ended by Roman annexation in 58 B.C..

At first Rome governed the island as part of the province of Cilicia, and for a time Cicero, the famous orator, was governor. Later, when administration was vested in the Roman Senate, the island was governed by a proconsul and divided into four districts, Amathus, Lapithos, Paphos, and Salamis. The government seat was at Paphos and the center of commerce at Salamis.

Although the object of Roman occupation was to exploit the island's resources for the ultimate gain of the Roman treasury, the new rulers also brought a measure of prosperity as their enforced peace allowed the mines, industries, and commercial establishments to increase their activities. The Romans soon began building new roads, harbors, and public buildings. Although Paphos supplanted Salamis as the capital, the latter retained its glory, remaining a center of culture and education as well as of commerce. An earthquake leveled much of Salamis in 15 B.C., but the Emperor Augustus bestowed his favor on the city and had it rebuilt in the grand Roman fashion of the time.

Salamis was shattered by earthquakes again in the fourth century. Again reconstructed, although on a smaller scale, the city never achieved its former magnificence. When its harbor silted up in medieval times, it was abandoned to the drifting coastal sand that eventually covered it. Twentieth-century archaeologists have uncovered much of ancient Salamis, revealing glories from every epoch from the Bronze Age to its final abandonment.

The single most important event during Roman rule was the introduction of Christianity during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. According to tradition, the apostle Paul landed at Salamis in A.D. 45, accompanied by Barnabas, also a convert to Christianity and an apostle. Barnabas's arrival was a homecoming; he was a native of Salamis, of Hellenized Jewish parentage. The two missionaries traveled across Cyprus preaching the new religion and making converts. At Paphos they converted the Roman proconsul, Sergius Paulus, who became the first Roman of noble birth to accept Christianity, thus making Cyprus the first area of the empire to be governed by a Christian.

In 285 the Emperor Diocletian undertook the reorganization of the Roman Empire, dividing its jurisdiction between its Latin- speaking and Greek-speaking halves. Diocletian's successor, Constantine, accepted conversion and became the first Christian Roman emperor. In 324 he established his imperial residence at Byzantium, on the shore of the Bosporus. Byzantium was renamed Constantinople and eventually became the capital of the Byzantine (Eastern) Empire.

Cyprus - THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

From Constantine's establishment of the Byzantine Empire until the crusaders arrived more than 800 years later, the history of Cyprus is part of the history of that empire. Under Byzantine rule, the Greek orientation that had been prominent since antiquity developed the strong Hellenistic-Christian character that continues to be a hallmark of the Greek Cypriot community.

By the time Constantine accepted Christianity for himself, the new religion was probably already predominant on Cyprus, owing basically to the early missionary work of Paul, Barnabas, and Mark. Earthquakes in the early fourth century created havoc on the island, and drought seriously damaged the economy. However, the most significant event of the century was the struggle of the Church of Cyprus to maintain its independence from the patriarchs of Antioch. Three bishops represented Cyprus at the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325. At the second council (Sardica, 343), there were twelve Cypriot bishops, indicating a great increase in the number of communicants in the intervening years.

A major struggle concerning the status of the Church of Cyprus occurred at the third council, at Ephesus, in 431. The powerful patriarch of Antioch argued forcefully that the small Cypriot church belonged in his jurisdiction, but the Cypriot bishops held their ground, and the council decided in their favor. Antioch still did not relinquish its claim, however, and it was not until after the discovery of the tomb of Saint Barnabas containing a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew allegedly placed there by the apostle Mark that Emperor Zeno intervened and settled the issue. The Church of Cyprus was confirmed as being auto cephalous, that is, ecclesiastically autonomous, enjoying the privilege of electing and consecrating its own bishops and archbishops and ranking equally with the churches of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Constantinople.

Except for the religious disputes, a period of calm prevailed on Cyprus during the early Byzantine centuries. The social structure was rigid and codified in law. Under a law issued by Constantine, tenant farmers were made serfs and forbidden to leave the land on which they were born. A later law allowed runaways to be returned in chains and punished. Administration was highly centralized, with government officials responsible directly to the emperor. The wealthy landlord and merchant classes retained their age-old privileges. The connection between church and state grew closer. The pervasive organization and authority of the church, however, sometimes benefited the common man by interceding in cases of abuse of power by public officials or wealthy persons. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the level of prosperity permitted the construction of major cathedrals in several of the island's cities and towns. Salamis, renamed Constantia, again became the capital and witnessed another era of greatness. Archaeologists have uncovered an enormous fourth century basilica at the site.

The peace that many generations of Cypriots enjoyed during the middle centuries of the first millennium A.D. was shattered by Arab attacks during the reign of Byzantine emperor Constans II (641-68). Sometime between 647 and 649, Muawiyah, the amir of Syria (later caliph of the Muslim empire), led a 1,700-ship invasion fleet against Cyprus. Constantia was sacked and most of its population massacred. Muawiyah's destructive raid was only the first of a long series of attacks over the next 300 years. Many were merely quick piratical raids, but others were large-scale attacks in which many Cypriots were slaughtered and great wealth carried off or destroyed. No Byzantine churches survived the Muslim attacks. In A.D. 965, General Nicephorus Phocas (later emperor), leading the Byzantine imperial forces, drove the Arabs out of Crete and Cilicia and scored a series of victories on land and sea that led to the liberation of Cyprus after more than three centuries of constant turmoil.

The pitiable condition of the Cypriots during the three centuries of the Arab wars can only be imagined. Thousands upon thousands were killed, and other thousands were carried off into slavery. Death and destruction, rape and rampage were the heritage of unnumbered generations. Many cities and towns were destroyed, never to be rebuilt.

In the twelfth century Isaac Comnenos, a Byzantine governor, set himself up in the capital as the emperor of Cyprus, and the authorities in Constantinople were either too weak or too busy to do anything about the usurper. When an imperial fleet was eventually sent against Cyprus, Comnenos was prepared and, in league with Sicilian pirates, defeated the fleet and retained control of the island. Comnenos, a tyrant and murderer, was unlamented when swept from power by the king of England, Richard I the Lion-Heart.

After wintering in Sicily, Richard set sail en route to the Holy Land as a leader of the Third Crusade. But in April 1191 his fleet was scattered by storms off Cyprus. Two ships were wrecked off the southern coast, and a third, carrying Richard's fianc�e Berengaria of Navarre, sought shelter in Lemesos (Limassol). The wrecked ships were plundered and the survivors robbed by the forces of Comnenos, and the party of the bride-to-be was prevented from obtaining provisions and fresh water. When Richard arrived and learned of these affronts, he took time out from crusading, first to marry Berengaria in the chapel of the fortress at Lemesos and then to capture Cyprus and depose Comnenos. The capture of Cyprus, seemingly a footnote to history, actually proved beneficial to the crusaders whose foothold in the Holy Land had almost been eliminated by the Muslim commander Saladin. Cyprus became a strategically important logistic base and was used as such for the next 100 years.

When Richard defeated Comnenos, he extracted a huge bounty from the Cypriots. He then appointed officials to administer Cyprus, left a small garrison to enforce his rule, and sailed on to the Holy Land. A short time later, the Cypriots revolted against their new overlords. Although the revolt was quickly put down, Richard decided that the island was too much of a burden, so he sold it to the Knights Templars, a Frankish military order whose grand master was a member of Richard's coterie. Their oppressive, tyrannical rule made that of the avaricious Comnenos seem mild in comparison. The people again rebelled and suffered a massacre, but their persistence led the Templars, convinced that they would have no peace on Cyprus, to depart. Control of the island was turned over to Guy de Lusignan, the controversial ruler of the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem, who evidently agreed to pay Richard the amount still owed him by the Templars. More than 800 years of Byzantine rule ended as the Frankish Lusignan dynasty established a Western feudal system on Cyprus.

Cyprus - The Lusignan and Venetian Eras

Guy de Lusignan lived only two years after assuming control in 1192, but the dynasty that he founded ruled Cyprus as an independent kingdom for more than three centuries. In religious matters, Lusignan was tolerant of the Cypriot adherence to Orthodoxy, but his brother Amaury, who succeeded him, showed no such liberality, and the stage was set for a protracted struggle, which dominated the first half of the Lusignan period. At issue was the paramountcy of the Roman Catholic Church over the Orthodox church. Latin sees were established at Famagusta, Limassol, Nicosia, and Paphos; land was appropriated for churches; and authority to collect tithes was granted to the Latins. The harshness with which the Latin clergy attempted to gain control of the Church of Cyprus exacerbated the uneasy relationship between Franks and Cypriots. In 1260 Pope Alexander IV issued the Bulla Cypria, declaring the Latin church to be the official church of Cyprus, forcing the Cypriot clergy to take oaths of obedience, and claiming the right to all tithes. The papal ordinance had no more effect than the constant persecution or the frequent visits of high-ranking papal legates sent to convert the islanders. The Cypriots remained loyal to their Orthodox heritage, and by the middle of the fourteenth century the Latin clergy had become less determined in its efforts to Latinize the population. The dominance of the Latin church officially continued for another 200 years, but Cypriots followed the lead of their own clergy and refused to accept the imposition of their Western rulers' form of Christianity.

In the thirteenth century, the kings of Cyprus, particularly Hugh III (reigned 1267-84), tried to assist the Latin Christians of the Syrian mainland in their final efforts to retain their holdings. The Mamluks of Egypt, however, proved to be the decisive defeating factor, capturing Christian fortresses one after another as they moved along the eastern Mediterranean littoral toward Acre. With the fall of Acre in 1291, the remaining Christian positions were given up, and the Frankish lords and merchants retreated to Cyprus, which became a staging area for spasmodic and unprofitable attacks on Syria.

Throughout the period of Venetian rule, Ottoman Turks raided and attacked at will. In 1489, the first year of Venetian control, Turks attacked the Karpas Peninsula, pillaging and taking captives to be sold into slavery. In 1539 the Turkish fleet attacked and destroyed Limassol. Fearing the ever-expanding Ottoman Empire, the Venetians had fortified Famagusta, Nicosia, and Kyrenia, but most other cities were easy prey.

In the summer of 1570, the Turks struck again, but this time with a full-scale invasion rather than a raid. About 60,000 troops, including cavalry and artillery, under the command of Lala Mustafa Pasha landed unopposed near Limassol on July 2, 1570, and laid siege to Nicosia. In an orgy of victory on the day that the city fell--September 9, 1570--20,000 Nicosians were put to death, and every church, public building, and palace was looted. Word of the massacre spread, and a few days later Mustafa took Kyrenia without having to fire a shot. Famagusta, however, resisted and put up a heroic defense that lasted from September 1570 until August 1571.

The fall of Famagusta marked the beginning of the Ottoman period in Cyprus. Two months later, the naval forces of the Holy League, composed mainly of Venetian, Spanish, and papal ships under the command of Don John of Austria, defeated the Turkish fleet at Lepanto in one of the decisive battles of world history. The victory over the Turks, however, came too late to help Cyprus, and the island remained under Ottoman rule for the next three centuries.

The former foreign elite was destroyed--its members killed, carried away as captives, or exiled. The Orthodox Christians, i.e., the Greek Cypriots who survived, had new foreign overlords. Some early decisions of these new rulers were welcome innovations. The feudal system was abolished, and the freed serfs were enabled to acquire land and work their own farms. Although the small landholdings of the peasants were heavily taxed, the ending of serfdom changed the lives of the island's ordinary people. Another action of far-reaching importance was the granting of land to Turkish soldiers and peasants who became the nucleus of the island's Turkish community.

Although their homeland had been dominated by foreigners for many centuries, it was only after the imposition of Ottoman rule that Orthodox Christians began to develop a really strong sense of cohesiveness. This change was prompted by the Ottoman practice of ruling the empire through millets, or religious communities. Rather than suppressing the empire's many religious communities, the Turks allowed them a degree of automony as long as they complied with the demands of the sultan. The vast size and the ethnic variety of the empire made such a policy imperative. The system of governing through millets reestablished the authority of the Church of Cyprus and made its head the Greek Cypriot leader, or ethnarch. It became the responsibility of the ethnarch to administer the territories where his flock lived and to collect taxes. The religious convictions and functions of the ethnarch were of no concern to the empire as long as its needs were met.

In 1575 the Turks granted permission for the return of the archbishop and the three bishops of the Church of Cyprus to their respective sees. They also abolished the feudal system for they saw it as an extraneous power structure, unnecessary and dangerous. The autocephalous Church of Cyprus could function in its place for the political and fiscal administration of the island's Christian inhabitants. Its structured hierarchy put even remote villages within easy reach of the central authority. Both parties benefited. Greek Cypriots gained a measure of autonomy, and the empire received revenues without the bother of administration.

Ottoman rule of Cyprus was at times indifferent, at times oppressive, depending on the temperaments of the sultans and local officials. The island fell into economic decline both because of the empire's commercial ineptitude and because the Atlantic Ocean had displaced the Mediterranean Sea as the most important avenue of commerce. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, infestations of locusts, and famines also caused economic hardship and contributed to the general condition of decay and decline.

Reaction to Turkish misrule caused uprisings, but Greek Cypriots were not strong enough to prevail. Occasional Turkish Cypriot uprisings, sometimes with their Christian neighbors, against confiscatory taxes also failed. During the Greek War of Independence in 1821, the Ottoman authorities feared that Greek Cypriots would rebel again. Archbishop Kyprianos, a powerful leader who worked to improve the education of Greek Cypriot children, was accused of plotting against the government. Kyprianos, his bishops, and hundreds of priests and important laymen were arrested and summarily hanged or decapitated on July 9, 1821. After a few years, the archbishops were able to regain authority in religious matters, but as secular leaders they were unable to regain any substantial power until after World War II.

The military power of the Ottomans declined after the sixteenth century, and hereditary rulers often were inept. Authority gradually shifted to the office of the grand vizier, the sultan's chief minister. During the seventeenth century, the grand viziers acquired an official residence in the compound that housed government ministries in Constantinople. The compound was known to the Turks as Babiali (High Gate or Sublime Porte). By the nineteenth century, the grand viziers were so powerful that the term Porte became a synonym for the Ottoman government. Efforts by the Porte to reform the administration of the empire were continual during the nineteenth century; similar efforts by local authorities on Cyprus failed, as did those of the Porte. Various Cypriot movements arose after the 1830s, aimed at gaining greater selfgovernment , but, because the imperial treasury took most of the island's wealth and because local officials were often corrupt, reform efforts failed. Cypriots had little recourse to the courts because Christian testimony was rarely accepted.

The Ottoman Turks became the enemy in the eyes of the Greek Cypriots, and this enmity served as a focal point for uniting the major ethnic group on the island under the banner of Greek identity. Centuries of neglect by the Turks, the unrelenting poverty of most of the people, and the ever-present tax collectors fueled Greek nationalism. The Church of Cyprus stood out as the most significant Greek institution and the leading exponent of Greek nationalism.

During the period of Ottoman domination, Cyprus had been a backwater of the empire, but in the nineteenth century it again drew the attention of West European powers. By the 1850s, the decaying Ottoman Empire was known as "the sick man of Europe," and various nations sought to profit at its expense. Cyprus itself could not fight for its own freedom, but the centuries of Frankish and Turkish domination had not destroyed the ties of language, culture, and religion that bound the Greek Cypriots to other Greeks. By the middle of the nineteenth century, enosis, the idea of uniting all Greek lands with the newly independent Greek mainland, was firmly rooted among educated Greek Cypriots. By the time the British took over Cyprus in 1878, Greek Cypriot nationalism had already crystalized.

Cyprus - BRITISH RULE

The sultan ceded the administration of Cyprus to Britain in exchange for guarantees that Britain would use the island as a base to protect the Ottoman Empire against possible Russian aggression. The British had been offered Cyprus three times (in 1833, 1841, and 1845) before accepting it in 1878.

In the mid-1870s, Britain and other European powers were faced with preventing Russian expansion into areas controlled by a weakening Ottoman Empire. Russia was trying to fill the power vacuum by expanding the tsar's empire west and south toward the warm water port of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. British administration of Cyprus was intended to forestall such an expansion. In June 1878, clandestine negotiations between Britain and the Porte culminated in the Cyprus Convention, by which "His Imperial Majesty the Sultan further consents to assign the island of Cyprus to be occupied and administered by England."

There was some opposition to the agreement in Britain, but not enough to prevent it, and colonial administration was established on the island. Greek Cypriot nationalism made its presence known to the new rulers, when, in a welcoming speech at Larnaca for the first British high commissioner, the bishop of Kition expressed the hope that the British would expedite the unification of Cyprus and Greece as they had previously done with the Ionian Islands. Thus, the British were confronted at the very beginning of their administration with the reality that enosis was vital to many Greek Cypriots.

The terms of the convention provided that the excess of the island's revenue over the expenditures for government should be paid as an "annual fixed payment" by Britain to the sultan. This proviso enabled the Porte to assert that it had not ceded or surrendered Cyprus to the British, but had merely temporarily turned over administration. Because of these terms, the action was sometimes described as a British leasing of the island. The "Cyprus Tribute" became a major source of discontent underlying later Cypriot unrest.

Negotiations eventually determined the sum of the annual fixed payment at exactly 92,799 pounds sterling, eleven shillings, and three pence. Governor of the island Ronald Storrs later wrote that the calculation of this sum was made with "all that scrupulous exactitude characteristic of faked accounts." The Cypriots found themselves not only paying the tribute, but also covering the expenses incurred by the British colonial administration, creating a steady drain on an already poor economy.

From the start, the matter of the Cyprus Tribute was severely exacerbated by the fact that the money was never paid to Turkey. Instead it was deposited in the Bank of England to pay off Turkish Crimean War loans (guaranteed by both Britain and France) on which Turkey had defaulted. This arrangement greatly disturbed the Turks as well as the Cypriots. The small sum left over went into a contingency fund, which further irritated the Porte. Public opinion on Cyprus held that the Cypriots were being forced to pay a debt with which they were in no way connected. Agitation against the tribute was incessant, and the annual payment became a symbol of British oppression.

There was also British opposition to the tribute. Undersecretary of State for the Colonies Winston Churchill visited Cyprus in 1907 and, in a report on his visit, declared, "We have no right, except by force majeure, to take a penny of the Cyprus Tribute to relieve us from our own obligations, however unfortunately contracted." Parliament soon voted a permanent annual grant-in-aid of 50,000 pounds sterling to Cyprus and reduced the tribute accordingly.

Cyprus - British Annexation

Britain annulled the Cyprus Convention and annexed the island when Turkey joined forces with Germany and its allies in 1914. In 1915 Britain offered the island to Greece as an inducement to enter the war on its side, but King Constantine preferred a policy of benign neutrality and declined the offer. Turkey recognized the British annexation through the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. The treaty brought advantages to the new Turkish state that compensated it for its loss of the island. In 1925 Cyprus became a crown colony, and the top British administrator, the high commissioner, became governor. This change in status meant little to Greek Cypriots, and some of them continued to agitate for enosis.

The constitution of 1882, which was unchanged by the annexation of 1914, provided for a Legislative Council of twelve elected members and six appointees of the high commissioner. Three of the elected members were to be Muslims (Turkish Cypriots), and the remaining nine non-Muslims. This distribution was devised on the basis of a British interpretation of the census taken in 1881. These arrangements favored the Muslims. In practice, the three Muslim members usually voted with the six appointees, bringing about a nine to nine stalemate that could be broken by the vote of the high commissioner. Because Turkish Cypriots were generally supported by the high commissioners, the desires of the Greek Cypriot majority were thwarted. When Cyprus became a crown colony after 1925, constitutional modifications enlarged the Legislative Council to twenty-four, but the same balance and resulting stalemate prevailed.

There also remained much discontent with the Cyprus Tribute. In 1927 Britain raised the annual grant-in-aid to cover the entire amount, but on the condition that Cyprus pay the crown an annual sum of 10,000 pounds sterling toward "imperial defense." Cypriots, however, were not placated. They pressed two further claims for sums they considered were owed to them: the unexpended surplus of the debt charge that had been held back and invested in government securities since 1878 and all of the debt charge payments since 1914, which, after annexation, the Cypriots considered illegal.

The British government rejected those pleas and made a proposal to raise Cypriot taxes to meet deficits brought on by economic conditions on the island and throughout the world at the beginning of the 1930s. These proposals aroused dismay and discontent on Cyprus and resulted in mass protests and mob violence in October 1931. A riot resulted in the death of six civilians, injuries and wounds to scores of others, and the burning of the British Government House in Nicosia. Before it was quelled, incidents had occurred in a third of the island's 598 villages. In ensuing court cases, some 2,000 persons were convicted of crimes in connection with the violence.

Britain reacted by imposing harsh restrictions. Military reinforcements were dispatched to the island, the constitution suspended, press censorship instituted, and political parties proscribed. Two bishops and eight other prominent citizens directly implicated in the riot were exiled. In effect, the governor became a dictator, empowered to rule by decree. Municipal elections were suspended, and until 1943 all municipal officials were appointed by the government. The governor was to be assisted by an Executive Council, and two years later an Advisory Council was established; both councils consisted only of appointees and were restricted to advising on domestic matters only.

The harsh measures adopted by the British on Cyprus seemed particularly incongruous in view of the relaxation of strictures in Egypt and India at the same time. But the harsh measures continued; the teaching of Greek and Turkish history was curtailed, and the flying of Greek or Turkish flags or the public display of portraits of Greek or Turkish heroes was forbidden. The rules applied to both ethnic groups, although Turkish Cypriots had not contributed to the disorders of 1931.

Perhaps most objectionable to the Greek Cypriots were British actions that Cypriots perceived as being against the church. After the bishops of Kition and Kyrenia had been exiled, only two of the church's four major offices were occupied, i.e., the archbishopric in Nicosia and the bishopric of Paphos. When Archbishop Cyril III died in 1933 leaving Bishop Leontios of Paphos as locum tenens, church officials wanted the exiled bishops returned for the election of a new archbishop. The colonial administration refused, stating that the votes could be sent from abroad; the church authorities objected, and the resulting stalemate kept the office vacant from 1933 until 1947. Meanwhile, in 1937, in an effort to counteract the leading role played by the clergy in the nationalist movement, the British enacted laws governing the internal affairs of the church. Probably most onerous was the provision subjecting the election of an archbishop to the governor's approval. The laws were repealed in 1946. In June 1947, Leontios was elected archbishop, ending the fourteen-year British embarrassment at being blamed for the vacant archbishopric.

Under the strict rules enforced on the island, Cypriots were not allowed to form nationalist groups; therefore, during the late 1930s, the center of enosis activism shifted to London. In 1937 the Committee for Cyprus Autonomy was formed with the avowed purpose of lobbying Parliament for some degree of home rule. But most members of Parliament and of the Colonial Office, as well as many colonial officials on the island, misread the situation just as they had sixty years earlier, when they assumed administration from the Ottoman Turks and were greeted with expressions of the Greek Cypriot desire for enosis. The British were still not able to understand the importance of that desire to the majority community.

Although there was growing opposition to British rule, colonial administration had brought some benefits to the island. Money had gone into modernization projects. The economy, stagnant under the Ottomans, had improved, and trade increased. Financial reforms eventually broke the hold money lenders had over many small farmers. An honest and efficient civil service was put in place. New schools were built for the education of Cypriot children. Where only one hospital had existed during the Ottoman era, several were built by the British. Locusts were eradicated, and after World War II malaria was eliminated. A new system of roads brought formerly isolated villages into easy reach of the island's main cities and towns. A reforestation program to cover the colony's denuded hills and mountains was begun. Still, there was much poverty, industry was almost nonexistent, most manufactures were imported from Britain, and Cypriots did not govern themselves.

Cyprus - World War II and Postwar Nationalism

Whatever their misgivings about British rule, Cypriots were staunch supporters of the Allied cause in World War II. This was particularly true after the invasion of Greece in 1940. Conscription was not imposed on the colony, but 6,000 Cypriot volunteers fought under British command during the Greek campaign. Before the war ended, more than 30,000 had served in the British forces.

As far as the island itself was concerned, it escaped the war except for limited air raids. As it had twenty-five years earlier, it became important as a supply and training base and as a naval station, but this time its use as an air base made it particularly significant to the overall Allied cause. Patriotism and a common enemy did not entirely erase enosis in the minds of Greek Cypriots, and propagandists remained active during the entire war, particularly in London, where they hoped to gain friends and influence lawmakers. Hopes were sometimes raised by the British government during the period when Britain and Greece were practically alone in the field against the Axis. British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, for example, hinted that the Cyprus problem would be resolved when the war had been won. Churchill, then prime minister, also made some vague allusions to the postwar settlement of the problem. The wartime governor of the island stated without equivocation that enosis was not being considered, but it is probable that the Greek Cypriots heard only those voices that they wanted to hear.

During the war, Britain made no move to restore the constitution that it had revoked in 1931, to provide a new one, or to guarantee any civil liberties. After October 1941, however, political meetings were condoned, and permission was granted by the governor for the formation of political parties. Without delay Cypriot communists founded the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL) as the successor to an earlier communist party that had been established in the 1920s and proscribed during the 1930s. Because of Western wartime alliances with the Soviet Union, the communist label in 1941 was not the anathema that it later became; nevertheless, some Orthodox clerics and middle-class merchants were alarmed at the appearance of the new party. At the time, a loose federation of nationalists backed by the church and working for enosis and the Panagrarian Union of Cyprus (Panagrotiki Enosis Kyprou--PEK), the nationalist peasant association, opposed AKEL.

In the municipal elections of 1943, the first since the British crackdown of 1931, AKEL gained control of the important cities of Famagusta and Limassol. After its success at the polls, AKEL supported strikes, protested the absence of a popularly elected legislature, and continually stressed Cypriot grievances incurred under the rigid regime of the post-1931 period. Both communists and conservative groups advocated enosis, but for AKEL such advocacy was an expediency aimed at broadening its appeal. On other matters, communists and conservatives often clashed, sometimes violently. In January 1946, eighteen members of the communist-oriented Pan- Cyprian Federation of Labor (Pankypria Ergatiki Omospondia--PEO) were convicted of sedition by a colonial court and sentenced to varying prison terms. Later that year, a coalition of AKEL and PEO was victorious in the municipal elections, adding Nicosia to the list of cities having communist mayors.

In late 1946, the British government announced plans to liberalize the colonial administration of Cyprus and to invite Cypriots to form a Consultative Assembly for the purpose of discussing a new constitution. Demonstrating their good will and conciliatory attitude, the British also allowed the return of the 1931 exiles, repealed the 1937 religious laws, and pardoned the leftists who had been convicted of sedition in 1946. Instead of rejoicing, as expected by the British, the Greek Cypriot hierarchy reacted angrily, because there had been no mention of enosis.

Response to the governor's invitations to the Consultative Assembly was mixed. The Church of Cyprus had expressed its disapproval, and twenty-two Greek Cypriots declined to appear, stating that enosis was their sole political aim. In October 1947, the fiery bishop of Kyrenia was elected archbishop to replace Leontios, who had died suddenly of natural causes.

As Makarios II, the new archbishop continued to oppose British policy in general, and any policy in particular that did not actively promote enosis. Nevertheless, the assembly opened in November with eighteen members present. Of these, seven were Turkish Cypriots; two were Greek Cypriots without party affiliations; one was a Maronite from the small minority of non- Orthodox Christians on the island; and eight were AKEL-oriented Greek Cypriots--usually referred to as the "left wing." The eight left-wing members proposed discussion of full self-government, but the presiding officer, Chief Justice Edward Jackson, ruled that full self-government was outside the competence of the assembly. This ruling caused the left wing to join the other members in opposition to the British. The deadlocked assembly adjourned until May 1948, when the governor attempted to break the deadlock by advancing new constitutional proposals.

The new proposals included provisions for a Legislative Council with eighteen elected Greek Cypriot members and four elected Turkish Cypriot members in addition to the colonial secretary, the attorney general, the treasurer, and the senior commissioner as appointed members. Elections were to be based on universal adult male suffrage, with Greek Cypriots elected from a general list and Turkish Cypriots from a separate communal register. Women's suffrage was an option to be extended if the assembly so decided. The presiding officer was to be a governor's appointee, who could not be a member of the council and would have no vote. Powers were reserved to the governor to pass or reject any bill regardless of the decision of the council, although in the event of a veto he was obliged to report his reasons to the British government. The governor's consent was also required before any bill having to do with defense, finance, external affairs, minorities, or amendments to the constitution could be introduced in the Legislative Council.

In the political climate of the immediate post-World War II era, the proposals of the British did not come near fulfilling the expectations and aspirations of the Greek Cypriots. The idea of "enosis and only enosis" became even more attractive to the general population. Having observed this upsurge in popularity, AKEL felt obliged to shift from backing full self-government to supporting enosis, although the right-wing government in Greece was bitterly hostile to communism.

Meanwhile, the Church of Cyprus solidified its control over the Greek Cypriot community, intensified its activities for enosis and, after the rise of AKEL, opposed communism. Prominent among its leaders was Bishop Makarios, spiritual and secular leader of the Greek Cypriots. Born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos in 1913 to peasant parents in the village of Pano Panayia, about thirty kilometers northeast of Paphos in the foothills of the Troodos Mountains, the future archbishop and president entered Kykko Monastery as a novice at age thirteen. His pursuit of education over the next several years took him from the monastery to the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia, where he finished secondary school. From there he moved to Athens University as a deacon to study theology. After earning his degree in theology, he remained at the university during the World War II occupation, studying law. He was ordained as a priest in 1946, adopting the name Makarios. A few months after ordination, he received a scholarship from the World Council of Churches that took him to Boston University for advanced studies at the Theological College. Before he had completed his studies at Boston, he was elected in absentia bishop of Kition. He returned to Cyprus in the summer of 1948 to take up his new office.

Makarios was consecrated as bishop on June 13, 1948, in the Cathedral of Larnaca. He also became secretary of the Ethnarchy Council, a position that made him chief political adviser to the archbishop and swept him into the mainstream of the enosis struggle. His major accomplishment as bishop was planning the plebiscite that brought forth a 96 percent favorable vote for enosis in January 1950. In June Archbishop Makarios II died, and in October the bishop of Kition was elected to succeed him. He took office as Makarios III and, at age thirty-seven, was the youngest archbishop in the history of the Church of Cyprus. At his inauguration, he pledged not to rest until union with "Mother Greece" had been achieved.

The plebiscite results and a petition for enosis were taken to the Greek Chamber of Deputies, where Prime Minister Sophocles Venizelos urged the deputies to accept the petition and incorporate the plea for enosis into national policy. The plebiscite data were also presented to the United Nations (UN) Secretariat in New York, with a request that the principle of self-determination be applied to Cyprus. Makarios himself appeared before the UN in February 1951 to denounce British policy, but Britain held that the Cyprus problem was an internal issue not subject to UN consideration.

In Athens, enosis was a common topic of coffeehouse conversation, and a Cypriot native, Colonel George Grivas, was becoming known for his strong views on the subject. Grivas, born in 1898 in the village of Trikomo about fifty kilometers northeast of Nicosia, was the son of a grain merchant. After elementary education in the village school, he was sent to the Pancyprian Gymnasium. Reportedly a good student, Grivas went to Athens at age seventeen to enter the Greek Military Academy. As a young officer in the Greek army, he saw action in Anatolia during the Greco- Turkish War of 1920-22, in which he was wounded and cited for bravery. Grivas's unit almost reached Ankara during the Anatolian campaign, and he was sorely disappointed as the Greek campaign turned into disaster. However, he learned much about war, particularly guerrilla war. When Italy invaded Greece in 1940, he was a lieutenant colonel serving as chief of staff of an infantry division.

During the Nazi occupation of Greece, Grivas led a right-wing extremist organization known by the Greek letter X (Chi), which some authors describe as a band of terrorists and others call a resistance group. In his memoirs, Grivas said that it was later British propaganda that blackened the good name of X. At any rate, Grivas earned a reputation as a courageous military leader, even though his group was eventually banned. Later, after an unsuccessful try in Greek politics, he turned his attention to his original home, Cyprus, and to enosis. For the rest of his life, Grivas was devoted to that cause.

In anticipation of an armed struggle to achieve enosis, Grivas toured Cyprus in July 1951 to study the people and terrain (his first visit in twenty years). He discussed his ideas with Makarios but was disappointed by the archbishop's reservations about the effectiveness of a guerrilla uprising. From the beginning, and throughout their relationship, Grivas resented having to share leadership with the archbishop. Makarios, concerned about Grivas's extremism from their very first meeting, preferred to continue diplomatic efforts, particularly efforts to get the UN involved. Entry of both Greece and Turkey into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made settlement of the Cyprus issue more important to the Western powers, but no new ideas were forthcoming. One year after the reconnaissance trip by Grivas, a secret meeting was arranged in Athens to bring together like-minded people in a Cyprus liberation committee. Makarios chaired the meeting. Grivas, who saw himself as the sole leader of the movement, once again was disappointed by the more moderate views of the archbishop. The feelings of uneasiness that arose between the soldier and the cleric never dissipated. In the end, the two became bitter enemies.

In July 1954, Henry L. Hopkinson, minister of state for the colonies, speaking in the British House of Commons, announced the withdrawal of the 1948 constitutional proposals for Cyprus in favor of an alternative plan. He went on to state, "There are certain territories in the Commonwealth which, owing to their peculiar circumstances, can never expect to be fully independent." Hopkinson's "never" and the absence of any mention of enosis doomed the alternative from the beginning.

In August 1954, Greece's UN representative formally requested that self-determination for the people of Cyprus be included on the agenda of the General Assembly's next session. That request was seconded by a petition to the secretary general from Archbishop Makarios. The British position continued to be that the subject was an internal issue. Turkey rejected the idea of the union of Cyprus and Greece; its UN representative maintained that "the people of Cyprus were no more Greek than the territory itself." The Turkish Cypriot community had consistently opposed the Greek Cypriot enosis movement, but had generally abstained from direct action because under British rule the Turkish minority status and identity were protected. The expressed attitude of the Cyprus Turkish Minority Association was that, in the event of British withdrawal, control of Cyprus should simply revert to Turkey. (This position ignored the fact that Turkey gave up all rights and claims in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.) Turkish Cypriot identification with Turkey had grown stronger, and after 1954 the Turkish government had become increasingly involved as the Cyprus problem became an international issue. On the island, an underground political organization known as Volkan (volcano) was formed. Volkan eventually established in 1957 the Turkish Resistance Organization (T�rk Mukavemet Teskil�ti--TMT), a guerrilla group that fought for Turkish Cypriot interests. In Greece, enosis was a dominant issue in politics, and pro-enosis demonstrations became commonplace in Athens. Cyprus was also bombarded with radio broadcasts from Greece pressing for enosis.

In the late summer and fall of 1954, the Cyprus problem intensified. On Cyprus the colonial government threatened advocates of enosis with up to five years' imprisonment and warned that antisedition laws would be strictly enforced. The archbishop defied the law, but no action was taken against him.

Anti-British sentiments were exacerbated when Britain concluded an agreement with Egypt for the evacuation of forces from the Suez Canal zone and began moving the headquarters of the British Middle East Land and Air Forces to Cyprus. Meanwhile, Grivas had returned to the island surreptitiously and made contact with Makarios. In December the UN General Assembly, after consideration of the Cyprus item placed on the agenda by Greece, adopted a New Zealand proposal that, using diplomatic jargon, announced the decision "not to consider the problem further for the time being, because it does not appear appropriate to adopt a resolution on the question of Cyprus." Reaction to the setback at the UN was immediate and violent. Greek Cypriot leaders called a general strike, and schoolchildren left their classrooms to demonstrate in the streets. These events were followed by the worst rioting since 1931. Makarios, who was at the UN in New York during the trouble, returned to Nicosia on January 10, 1955. At a meeting with Makarios, Grivas stated that their group needed a name and suggested that it be called the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston--EOKA). Makarios agreed, and, within a few months, EOKA was widely known.

Cyprus - The Emergency

On April 1, 1955, EOKA opened a campaign of violence against British rule in a well-coordinated series of attacks on police, military, and other government installations in Nicosia, Famagusta, Larnaca, and Limassol. In Nicosia the radio station was blown up. Grivas circulated his first proclamation as leader of EOKA under his code name Dighenis (a hero of Cypriot mythology), and the fouryear revolutionary struggle was launched. According to captured EOKA documents, Cypriot communists were not to be accepted for membership and were enjoined to stand clear of the struggle if they were sincerely interested in enosis. The Turkish Cypriots were described as compatriots in the effort against an alien ruler; they too were simply asked to stand clear, to refrain from opposition, and to avoid any alliance with the British.

During a difficult summer of attacks and counterattacks, the Tripartite Conference of 1955 was convened in London in August at British invitation; representatives of the Greek and Turkish governments met with British authorities to discuss Cyprus--a radical departure from traditional British policy. Heretofore the British had considered colonial domestic matters internal affairs not to be discussed with foreigners. Greece accepted the invitation with some hesitation, because no Cypriots had been invited, but reluctantly decided to attend. The Turks also accepted. The meeting broke up in September, having accomplished nothing. The Greeks were dissatisfied because Cypriot self-determination (a code word for enosis) was not offered; the Turks because it was not forbidden.

A bombing incident at the Turkish consulate in Salonika, Greece, a day before the meeting ended led to serious rioting in Istanbul and zmir. It was later learned that the bombing had been carried out by a Turk, and that the riots had been prearranged by the government of Turkey to bring pressure on the Greeks and to show the world that Turks were keenly interested in Cyprus. The Turkish riots got so out of hand and destroyed so much Greek property in Turkey that Premier Adnan Menderes called out the army and declared martial law. Greece reacted by withdrawing its representatives from the NATO headquarters in Turkey, and relations between the two NATO partners became quite strained.

Shortly after the abortive tripartite meeting, Field Marshal John Harding, chief of the British imperial general staff, was named governor of Cyprus and arrived on the island to assume his post in October 1955. Harding immediately began talks with Makarios, describing a multimillion pound development plan that would be adopted contingent on acceptance of limited selfgovernment and postponement of self-determination. Harding wanted to leave no doubt that he was there to restore law and order, and Grivas wanted the new governor to realize that a get-tough policy was not going to have any great effect on EOKA. In November Harding declared a state of emergency, banning public assemblies, introducing the death penalty for carrying a weapon, and making strikes illegal. British troops were put on a wartime footing, and about 300 British policemen were brought to the island to replace EOKA sympathizers purged from the local force.

Further talks between Harding and Makarios in January 1956 began favorably but degenerated into a stalemate and broke up in March, with each side accusing the other of bad faith and intransigence. A few days later, Makarios was seized, charged with complicity in violence, and, along with the bishop of Kyrenia and two other priests, exiled to the Seychelles. This step removed the archbishop's influence on EOKA, leaving less moderate forces in control. The level of violence on Cyprus increased, a general strike was called, and Grivas had political leadership thrust on him by the archbishop's absence.

In July the British government appointed Lord Radcliffe, a jurist, to the post of commissioner for constitutional reform. Radcliffe's proposals, submitted in December, contained provisions for a balanced legislature, as in former schemes. But the proposals also included an option of self-determination at some indefinite time in the future and safeguards for the Turkish Cypriot minority. Turkey accepted the plan, Greece rejected it outright, and Makarios refused to consider it while in exile.

Makarios was allowed to leave the Seychelles in April, but could not return to Cyprus. In Athens he received a tremendous welcome. During the rest of the year, Grivas kept the situation boiling through various raids and attacks, Makarios went once again to New York to argue his case before the UN, and Harding retired to be replaced by Hugh Foot.

In early 1958, intercommunal strife became severe for the first time, and tension mounted between the governments of Greece and Turkey. Grivas tried to enforce an island-wide boycott of British goods and increased the level of sabotage attacks. In June 1958, British prime minister Harold Macmillan proposed a seven-year partnership scheme of separate communal legislative bodies and separate municipalities, which became known as the Macmillan Plan. Greece and Greek Cypriots rejected it, calling it tantamount to partition.

The Macmillan Plan, although not accepted, led to discussions of the Cyprus problem between representatives of Greece and Turkey, beginning in December 1958. Participants for the first time discussed the concept of an independent Cyprus, i.e., neither enosis nor partition. This new approach was stimulated by the understanding that Makarios was willing to discuss independence in exchange for abandonment of the Macmillan Plan. Subsequent talks between the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey, in Zurich in February 1959, yielded a compromise agreement supporting independence. Thus were laid the foundations of the Republic of Cyprus. The scene then shifted to London, where the Greek and Turkish representatives were joined by representatives of the Greek Cypriots, the Turkish Cypriots, and the British. In London Makarios raised certain objections to the agreements, but, failing to get Greek backing, he accepted the position papers. The Zurich-London agreements which were ratified by the official participants of the London Conference and became the basis for the Cyprus constitution of 1960 were: the Treaty of Establishment, the Treaty of Guarantee, and the Treaty of Alliance.

Cyprus - THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS

The general tone of the agreements was one of compromise. Greek Cypriots, especially members of organizations such as EOKA, expressed disappointment because enosis had not been attained. Turkish Cypriots, however, welcomed the agreements and set aside their earlier defensive demand for partition. According to the Treaty of Establishment, Britain retained sovereignty over about 256 square kilometers, which became the Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area, to the northwest of Larnaca, and the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area to the west of Limassol. Britain also retained certain access and communications routes.

According to constitutional arrangements, Cyprus was to become an independent republic with a Greek Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice-president; a council of ministers with a ratio of seven Greeks to three Turks and a House of Representatives of fifty members, also with a seven-to-three ratio, were to be separately elected by communal balloting on a universal suffrage basis. The judicial system would be headed by a Supreme Constitutional Court, composed of one Greek Cypriot and one Turkish Cypriot and presided over by a contracted judge from a neutral country. In addition, separate Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot Communal Chambers were provided to exercise control in matters of religion, culture, and education. The entire structure of government was strongly bicommunal in composition and function, and thus perpetuated the distinctiveness and separation of the two communities.

The aspirations of the Greek Cypriots, for which they had fought during the emergency, were not realized. Cyprus would not be united with Greece, as most of the population had hoped, but neither would it be partitioned, which many had feared. The unsatisfactory but acceptable alternative was independence. The Turkish Cypriot community, which had fared very well at the bargaining table, accepted the agreements willingly. The provisions of the constitution and the new republic's territorial integrity were ensured by Britain, Greece, and Turkey under the Treaty of Guarantee. The Treaty of Alliance gave Greece and Turkey the rights to station military forces on the island (950 and 650 men, respectively). These forces were to be separate from Cypriot national forces, numbering 2,000 men in a six-to-four ratio of Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots.

Makarios, accepting independence as the pragmatic course, returned to Cyprus on March 1, 1959. Grivas, still an ardent supporter of enosis, agreed to return to Greece after having obtained amnesty for his followers. The state of emergency was declared over on December 4, 1959. Nine days later, Makarios was elected president, despite opposition from right-wing elements who claimed that he had betrayed enosis and from AKEL members who objected to the British bases and the stationing of Greek and Turkish troops on the island. On the same day, Fazil K���k, leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, was elected vice president without opposition.

The first general election for the House of Representatives took place on July 31, 1960. Of the thirty-five seats allotted to Greek Cypriots, thirty were won by supporters of Makarios and five by AKEL candidates. The fifteen Turkish Cypriot seats were all won by K���k supporters. The constitution became effective August 16, 1960, on the day Cyprus formally shed its colonial status and became a republic. One month later, the new republic became a member of the UN, and in the spring of 1961 it was admitted to membership in the Commonwealth. In December 1961, Cyprus became a member of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Independence did not ensure peace. Serious problems concerning the working and interpretation of the constitutional system appeared immediately. These problems reflected the sharp bicommunal division in the constitution and the historical and continuing distrust between the two communities. Turkish Cypriots, after eight decades of passivity under the British, had become a political entity. In the words of political scientist Nancy Crawshaw, "Turkish Cypriot nationalism, barely perceptible under British rule, came to equal that of the Greeks in fanaticism." One major point of contention concerned the composition of units under the six-to-four ratio decreed for the Cypriot army. Makarios wanted complete integration; K���k favored segregated companies. On October 20, 1961, K���k used his constitutional veto power as vicepresident to halt the development of an integrated force. Makarios then stated that the country could not afford an army anyway; planning and development of the national army ceased. Other problems developed in the application of the seven-to-three ratio of employment in government agencies.

Underground organizations of both communities revived during 1961 and 1962. EOKA and the TMT began training again, smuggling weapons in from Greece and Turkey, and working closely with national military contingents from Greece and Turkey that were stationed on the island in accordance with the Treaty of Alliance. Friction increased in 1962 regarding the status of municipalities. Each side accused the other of constitutional infractions, and the Supreme Constitutional Court was asked to rule on municipalities and taxes. The court's decisions were unsatisfactory to both sides, and an impasse was reached. Government under the terms of the 1960 constitution had come to appear impossible to many Cypriots.

Some Greek Cypriots believed the constitutional impasse could be ended through bold action. Accordingly, a plan of action--the Akritas Plan--was drawn up sometime in 1963 by the Greek Cypriot minister of the interior, a close associate of Archbishop Makarios. The plan's course of action began with persuading the international community that concessions made to the Turkish Cypriots were too extensive and that the constitution had to be reformed if the island were to have a functioning government. World opinion had to be convinced that the smaller community had nothing to fear from constitutional amendments that gave Greek Cypriots political dominance. Another of the plan's goals was the revocation of the Treaty of Guarantee and the Treaty of Alliance. If these aims were realized, enosis would become possible. If Turkish Cypriots refused to accept these changes and attempted to block them by force, the plan foresaw their violent subjugation "in a day or two" before foreign powers could intervene.

On November 30, 1963, Makarios advanced a thirteen-point proposal designed, in his view, to eliminate impediments to the functioning of the government. The thirteen points involved constitutional revisions, including the abandonment of the veto power by both the president and the vice president, an idea that certainly would have been rejected by the Turkish Cypriots, who thought of the veto as a form of life insurance for the minority community. K���k asked for time to consider the proposal and promised to respond to it by the end of December. Turkey rejected it on December 16, declaring the proposal an attempt to undermine the constitution.

Cyprus - Intercommunal Violence

The atmosphere on the island was tense. On December 21, 1963, serious violence erupted in Nicosia when a Greek Cypriot police patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents, stopped a Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter. A hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish Cypriots were killed. As the news spread, members of the underground organizations began firing and taking hostages. North of Nicosia, Turkish forces occupied a strong position at St. Hilarion Castle, dominating the road to Kyrenia on the northern coast. The road became a principal combat area as both sides fought to control it. Much intercommunal fighting occurred in Nicosia along the line separating the Greek and Turkish quarters of the city (known later as the Green Line). Turkish Cypriots were not concentrated in one area, but lived throughout the island, making their position precarious. Vice-President K���k and Turkish Cypriot ministers and members of the House of Representatives ceased participating in the government.

In January 1964, after an inconclusive conference in London among representatives of Britain, Greece, Turkey, and the two Cypriot communities, UN Secretary General U Thant, at the request of the Cyprus government, sent a special representative to the island. After receiving a firsthand report in February, the Security Council authorized a peace-keeping force under the direction of the secretary general. Advance units reached Cyprus in March, and by May the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) totaled about 6,500 troops. Originally authorized for a three-month period, the force, at decreased strength, was still in position in the early 1990s.

Severe intercommunal fighting occurred in March and April 1964. When the worst of the fighting was over, Turkish Cypriots--sometimes of their own volition and at other times forced by the TMT--began moving from isolated rural areas and mixed villages into enclaves. Before long, a substantial portion of the island's Turkish Cypriot population was crowded into the Turkish quarter of Nicosia in tents and hastily constructed shacks. Slum conditions resulted from the serious overcrowding. All necessities as well as utilities had to be brought in through the Greek Cypriot lines. Many Turkish Cypriots who had not moved into Nicosia gave up their land and houses for the security of other enclaves.

In June 1964, the House of Representatives, functioning with only its Greek Cypriot members, passed a bill establishing the National Guard, in which all Cypriot males between the ages of eighteen and fifty-nine were liable to compulsory service. The right of Cypriots to bear arms was then limited to this National Guard and to the police. Invited by Makarios, General Grivas returned to Cyprus in June to assume command of the National Guard; the purpose of the new law was to curb the proliferation of Greek Cypriot irregular bands and bring them under control in an organization commanded by the prestigious Grivas. Turks and Turkish Cypriots meanwhile charged that large numbers of Greek regular troops were being clandestinely infiltrated into the island to lend professionalism to the National Guard. Turkey began military preparations for an invasion of the island. A brutally frank warning from United States president Lyndon B. Johnson to Prime Minister Ismet In�n� caused the Turks to call off the invasion. In August, however, Turkish jets attacked Greek Cypriot forces besieging Turkish Cypriot villages on the northwestern coast near Kokkina.

In July, veteran United States diplomat Dean Acheson met with Greek and Turkish representatives in Geneva. From this meeting emerged what became known as the Acheson Plan, according to which Greek Cypriots would have enosis and Greece was to award the Aegean island of Kastelorrizon to Turkey and compensate Turkish Cypriots wishing to emigrate. Secure Turkish enclaves and a Turkish sovereign military base area were to be provided on Cyprus. Makarios rejected the plan, because it called for what he saw as a modified form of partition.

Throughout 1964 and later, President Makarios and the Greek Cypriot leadership adopted the view that the establishment of UNFICYP by the UN Security Council had set aside the rights of intervention granted to the guarantor powers--Britain, Greece, and Turkey--by the Treaty of Guarantee. The Turkish leadership, on the other hand, contended that the Security Council action had reinforced the provisions of the treaty. These diametrically opposed views illustrated the basic Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot positions; the former holding that the constitution and the other provisions of the treaties were flexible and subject to change under changing conditions, and the latter, that they were fixed agreements, not subject to change.

Grivas and the National Guard reacted to Turkish pressure by initiating patrols into the Turkish Cypriot enclaves. Patrols surrounded two villages, Ayios Theodhoros and Kophinou, about twenty-five kilometers southwest of Larnaca, and began sending in heavily armed patrols. Fighting broke out, and by the time the Guard withdrew, twenty-six Turkish Cypriots had been killed. Turkey issued an ultimatum and threatened to intervene in force to protect Turkish Cypriots. To back up their demands, the Turks massed troops on the Thracian border separating Greece and Turkey and began assembling an amphibious invasion force. The ultimatum's conditions included the expulsion of Grivas from Cyprus, removal of Greek troops from Cyprus, payment of indemnity for the casualties at Ayios Theodhoros and Kophinou, cessation of pressure on the Turkish Cypriot community, and the disbanding of the National Guard.

Grivas resigned as commander of the Greek Cypriot forces on November 20, 1967, and left the island, but the Turks did not reduce their readiness posture, and the dangerous situation of two NATO nations on the threshold of war with each other continued. President Johnson dispatched Cyrus R. Vance as his special envoy to Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. Vance arrived in Ankara in late November and began ten days of negotiations that defused the situation. Greece agreed to withdraw its forces on Cyprus except for the contingent allowed by the 1960 treaties, provided that Turkey did the same and also dismounted its invasion force. Turkey agreed, and the crisis passed. During December 1967 and early January 1968, about 10,000 Greek troops were withdrawn. Makarios did not disband the National Guard, however, something he came to regret when it rebelled against him in 1974.

Cyprus - Political Developments after the Crisis of 1967

Seizing the opportune moment after the crisis had ended, in late December 1967 Turkish Cypriot leaders announced the establishment of a "transitional administration" to govern their community's affairs "until such time as the provisions of the Constitution of 1960 have been fully implemented." The body's president was Fazil K���k, vice-president of the republic; the body's vice-president was Rauf Denktas, president of the Turkish Cypriot Communal Chamber. Nineteen governing articles, called the Basic Principles, were announced, and the provisional administration organized itself along lines that were similar to a cabinet. The provisional administration also formed a legislative assembly composed of the Turkish Cypriot members-in-absentia of the republic's House of Representatives and the members of the Turkish Cypriot Communal Chamber. The provisional administration did not state that the Communal Chamber was being abolished. Nor did it seek recognition as a government. Such actions would have been contrary to the provisions of the constitution and the Zurich-London agreements, and the Turkish Cypriots as well as the Turks scrupulously avoided any such abrogation. The Greek Cypriots immediately concluded that the formation of governing bodies was in preparation for partition. U Thant was also critical of the new organizations.

President Makarios, seeking a fresh mandate from his constituency, announced in January 1968 that elections would be held during February. K���k, determined to adhere to the constitution, then announced that elections for vice president would also be held. Elections were subsequently held in the Turkish Cypriot community, which the Greek Cypriot government considered invalid; K���k was returned to office unopposed. Two weeks later, Makarios received 220,911 votes (about 96 percent), and his opponent, Takis Evdokas, running on a straight enosis platform, received 8,577 votes. Even though there were 16,215 abstentions, Makarios's overwhelming victory was seen as a massive endorsement of his personal leadership and of an independent Cyprus. At his investiture, the president stated that the Cyprus problem could not be solved by force, but had to be worked out within the framework of the UN. He also said that he and his followers wanted to live peacefully in a unitary state where all citizens enjoyed equal rights. Some Cypriots opposed Makarios's conciliatory stance, and there would be an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate him in 1970.

In mid-1968 intercommunal talks under UN auspices began in Beirut. Glafkos Clerides, president of the House of Representatives, and Rauf Denktas were involved in the first stages of these talks, which lasted until 1974. Although many points of agreement were arrived at, no lasting agreements were reached. Turkish Cypriot proposals emphasized the importance of the local government of each ethnic community at the expense of the central government, while the Greek Cypriot negotiating teams stressed the dominance of the central authorities over local administration.

In the parliamentary elections that took place on July 5, 1970, fifteen seats went to the Unified Democratic Party (Eniaion), nine to AKEL, seven to the Progressive Coalition, two to the socialist coalition, and two to the Independents. The enosis opposition did not capture any seats. Eniaion, led by Clerides and based on an urban constituency, was a moderate party of the right that generally supported Makarios. The Progressive Coalition had an ideological base almost the same as Eniaion's, but was based in the rural areas. The socialist group was led by Vassos Lyssarides, personal physician to Makarios; its two seats in the House of Representatives did not reflect its significant influence in Cypriot affairs and the personal power of its leader. The Independents were a left-wing noncommunist group similar to EDEK but lacking its dynamic leadership. The fifteen seats reserved for Turkish Cypriots went to followers of Denktas.

In the early 1970s, Cyprus was in fact a partitioned country. Makarios was the president of the republic, but his authority did not extend into the Turkish enclaves. The House of Representatives sat as the legislature, but only the thirty-five Greek Cypriot seats were functioning as part of a central government. De facto, the partition sought for years by Turks and Turkish Cypriots existed, but intercommunal strife had not ended.

In the summer of 1971, tension built up between the two communities, and incidents became more numerous. Sometime in the late summer or early fall, Grivas (who had attacked Makarios as a traitor in an Athens newspaper) returned secretly to the island and began to rebuild his guerrilla organization, which became known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agonistan B--EOKA B). Three new newspapers advocating enosis were also established at the same time. All of these activities were funded by the military junta that controlled Greece. The junta probably would have agreed to some form of partition similar to the Acheson Plan to settle the Cyprus question, but at the time the overthrow of Makarios was the primary objective, and the junta backed Grivas toward that end. Grivas, from hiding, directed terrorist attacks and propaganda assaults that shook the Makarios government, but the president remained a powerful, popular leader.

In January 1972, a new crisis rekindled intercommunal tensions when an Athens newspaper reported that the Makarios government had received a shipment of Czechoslovakian arms. The guns were intended for Makarios's own elite guard; the Greek government, hoping to overthrow Makarios through Grivas, EOKA B, and the National Guard, objected to the import of the arms. The authorities in Ankara were more than willing to join Athens in such a protest, and both governments demanded that the Czechoslovakian munitions be turned over to UNFICYP. Makarios was eventually forced to comply.

Relations between Nicosia and Athens were at such a low ebb that the colonels of the Greek junta, recognizing that they had Makarios in a perilous position, issued an ultimatum for him to reform his government and rid it of ministers who had been critical of the junta. The colonels, however, had not reckoned with the phenomenal popularity of the archbishop, and once again mass demonstrations proved that Makarios had the people behind him. In the end, however, Makarios bowed to Greek pressure and reshuffled the cabinet.

Working against Makarios was the fact that most officers of the Cypriot National Guard were Greek regulars who supported the junta and its desire to remove him from office and achieve some degree of enosis. Grivas was also a threat to the archbishop. He remained powerful and to some extent was independent of the junta that had permitted his return to Cyprus. While the Greek colonels were at times prepared to make a deal with Turkey about Cyprus, Grivas was ferociously opposed to any arrangement that did not lead to complete enosis.

In the spring of 1972, Makarios faced an attack from another quarter. The three bishops of the Church of Cyprus demanded that he resign as president, because his temporal duties violated canon law. Moving astutely, Markarios foiled the three bishops and had them defrocked in the summer of 1973. Before choosing their replacements, he increased the number of bishoprics to five, thereby reducing the power of individual bishops.

Grivas and his one-track pursuit of enosis through terrorism had become an embarrassment to the Greek Cypriot government, as well as to the Greek government that had sponsored his return to the island. His fame and popularity in both countries, however, prevented his removal. That problem was solved on January 27, 1974, when the general died of a heart attack. Makarios granted his followers an amnesty, hoping that EOKA B would disappear after the death of its leader. Terrorism continued, however, and the 100,000 mourners who attended Grivas's funeral indicated the enduring popularity of his political aims.

Cyprus - The Greek Coup and the Turkish Invasion

A coup d'�tat in Athens in November 1973 had made Brigadier General Dimitrios Ioannides leader of the junta. Rigidly anticommunist, Ioannides had served on Cyprus in the 1960s with the National Guard. His experiences convinced him that Makarios should be removed from office because of domestic leftist support and his visits to communist capitals. During the spring of 1974, Cypriot intelligence found evidence that EOKA B was planning a coup and was being supplied, controlled, and funded by the military government in Athens. EOKA B was banned, but its operations continued underground. Early in July, Makarios wrote to the president of Greece demanding that the remaining 650 Greek officers assigned to the National Guard be withdrawn. He also accused the junta of plotting against his life and against the government of Cyprus. Makarios sent his letter (which was released to the public) to the Greek president on July 2, 1974; the reply came thirteen days later, not in the form of a letter but in an order from Athens to the Cypriot National Guard to overthrow its commander in chief and take control of the island.

Makarios narrowly escaped death in the attack by the Greek-led National Guard. He fled the presidential palace and went to Paphos. A British helicopter took him the Sovereign Base Area at Akrotiri, from where he went to London. Several days later, Makarios addressed a meeting of the UN Security Council, where he was accepted as the legal president of the Republic of Cyprus.

In the meantime, the notorious EOKA terrorist Nicos Sampson was declared provisional president of the new government. It was obvious to Ankara that Athens was behind the coup, and major elements of the Turkish armed forces went on alert. Turkey had made similar moves in 1964 and 1967, but had not invaded. At the same time, Turkish prime minister B�lent Ecevit flew to London to elicit British aid in a joint effort in Cyprus, as called for in the 1959 Treaty of Guarantee, but the British were either unwilling or unprepared and declined to take action as a guarantor power. The United States took no action to bolster the Makarios government, but Joseph J. Sisco, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, went to London and the eastern Mediterranean to stave off the impending Turkish invasion and the war between Greece and Turkey that might follow. The Turks demanded removal of Nicos Sampson and the Greek officers from the National Guard and a binding guarantee of Cypriot independence. Sampson, of course, was expendable to the Athens regime, but Sisco could get an agreement only to reassign the 650 Greek officers.

As Sisco negotiated in Athens, Turkish invasion ships were already at sea. A last-minute reversal might have been possible had the Greeks made concessions, but they did not. The intervention began early on July 20, 1974. Three days later the Greek junta collapsed in Athens, Sampson resigned in Nicosia, and the threat of war between NATO allies was over, but the Turkish army was on Cyprus.

Konstantinos Karamanlis, in self-imposed exile in France since 1963, was called back, to head the Greek government once more. Clerides was sworn in as acting president of the Republic of Cyprus, and the foreign ministers of the guarantor powers met in Geneva on July 25 to discuss the military situation on the island. Prime Minister Ecevit publicly welcomed the change of government in Greece and seemed genuinely interested in eliminating the tensions that had brought the two countries so close to war. Nevertheless, during the truce that was arranged, Turkish forces continued to take territory, to improve their positions, and to build up their supplies of war mat�riel.

A second conference in Geneva began on August 10, with Clerides and Denktas as the Cypriot representatives. Denktas proposed a bizonal federation, with Turkish Cypriots controlling 34 percent of island. When this proposal was rejected, the Turkish foreign minister proposed a Turkish Cypriot zone in the northern part of the island and five Turkish Cypriot enclaves elsewhere, all of which would amount once again to 34 percent of the island's area. Clerides asked for a recess of thirty-six to forty-eight hours to consult with the government in Nicosia and with Makarios in London. His request was refused, and early on August 14 the second phase of the Turkish intervention began. Two days later, after having seized 37 percent of the island above what the Turks called the "Atilla Line," the line that ran from Morphou Bay in the northwest to Famagusta (Gazimagusa) in the east, the Turks ordered a ceasefire .

Cyprus - Developments Since 1974

The de facto partition of Cyprus resulting from the Turkish invasion, or intervention, as the Turks preferred to call their military action, caused much suffering in addition to the thousands of dead, many of whom were unaccounted for even years later. An estimated one-third of the population of each ethnic community had to flee their homes. The island's economy was devastated.

Efforts were undertaken immediately to remedy the effects of the catastrophe. Intensive government economic planning and intervention on both sides of the island soon improved living standards and allowed the construction of housing for refugees. Both communities benefited greatly from the expansion of the tourist industry, which brought millions of foreign visitors to the island during the 1980s. The economic success of the Republic of Cyprus was significant enough to seem almost miraculous. Within just a few years, the refugees had housing and were integrated in the bustling economy, and Greek Cypriots enjoyed a West European standard of living. Turkish Cypriots did not do as well, but, working against an international embargo imposed by the Republic of Cyprus and benefiting from extensive Turkish aid, they managed to ensure a decent standard of living for all members of their community--a standard of living, in fact, that was higher than that of Turkey. Both communities established government agencies to provide public assistance to those who needed it and built modern education systems extending to the university level.

Both communities soon developed political systems on the European model, with parties representing mainstream political opinion from right to the left. Greek Cypriots had two older parties dating from before 1970, the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL) and the United Democratic Union of Cyprus (Eniea Demokratiki Enosis Kyprou- -EDEK), and some formed after the events of 1974. The two most important of these newer parties were the Democratic Party (Dimokratiko Komma--DIKO) and the Democratic Rally (Dimokratikos Synagermos--DISY). Both of these parties were on the right, with DIKO headed by Spyros Kyprianou, who replaced Makarios as president after the latter's death in 1977, and DISY led by veteran politician Glafkos Clerides. Parliamentary elections held in 1976, 1981, and 1985 resulted in stable patterns in the House of Representatives that permitted coalition-building and a serious opposition to the government in power. Kyprianou was reelected president in 1983, but lost in 1988 to George Vassiliou, a successful businessman and a political outsider who had the support of AKEL and EDEK. Vassiliou won election by promising to bring a new spirit to politics and break the deadlocked negotiations to end the island's division.

The Turkish Cypriots' progress to parliamentary democracy was not as easy. First they had to build a new state. In 1975 the "Turkish Federated State of Cyprus" was proclaimed. In 1983, by means of a unilateral declaration of independence, Turkish Cypriots created the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"), but by the early 1990s, only Turkey had recognized it as a nation. Rauf Denktas, who had been the political leader of the Turkish Cypriot community since the 1970s, was elected president of the "TRNC." A number of political parties were active in the area occupied by the "TRNC." They included both left- and right-wing parties, which both supported and opposed the settlement of mainland Turks on the island and the politics of partition. The largest party, the National Unity Party (Ulusal Birlik Partisi--UBP), was founded and controlled by Denktas. The UBP supported a resolutely separatist stance. The second party of the "TRNC," the Communal Liberation Party (Toplumcu Kurtulus Partisi-- TKP) advocated closer relations with the Greek Cypriot community. The left-wing Republican Turkish Party (Cumhuriyet�i T�rk Partisi-- CTP) was even more forthright in its opposition to the government's policy of restricted relations with the Republic of Cyprus.

Negotiations began in the mid-1970s to end the de facto partition and to bring the two communities together again. Two major compromises on the part of the Republic of Cyprus occurred in the second half of the 1970s. First, in 1977, four guidelines for future intercommunal talks were accepted by both communities; their thrust was that Cyprus would become a bicommunal federal republic, a departure from the terms of the constitution of 1960. Second, the ten-point agreement of 1979, achieved at a meeting between Kyprianou and Denktas, worked out policies to ease further intercommunal talks.

A possible settlement was missed in 1985 when Kyprianou refused to sign a recently worked-out accord, fearing it conceded too much to the other side. The stalemate continued up to the election of Vassiliou in 1988. Agreement on some major points had slowly evolved, but the practical steps to realize an actual settlement were still not attainable. Differences in the two communities' view of the desirable mixture of federation or confederation and the powers of a central government seemed unbridgeable.

Cyprus - GEOGRAPHY

The physical setting for life on the island is dominated by the mountain masses and the central plain they encompass, the Mesaoria. The Troodos Mountains cover most of the southern and western portions of the island and account for roughly half its area. The narrow Kyrenia Range, extending along the northern coastline, occupies substantially less area, and elevations are lower. The two mountain systems run generally parallel to the Taurus Mountains on the Turkish mainland, whose silhouette is visible from northern Cyprus. Coastal lowlands, varying in width, surround the island.

The rugged Troodos Mountains, whose principal range stretches from Pomos Point in the northwest almost to Larnaca Bay on the east, are the single most conspicuous feature of the landscape. Intensive uplifting and folding in the formative period left the area highly fragmented, so that subordinate ranges and spurs veer off at many angles, their slopes incised by steep-sided valleys. In the southwest, the mountains descend in a series of stepped foothills to the coastal plain.

While the Troodos Mountains are a massif formed of molten igneous rock, the Kyrenia Range is a narrow limestone ridge that rises suddenly from the plains. Its easternmost extension becomes a series of foothills on the Karpas Peninsula. That peninsula points toward Asia Minor, to which Cyprus belongs geologically.

Even the highest peaks of the Kyrenia Range are hardly more than half the height of the great dome of the Troodos massif, Mount Olympus (1,952 meters), but their seemingly inaccessible, jagged slopes make them considerably more spectacular. British writer Lawrence Durrell, in Bitter Lemons, wrote of the Troodos as "an unlovely jumble of crags and heavyweight rocks" and of the Kyrenia Range as belonging to "the world of Gothic Europe, its lofty crags studded with crusader castles."

Rich copper deposits were discovered in antiquity on the slopes of the Troodos. Geologists speculate that these deposits may have originally formed under the Mediterranean Sea, as a consequence of the upwelling of hot, mineral-laded water through a zone where plates that formed the ocean floor were pulling apart.

Deforestation over the centuries has damaged the island's drainage system and made access to a year-round supply of water difficult. A network of winter rivers rises in the Troodos Mountains and flows out from them in all directions. The Yialias River and the Pedhieos River flow eastward across the Mesaoria into Famagusta Bay; the Serraghis River flows northwest through the Morphou plain. All of the island's rivers, however, are dry in the summer. An extensive system of dams and waterways has been constructed to bring water to farming areas.

The Mesaoria is the agricultural heartland of the island, but its productiveness for wheat and barley depends very much on winter rainfall; other crops are grown under irrigation. Little evidence remains that this broad, central plain, open to the sea at either end, was once covered with rich forests whose timber was coveted by ancient conquerors for their sailing vessels. The now-divided capital of the island, Nicosia, lies in the middle of this central plain.

Cyprus - Climate

The Mediterranean climate, warm and rather dry, with rainfall mainly between November and March, favors agriculture. In general, the island experiences mild wet winters and dry hot summers. Variations in temperature and rainfall are governed by altitude and, to a lesser extent, distance from the coast.

The higher mountain areas are cooler and moister than the rest of the island. They receive the heaviest annual rainfall, which may be as much as 1,000 millimeters. Sharp frost also occurs in the higher districts, which are usually blanketed with snow during the first months of the year. Plains along the northern coast and in the Karpas Peninsula area average 400 to 450 millimeters of annual rainfall. The least rainfall occurs in the Mesaoria, with 300 to 400 millimeters a year. Variability in annual rainfall is characteristic for the island, however, and droughts are frequent and sometimes severe. Earthquakes, usually not destructive, occur from time to time.

Summer temperatures are high in the lowlands, even near the sea, and reach particularly uncomfortable readings in the Mesaoria. Because of the scorching heat of the lowlands, some of the villages in the Troodos have developed as resort areas, with summer as well as winter seasons. The mean annual temperature for the island as a whole is about 20� C. The amount of sunshine the island enjoys enhances the tourist industry. On the Mesaoria in the eastern lowland, for example, there is bright sunshine 75 percent of the time. During the four summer months, there is an average of eleven and one-half hours of sunshine each day, and in the cloudiest winter months there is an average of five and one-half hours per day.

Cyprus - SOCIETY

The Turkish invasion of 1974 was a calamity, but Greek Cypriot society was able to overcome its effects. The economy of the Republic of Cyprus quickly recovered, and went on to flourish into the early 1990s. Greek Cypriot society also withstood the loss of homeland and broken social relations. Greek Cypriots built shelters and found work for the 160,000 displaced people, who had fled their homes and villages. During the 1980s, a more prosperous and modern society emerged. Education was made more accessible, and government help to those needing it was improved. Like other societies, Greek Cypriot society became more urbanized, yet mostly avoided the ill effects of a too rapid transition to city life. Ties to the countryside remained strong, even as Greek Cypriots became better connected with the world beyond the island.

As the Republic of Cyprus modernized, social relations changed, but not as quickly as in Western Europe. The Church of Cyprus, rather conservative in its doctrine, remained the dominant religion, although it played a smaller role than formerly in the lives of most Greek Cypriots. Marriage and family remained stronger than in the United States, and relations between the sexes were not as relaxed. However, Greek Cypriot women were better educated than their mothers and were more likely to work outside the home. Although they were well represented in some professions, Greek Cypriot women suffered some sex discrimination in employment, and the republic's feminist movement was not yet influential.

These developments occurred against the backdrop of the tragedy of partition. The barrier between Greek and Turkish Cypriots was virtually impenetrable. The older generation of the two peoples had experienced the terrors of intercommunal conflict, but they had had some contact with one another. A new generation of Greek Cypriots did not know members of the other community. Some had never seen a Turkish Cypriot.

Cyprus - Ethnicity

Cyprus has been home to many peoples in its history. At the beginning of the 1990s, five ethnic communities lived on the island, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians, and Latins. The events of 1974 resulted in a de facto partition of the island, and by the early 1990s virtually all Turkish Cypriots lived in the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"). Nearly all members of the other groups lived in the Republic of Cyprus; only about 600-hundred Greek Cypriots lived outside the governmentcontrolled area.

Greek Cypriots formed the island's largest ethnic community, nearly 80 percent of the island's population. They were the descendants of Achaean Greeks who settled on the island during the second half of the second millennium B.C. The island gradually became part of the Hellenic world as the settlers prospered over the next centuries. Alexander the Great freed the island from the Persians and annexed it to his own empire in 333 B.C.. Roman rule dating from 58 B.C. did not erase Greek ways and language, and after the division of the Roman Empire in A.D. 285 Cypriots enjoyed peace and national freedom for 300 years under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Empire of Byzantium. The most important event of the early Byzantine period was that the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus became independent no in 431. Beginning in the middle of the seventh century, Cyprus endured three centuries of Arab attacks and invasions. In A.D. 965, it became a province of Byzantium, and remained in that status for the next 200 years.

The Byzantine era profoundly molded Cypriot culture. The Greek Orthodox Christian legacy bestowed on Greek Cypriots in this period would live on during the succeeding centuries of oppressive foreign domination. English, Lusignan, and Venetian feudal lords ruled Cyprus with no lasting impact on its culture. Because Cyprus was never the final goal of any external ambition, but simply fell under the domination of whichever power was dominant in the eastern Mediterranean, destroying its civilization was never a military objective or necessity.

Nor did the long period of Ottoman rule (1570-1878) change Greek Cypriot culture. The Ottomans tended to administer their multicultural empire with the help of their subject millets, or religious communities. The tolerance of the millet system permitted the Greek Cypriot community to survive, administered for Constantinople by the Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus, who became the community's head, or ethnarch.

However tolerant Ottoman rule may have been with regard to religion, it was otherwise generally harsh and rapacious, tempered mainly by inefficiency. Turkish settlers suffered alongside their Greek Cypriot neighbors, and the two groups endured together centuries of oppressive governance from Constantinople.

In the light of intercommunal conflict since the mid-1950s, it is surprising that Cypriot Muslims and Christians generally lived harmoniously. Some Christian villages converted to Islam. In many places, Turks settled next to Greeks. The island evolved into a demographic mosaic of Greek and Turkish villages, as well as many mixed communities. The extent of this symbiosis could be seen in the two groups' participation in commercial and religious fairs, pilgrimages to each other's shrines, and the occurrence, albeit rare, of intermarriage despite Islamic and Greek laws to the contrary. There was also the extreme case of the linobambakoi (linen-cottons), villagers who practiced the rites of both religions and had a Christian as well as a Muslim name. In the minds of some, such religious syncretism indicates that religion was not a source of conflict in traditional Cypriot society.

The rise of Greek nationalism in the 1820s and 1830s affected Greek Cypriots, but for the rest of the century these sentiments were limited to the educated. The concept of enosis--unification with the Greek motherland, by then an independent country after freeing itself from Ottoman rule--became important to literate Greek Cypriots. A movement for the realization of enosis gradually formed, in which the Church of Cyprus had a dominant role.

During British rule (1878-1960), the desire for enosis intensified. The British brought an efficient and honest colonial administration, but maintained the millet system. Government and education were administered along ethnic lines, accentuating differences. For example, the education system was organized with two Boards of Education, one Greek and one Turkish, controlled by Athens and Constantinople, respectively. The resulting education emphasized linguistic, religious, cultural, and ethnic differences and ignored traditional ties between the two Cypriot communities. The two groups were encouraged to view themselves as extensions of their respective motherlands, and the development of two distinct nationalities with antagonistic loyalties was ensured.

By the 1950s, the growing attraction of enosis for ever larger segments of Greek Cypriot society caused a Turkish Cypriot reaction, a desire for taksim--partition of the island--for the smaller ethnic community had well-founded reasons for fearing rule from the Greek mainland. In the mid-1950s, Greek Cypriot agitation for enosis went beyond manifestos and demonstrations, and Turkish Cypriots responded in kind. Within twenty years, the island was tragically divided.

By the early 1990s, Greek Cypriot society enjoyed a high standard of living, and, to a degree unknown in its past, was educated and open to influences from the outside world. Economic modernization created a more flexible and open society and caused Greek Cypriots to share the concerns and hopes of other secularized West European societies. The Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus was the ethnarch, or leader, of the Greek Cypriot community in name only, because religion had lost much of its earlier power. Finally, the dream of enosis was irrevocably shattered by the events of 1974, and Greek Cypriots sought to deal with the consequences of the Turkish invasion.

Cyprus had three other ethnic groups at the beginning of the 1990s: Maronites, Armenians, and Latins. Together they numbered only about 6,000, less than 1 percent of the island's population, but they maintained social institutions of their own and were represented in organs of government. The Maronites and Armenians had come during the Byzantine period, and the Latins slightly later. The Maronites, Arabic-speaking peasants from around Syria and Lebanon, were already an important ethnic group at the time of the Turkish conquest in 1571. By the mid-twentieth century, they lived mainly in four villages in northwestern Cyprus. Armenian Cypriots were primarily urban and mercantile, most of whom had arrived after the collapse of the Armenian nationalist movement in the Caucasus at the end of World War I. Latins were concentrated among merchant families of the port towns on the southern coast and were descendants of the Lusignan and Venetian upper classes. The Ottomans had suppressed Roman Catholicism, and Latins were largely Greek Orthodox, but retained their French or Italian names. Some Latins reverted to the group's original religion.

Cyprus - Population

In 1960, the last year for which there was an official census for the entire population of Cyprus, the island was home to 573,566 people. Official estimates held that there were 441,568 Greek Cypriots, 3,627 Armenians, 2,706 Maronites (in the future these two groups were to be counted as part of the Greek Cypriot community, according to the terms of the constitution of 1960), 103,822 Turkish Cypriots, and 24,408 others (mostly foreigners). According to government statistics, 81.14 percent of Cypriots in 1960, were Greek Cypriot (including Armenians and Maronites) and 18.86 percent were Turkish Cypriot. Republic of Cyprus statistics estimated the 1988 population of the whole island at 687,500, and that of the government-controlled area at 562,700. It was estimated that the island's population consisted of 550,400 (80.1 percent) Greek Cypriots (including 6,300 Armenians and Maronites), 128,200 (18.6 percent) Turkish Cypriots, and 8,900 (1.3 percent) who belonged to other groups (mainly British). Cypriot population estimates were often controversial, because they could have significant bearing on political settlements. Thus, population figures from the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" differed markedly from those of the Republic of Cyprus.

At the end of the 1980s, the Republic of Cyprus had a fertility rate (births per woman) of 2.4, the highest in Western Europe. But this spurt in births was a new development, and it was uncertain how long it would continue. In the troubled 1970s, the reverse had been the case. Substantial migration and a decline in the fertility rate resulted in a negative growth rate of -0.9 percent in the years 1973-76. In the period 1976-82, while the economy was being restructured, population growth gradually reached an average rate of 0.8 percent, and in 1984 peaked at 1.4 percent. In the second half of the 1980s, the growth rate remained above 1 percent.

The long-term decline in the fertility rate was first noted after World War II, when the crude birth rate dropped from 32 per thousand in 1946 to an average of 25 per thousand during the 1950s. The main contributing factor in this remarkable fall in fertility was the rapid postwar economic development. This downward trend continued in the following decades, and a rate of 18 per thousand was recorded in the first part of the 1970s. After a further decline to 16 per thousand in the years after the 1974 invasion, the Greek Cypriot birth rate increased to a rate of 20 to 21 per thousand during the period 1980-86, and then continued its decline, reaching 19.2 per thousand in 1985-88.

This change in the reproductive behavior of the Greek Cypriot population was generally attributed to improvement of the standard of living, expansion of education to all sections of the population, and the consequent wider participation by women in the work force. In addition, there was the traditional Cypriot concern to provide a better future for offspring, which, in a modern social context, entailed increased expenditure for education and a striving to amass a larger material inheritance. As a result, the average family size has declined, from 3.97 persons in 1946 to 3.51 in 1982.

A final cause of declining birth rates is the disappearance in Cyprus of the rural-urban dichotomy, in which higher birth rates are registered in the countryside. The postwar period saw an increasing movement of people to the towns, on either a daily or a permanent basis. This fact, together with the compactness of the island, has resulted in "the near fusion of urban and rural life," in the words of L. W. St. John Jones, a student of Cypriot demography. The rapid and effective dissemination of typical urban attitudes contributed to a rural fertility rate not much higher than the urban one. Contraceptives were easily available at modest cost all over the island; abortions, widely carried out in private clinics, were seen not as matters of moral or religious controversy, but simply as another means of family planning, albeit a drastic one.

Emigration of Cypriots abroad has often been on a large enough scale to affect population growth. As a demographic phenomenon, it has been viewed as an extension of rural to urban movement. At times when a future in the towns was unpromising for those intent on escaping rural poverty, there was the additional safety value of emigration. Cypriots frequently availed themselves of this opportunity instead of living in crowded slums in their country's towns, and their relatively small numbers meant that recipient countries could easily absorb them. Although there was emigration as early as the 1930s, there is no available data before 1955.

The periods of greatest emigration were 1955-59, the 1960s, and 1974-79, times of political instability and socioeconomic insecurity when future prospects appeared bleak and unpromising. Between 1955 and 1959, the period of anticolonial struggle, 29,000 Cypriots, 5 percent of the population, left the island. In the 1960s, there were periods of economic recession and intercommunal strife, and net emigration has been estimated at about 50,000, or 8.5 percent of the island's 1970 population. Most of these emigrants were young males from rural areas and usually unemployed. Some five percent were factory workers and only 5 percent were university graduates. Britain headed the list of destinations, taking more than 75 percent of the emigrants in 1953-73; another 8 to 10 percent went to Australia, and about 5 percent to North America.

During the early 1970s, economic development, social progress, and relative political stability contributed to a slackening of emigration. At the same time, there was immigration, so that the net immigration was 3,200 in 1970-73. This trend ended with the 1974 invasion. During the 1974-79 period, 51,500 persons left as emigrants, and another 15,000 became temporary workers abroad. The new wave of emigrants had Australia as the most common destination (35 percent), followed by North America, Greece, and Britain. Many professionals and technical workers emigrated, and for the first time more women than men left. By the early 1980s, the government had rebuilt the economy, and the 30 percent unemployment rate of 1974 was replaced by a labor shortage. As a result, only about 2,000 Cypriots emigrated during the years 1980-86, while 2,850 returned to the island.

Although emigration slowed to a trickle during the 1980s, so many Cypriots had left the island in preceding decades that in the late 1980s an estimated 300,000 Cypriots (a number equivalent to 60 percent of the population of the Republic of Cyprus) resided in seven foreign countries.

Major demographic changes could also be seen in the distribution of the population between urban and rural areas in the past fifty years. From 1881 to 1911 there was almost no internal migration, and the rural population constituted 81 percent of the total. The first change was noted in the 1931 census, when 22 percent of the population was classified as town dwellers. In the following decades, especially in the period 1946-60, the urban proportion grew increasingly rapidly; the urban population increased by 78 percent in that period, while that of rural areas grew by only 10 percent. Some 36 percent of the island's population was concentrated in towns in 1960. The urban share increased to 42 percent by 1973. In this same period, the rural population actually declined by 0.7 percent.

Following the displacement of one-third of the population in 1974, the urban population in the government-controlled area rose to 52 percent in 1976 and 63.5 percent in 1983. Urbanization did not abate in the following years, for in 1986 fully 64 percent of the population living in government-controlled areas of Cyprus was urban-based. According to the republic's 1988 Demographic Report for those areas controlled by the government, 363,000 persons lived in urban areas and 199,300 in rural areas. Such a phenomenal change in the island's demographic composition could not fail to have significant repercussions in all areas of life.

The Nicosia district, historically the largest of the island's six districts, continued to expand at a faster rate than the other districts. In 1881 its population constituted 30 percent of the total; in 1973, it constituted 37 percent, and in 1986, it was up to 42 percent. In the late 1980s, its population was estimated at 234,000, despite the fact that a large part of Nicosia is in the occupied north; Limassol, the second largest district, had 91,500; Paphos, 49,500; and Famagusta, most of which is under Turkish occupation, 29,100.

Cyprus experienced a rapid and intense economic transformation after World War II. The traditional economy of subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry was replaced by a commercial economy, centered in expanding urban areas. These economic changes resulted from extensive construction of housing and other facilities for British military personnel during World War II; exports of minerals (60 percent of all exports), which became the island's most valuable export in the 1950s; and the fourteenfold increase in British military spending through the postwar period. (Cyprus became Britain's most important base in the eastern Mediterranean after the loss of bases in the Arab countries.) Independence brought such an acceleration of economic development, the so-called "economic explosion," that by the end of the 1960s the objectives of the government's economic planning were not only fulfilled, but overtaken.

In this context of economic growth, agriculture modernized, farm machinery became common, irrigation increased, and the scientific use of pesticides and fertilizers became widespread, but farming became less important in the economy as a whole. Although agricultural income tripled during the 1950s, and then doubled in the 1960s, earnings from industry, construction, trade, tourism, and telecommunications grew even more, and agriculture's share of the gross domestic product (GDP) declined. This decline brought with it changes in employment for many. The increasing fragmentation of farms through inheritance and a shortage of water caused Cypriots to leave farming for full-time or part-time jobs in other economic sectors. The proximity of employment opportunities in urban areas only made the transition easier.

The flight from agriculture, which became noticeable in the decade and a half after World War II, continued after independence and reached a peak in 1974, when the best and most productive agricultural land fell under Turkish occupation. In 1960, some 40.3 percent of the economically active population were agricultural workers; in 1973, the figure were down to 33.6 percent employed in this sector. In 1988 government figures estimated only 13.9 percent of the work force earned a living from farming full time. Although changes in accounting principles are the cause of some of this decline, the decline of agricultural employment since the late 1940s was striking.

Urbanization in Cyprus did not result in the annihilation of traditional values and practices, but in their preservation. Urbanization took place under conditions that generally spared the island the problems often connected with migration of large numbers of unemployed farm workers to urban centers. For one thing, urbanization occurred in a period of prosperity and increasing economic activity, and employment was available. In addition, farm workers generally left their villages only when they had found work in urban areas. Another happy circumstance was that the island's small size and its good road system linked most villages to the towns, so that many rural workers could commute daily to their new jobs. The capital and largest city was especially well connected to the countryside. Finally, rural migrants unable to afford housing in Nicosia and other towns were able to settle in nearby villages, a circumstance that reduced the likelihood of slums.

Many migrants regarded access to secondary education as a principal reason for moving to the city. While traditional Cypriot agricultural society valued land above all else and considered education a wasteful luxury, a modern and diversified economy made education a necessity. Migrants came to value education as the principal means of improving their material and social positions. Expansion of education contributed immensely to the dissemination of urban values and organizations to rural Cyprus.

Postwar population redistribution in Cyprus was so extensive that most urban dwellers were born in rural areas. These migrants maintained close ties with the countryside, and many owned plots of land in their places of origin. The satisfaction of owning land went beyond increasing property values, a fact that is easy to understand in Cypriots, who were an agricultural people until just a generation ago.

Cyprus - Class Structure

From the establishment of Ottoman rule and destruction of the Venetian aristocracy, Cypriot class structure was free of vast disparities of wealth and status. Venetian estates were broken up and given to Turkish settlers, who soon were indistinguishable from their Greek Cypriot neighbors, until one heard them speak. A small Ottoman bureaucracy governed the island, aided by the Greek Orthodox clergy, who, under the millet system, were the leaders of their people. Some Greek Cypriots engaged in commerce, but the island's population consisted mostly of small farmers. This pattern continued until the early decades of this century, when, under British rule, living standards slowly began to rise.

A small Greek commercial class formed, often drawing its money from working for the British. In addition to profiting from government service and increased commerce, some acquired wealth as moneylenders. Taking advantage of frequent droughts and plagues, moneylenders could become dominant figures and landowners in the countryside. Their fortunes were relatively small, however, for Cyprus was a poor country, with most people living at subsistence levels. The founding of the cooperative movement in the early years of the twentieth century and British reforms in later decades broke the power of these small financiers and permitted farmers to repay their debts at reasonable rates. The cities had no wealthy class, but only more prosperous groups that earned their living in government service, the professions, and business.

From the 1950s to the invasion of 1974, the Cypriot economy bloomed, and many prospered. The average living standard increased markedly in both the countryside and the city. Workers commuted to urban areas for employment, yet lived in their home villages; thus, no slums were created. Some businessmen in the cities earned substantial amounts of money through hotels, real estate, and commerce. Although some of these businessmen became quite wealthy, their money was new. Fortunes in Cyprus rarely went back beyond a generation.

The substantial economic growth of the Republic of Cyprus since the mid-1970s furthered these trends. All government-controlled areas benefited from the prosperous economy, and new modern houses were seen in every village. Land become very valuable and fortunes could be earned from land earlier regarded as worthless. Many became rich from the explosive growth of the tourist industry. Fortunes were also earned from manufacturing, trade and shipping, and financial services, and at the beginning of the 1990s the republic had a highly visible class of the newly wealthy.

The republic's prosperity was widely shared, however. The average standard of living matched those of some other West European countries. At the beginning of the 1990s, even workingclass Cypriots regarded vacations abroad as necessities. A welfare system along West European lines supported Cypriots in need.

Education was a common means of rising in social status, and most Cypriots respected higher education and white collar professions. The expanding economy allowed many Cypriots to have more sophisticated work than their parents. To move in one generation from farmer to urban professional became, if not the rule, at least not extraordinary. Given the small size of the republic, and the still strong tradition of the extended family, virtually all Cypriots could number among their relatives farmers, teachers, government employees, small businessmen, and other professional workers.

Cyprus - Family and Marriage

The structure of the family was affected by the postwar changes. The family was traditionally the most important institution in Cypriot society. Especially in village life, people thought of themselves primarily as members of families, and rarely, according to sociologist Peter Loizos, spoke of "themselves as individuals in the existential sense." Others have noted that Greek Cypriots traditionally identified themselves first as members of families, then according to their places of origin, and lastly as citizens of a nation.

The typical traditional Greek Cypriot households consisted of a father, a mother, and their unmarried children. At marriage, the parents gave their children a portion of land, if available, along with money and household items. Traditionally, the bridegroom provided the house and the bride's family the furniture and linens. This was the dowry, the allocation of an equal portion of the parents' property to the children, male or female, at the time of marriage, rather than after the death of the parents. Until the 1950s, this transfer of property at marriage was agreed to orally by the parties involved; more recently the so-called dowry contract has been introduced. A formal agreement specifying the amount of property to be given to the couple, the dowry contract is signed by all parties and enforced by religious authorities. At the engagement, for example, a priest will ask if such a contract has been considered.

After World War II, it became the bride's obligation to provide the house. Ownership of a house, given the scarcity of land (especially after the invasion of 1974) and the considerable expense of building, became a great advantage for a single woman seeking to marry. For this reason, a great part of the wages of a working woman went to the construction of a house, for a "good marriage" was as important at the beginning of the 1990s as it was in the past.

Traditionally all marriages were arranged, generally through the mediation of a matchmaker. The latter, although unrelated to either family, knew them well enough to be confident that their children were well suited. Opportunities for the young themselves to meet were rare and restricted: at church, in the presence of their parents, and at the village fountain and during the "Sunday afternoon walks," where girls and boys strolled separately. Couples were matched with a few qualities in mind, and in larger settlements were often relative strangers. Love was not seen as a good reason for marriage, for romantic love was not highly esteemed in traditional Cypriot society. Divorce and separation were virtually unknown, because through the system of marriage and dowry, kinship and economic ties were so rigidly defined that neither partner could opt out of a marriage without devastating social consequences.

Urbanization and modernization have altered Greek Cypriot attitudes toward marriage. The expansion of the school system has meant that boys and girls meet from an early age and are exposed to modern ideas about social and sexual relations. The great increase in the number of women in the work force also has liberated them from strict parental control.

Even at the beginning of the 1990s, however, economic considerations remained a decisive factor in matters of sexual morality and marriage settlements. In farming communities, for example, where daughters were financially dependent on parents, the latter could still regulate premarital behavior. Among the lower middle class of wage earners, where there was little property to divide among the children, parents still retained considerable authority over their daughters, for a "good name" was thought to increase the chances of a marriage bringing upward social mobility. Among affluent urban classes, where girls associated with boys of similar economic background, parents relaxed their vigilance considerably, and more typically modern Western attitudes toward sexual morality emerged.

In traditional Cypriot society, full manhood was attained through marriage and becoming the main support for a family. Similarly, it was only through marriage that a woman could realize what was seen as her main purpose in life, becoming a mother and homemaker. Remaining single reduced a woman to the marginal role of looking after aged parents and being on the periphery of her married siblings' lives.

The great importance of a separate "dwelling unit" for the nuclear family has always been recognized as a prerequisite for the couple's economic independence. Accordingly, the head of the family has been seen as morally justified in pursuing the interest of his dependents in all circumstances. This principle of symferon, that is, self-interest, overrides every other consideration. Acting in accordance with the principle of symferon, Greek Cypriot parents do all in their power to equip their children for the future. In present-day Cyprus, this involves providing the best possible education for sons, and securing a house as well as an acceptable education for daughters.

In traditional Cypriot villages, houses were built close to one another, encouraging the close contact and cooperation that were necessary for survival in a context of general poverty. The closely knit community of families provided a sense of belonging and security, but also greatly restricted individuals within accepted norms and boundaries in all aspects of life. Urbanization had a liberating effect. As people became wage earners, the selfsufficiency of the nuclear family grew at the expense of community interdependence.

Despite changes in its structure, however, the family remained strong in Greek Cypriot society. In the period 1985-89, the country's marriage rate was 9.5 per thousand, the highest in Europe. The period saw a rising trend in the marriage age for men and women, about one year older for both than in earlier years. In 1988 the mean age at marriage was 28.7 for grooms, and 25.2 for brides. Grooms and brides in rural areas still tended to marry younger than their urban counterparts. On the other hand, the divorce rate had almost doubled from 42 per thousand in 1980 to 68 per thousand in 1988. The number of extramarital births remained very low by European standards; in 1988 only seventy-two children were born out of wedlock, a mere 0.7 percent of the total number of births.

Cyprus - Status of Women

Postwar changes greatly affected Greek Cypriot women's place in society, especially changes which gave them expanded access to education and increased participation in the work force. At the beginning of the century, the proportion of girls to boys enrolled in primary education was one to three. By 1943, some 80 percent of girls attended primary school. When, in 1960, elementary education was made compulsory, the two sexes were equally enrolled. By the 1980s, girls made up 45 percent of those receiving secondary education. Only after the mid-1960s did women commonly leave Cyprus to receive higher education. In the 1980s, women made up about 32 percent of those studying abroad.

Cyprus had long had a high degree of female participation in the work force. In the period 1960-85, women's share of the work force rose only slightly, from 40.8 percent to 42.2 percent. However, there were great changes in where women worked. Women's share of the urban work force rose from 22 percent to 41 percent, while their share of the rural work force fell from 51 percent to 44.4 percent. The decline in rural areas stemmed from the overall shift away from agricultural work, where women's contribution had always been vital, to employment in urban occupations.

Cypriot women enjoyed the same rights to social welfare as men in such matters as social security payments, unemployment compensation, vacation time, and other common social provisions. In addition, after 1985 women benefited from special protective legislation that provided them with marriage grants and with maternity grants that, paid them 75 percent of their insurable earnings. Still, a large number of women, the self-employed and unpaid family workers on farms, were not covered by the Social Insurance Scheme. These women constituted 28 percent of the economically active female population.

In 1985 the Republic of Cyprus ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. Despite ratification of this agreement, as of late 1990 there was no legislation in the Republic of Cyprus that guaranteed the right to equal pay for work of equal value, nor the right of women to the same employment opportunities.

The occupational segregation of the sexes was still persistent in Cyprus at the beginning of the 1990s. Even though the participation of women in clerical jobs had more than doubled since the late 1970s, only one woman in fifteen was in an administrative or managerial position in 1985. Women's share of professional jobs increased to 39 percent by the mid-1980s, compared with 36 percent ten years earlier, but these jobs were concentrated in medicine and teaching, where women had traditionally found employment. In fields where men were dominant, women's share of professional positions amounted to only 11 percent, up from 8 percent in 1976. In the fields where women were dominant, men took just under half the professional positions.

Although most Cypriot women worked outside the home, they were expected to fulfill the traditional domestic roles of housewife and mother. They could expect little help from their spouses, for most Cypriot men were not ready to accept any domestic duties, and most women did not expect them to behave otherwise. Nonetheless, even women with full-time jobs were judged by the traditional standards of whether they kept a clean house and provided daily hot meals.

Moreover, even at the beginning of the 1990s, Cypriot women were still burdened with the expectation of safeguarding the honor of the family. According to tradition, a woman's duty was to protect herself against all criticism of sexual immodesty. A study carried out in a farming community in the mid-1970s found that women were still expected to avoid any social contact with men that could be construed to have a sexual content. An expressed desire for male society was seen to reflect poorly on a woman's honor, and virginity was seen by many villagers, both men and women, to be a precondition for marriage. The honor of a family, that is, the sense of dignity of its male members, depended on the sexual modesty and virtue of its women. These traditional attitudes have waned somewhat in recent decades, especially in urban areas, but were still prevalent in the early 1990s. Another indication of the conservative nature of Greek Cypriot society at the beginning of the 1990s was that the feminist movement in Cyprus was often the object of ridicule from both sexes. Nevertheless, women's increasing economic independence was a force for liberation in all sections of the population.

Cyprus - Religion

The most important church in Cyprus, the Church of Cyprus, is an autocephalous church in the Orthodox tradition using the Greek liturgy. It recognized the seniority and prestige of the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople, while retaining complete administrative autonomy under its own archbishop. The Great Schism, as the split between Catholic and Orthodox became known, had major consequences for the Church of Cyprus. Under Lusignan and Venetian rule, the Church of Cyprus was pressured to recognize the authority of the Roman pope. The imposed Roman hierarchy attempted to remold the Church of Cyprus in the image of the Western church. Under the Muslim Ottomans, Cypriots were no longer considered schismatics, but merely unbelievers and followers of an inferior religion. As such they were allowed considerable autonomy, and the archbishop was the officially recognized secular as well as religious leader of his community. Under the British, there was an attempt to secularize all public institutions, but this move was bitterly opposed by church authorities, who used the conflict with the state to gain leadership of the Greek nationalist movement against colonial rule. At independence Archbishop Makarios III, a young, Western-educated former monk, was elected president of the republic, holding this position until his death in 1977. His successor, Archbishop Chrysostomos, was still head of the Church of Cyprus at the beginning of the 1990s. He was a conservative leader, both in religious and political matters, well-suited for a church that had never undergone reforms similar to those instituted by the Second Vatican Council for the Roman Catholic Church.

The church had long been composed of four episcopal sees: the archbishopric of Nicosia, and the metropolitanates of Paphos, Kition, and Kyrenia. New metropolitanates were created by Makarios in 1973 for Limassol and Morphou, with a suffragan, or assistant, bishop in Salamis under the archbishop. A bishop had to be a graduate of the Orthodox theological seminary in Greece and be at least thirty years of age. Since Orthodox bishops were sworn to a vow of celibacy and parish clergy were usually married, bishops were recruits from monasteries rather than parish churches. Bishops were not appointed by the archbishop, but, like him, were elected through a system granting representation to laymen, other bishops, abbots, and regular clergy.

Individual churches, monasteries, dioceses, and charitable educational institutions organized by the Church of Cyprus were independent legal persons enjoying such rights and obligations as holding property. In exchange for many church lands acquired by the government, the government assumed responsibility for church salaries. Parish clergy, traditionally married men chosen by their fellow villagers, were sent for brief training before ordination. In the twentieth century, modernizers, most notably Archbishop Makarios, were instrumental in strengthening the quality and training of priests at the Cypriot seminary in Nicosia.

The monasteries of Cyprus had always been very important to the Church of Cyprus. By the twentieth century many had long lain in ruins, but their properties were among the most important holdings of the church, the island's largest landowner. Although the number of monks decreased in the postwar era, in the early 1990s there were at least ten active monasteries in the government-controlled areas.

In the Orthodox church, ritual was to a great extent the center of the church's activity, for Orthodox doctrine emphasizes the mystery of God's grace rather than salvation through works and knowledge. Seven sacraments are recognized: baptism in infancy, followed by confirmation with consecrated oil, penance, the Eucharist, matrimony, ordination, and unction in times of sickness or when near death.

Formal services are lengthy and colorful, with singing, incense, and elaborate vestments according to the occasion for the presiding priest. Statues are forbidden, but the veneration of icons, located on the church's walls and often covered with offerings of the faithful, is highly developed. Easter is the focus of the church year, closing the Lenten fasting with an Easter Eve vigil and procession. Marriage is a highly ritualized occasion. Formal divorce proceedings are required for broken engagements that have been ratified by the church. The wedding sponsors play an important role in the family, for they usually act as godparents of all children born of that union.

Religious observance varied. In traditional rural villages, women attended services more frequently than men, and elderly family members were usually responsible for fulfilling religious duties on behalf of the whole family. Church attendance was less frequent in urban areas and among educated Cypriots. For much of the population, religion centered on rituals at home, veneration of icons, and observance of certain feast days of the Orthodox calendar.

Cyprus - Education

One of the most important institutional changes introduced during the period of British rule was the allocation of a small subsidy for the establishment of primary schools. A great increase in the number of primary schools throughout the island was made possible by the Education Law of 1895, which permitted local authorities to raise taxes to finance schools. In 1897 there were only 76 schools, run by voluntary and church donations; twenty years later there were 179. Colonial officials also subsidized teacher training and agricultural courses, but did not interfere with local and church authorities in the area of secondary education.

As a result of a campaign against illiteracy launched by British authorities, the percentage of illiterate adult Cypriots fell from 33 percent in 1946 to 18 percent in 1960. After independence the illiteracy rate dropped still further, to 9.5 percent in 1976, the last year for which there are statistics. In that year, 15 percent of women were illiterate, as were 3.2 percent of men. This improvement reflected the growing school enrollment. In 1960 as much as 25 percent of the population had never attended school, but by 1986-87 this figure had dropped to 6 percent. Another indication of the expansion of education was that in 1946 only 5 percent of adult women had attended secondary schools; forty years later 30 percent had.

During the colonial period, the main educational goal was the inculcation of national ideals and the strengthening of ethnic identity. After independence, goals became more practical. A welleducated population was seen as the best way of guaranteeing a thriving economy, a rise in overall living standards, and a vigorous cultural life. The great importance attached to education could be seen in the significant rise in government spending on it during the period since independence. In 1960 education accounted for 3.4 percent of the gross national product (GNP). By 1987 education accounted for 5.6 percent of GNP and 11.6 percent of the government's budget.

At the beginning of the 1990s, there was an abundance of qualified teachers for all levels and types of schools, as well as administrative personnel, all of whom were accredited by a special committee of the Ministry of Education. All public schools had uniform curricula; the preparation of school textbooks was the responsibility of committees of teachers and administrators, working in close cooperation with educational authorities in Greece. Some instructional material for both primary and secondary education was donated by the Greek government. Cypriot schools were also well provided with modern teaching equipment.

A principal challenge at the beginning of the 1990s was providing education more responsive to the needs of the economy. The first vocational-technical schools were established after independence in an attempt to provide the rapidly expanding economy with technicians and skilled workers. However, Cyriots retained a tendency to choose academic rather than technical courses, for reasons of social prestige. Cyprus therefore faced a chronic shortage of skilled workers and a high rate of unemployment for university graduates. In the second half of the 1980s, this trend had ended. In the 1986-87 academic year, only 5.3 percent of students opted for the classical academic course of studies, compared with 46.2 percent in the 1965-66 academic year. About half of all students chose to concentrate on economic and commercial courses; about one-fifth percent chose scientific courses; and onefifth percent, vocational-technical courses.

The Greek Cypriot education system consisted of preprimary and primary schools, secondary general and secondary technical/vocational schools, and special schools for the blind, deaf, and other teachable handicapped persons. In addition, there were institutions for teacher training, specialized instruction, and informal education. As of 1990, there was no university in the Republic of Cyprus, and until one opened in the early 1990s, further studies had to be pursued abroad. There were a small number of private schools.

The constitution of 1960 assigned responsibility for education to the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communal chambers. After withdrawal of the Turkish Cypriots from all state institutions, the government proceeded with the establishment of the Ministry of Education in 1965. Under this ministry, the education system evolved its present structure: one to two and one-half years of preprimary schooling for children aged three to five and one-half years; six years of primary school for children aged five and onehalf to eleven and one-half years; six years of secondary schooling, followed by two to three years of higher education for those who did not go to study abroad.

The development of preprimary education was a relatively recent phenomenon in Cyprus. In 1973 only 11 percent of children under five years of age attended public or private nurseries or kindergartens. Following the 1974 invasion, the state became much more involved with preprimary education through its establishment of nurseries and kindergartens for the thousands of refugees from northern areas. The 1980s saw a further expansion of public education of this kind.

Primary education was always free in Cyprus and aimed at the all-around education of young children. After 1962 primary education was compulsory, and primary schools were found in all communities, even remote villages. In the 1986-87 academic year, there were 357 public primary schools, and l6 private ones (most of the latter for the children of foreign residents).

Secondary education, which was also free, but not compulsory, was open without examination to all children who had completed primary schooling. It was divided into two stages, each consisting of three grades. During the first stage, the gymnasium, all students were taught the same general subjects, with a special emphasis on the humanities. The second stage consisted of either the lyceum, which offered five main fields of specialization (classical studies, science, economics, business, and languages), or a vocational-technical course. Schools of the second category aimed at providing industry with technicians and craftsmen. Vocational schools trained many students for work in the country's important tourist industry; technical schools emphasized mathematics, science, and training in various technologies.

After independence the number of students at the secondary level increased rapidly, rising from 26,000 in the 1960-61 academic year to 42,000 ten years later. By the second half of the 1980s, 98 percent of those who completed primary school attended secondary schools, compared with about 75 percent twenty years earlier.

Although Cyprus had no university of its own (the long-planned University of Cyprus was expected to begin enrolling students for some courses in 1991), many Cypriots were at foreign universities, and the percentage of students studying at the university level, 29 percent, was among the highest in the world. During the 1970s and 1980s, an average of more than over 10,000 Cypriots studied abroad annually. During the 1970s, more than half of these students were in Greece, and about one-fifth were in Britain. In the 1980s, the United States became an important destination for students going abroad, generally surpassing Britain. The number of women studying abroad increased markedly during the 1970s and 1980s, going from 24 percent in 1970 to 40 percent in 1987.

Cyprus did, however, provide some opportunities for third-level training, and in the late 1980s attracted some of those who earlier would have studied abroad. In 1987 there were seven public and ten private institutions of higher learning, where about one-fourth of the island's secondary school graduates were enrolled. The public institutions were the Pedagogical Academy of the Ministry of Education, which trained kindergarten and primary school teachers; the Higher Technical Institute of the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance, which trained mechanical, electrical, and civil engineers; the College of Forestry under the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources; the School of Nursing, the School of Midwifery, and the Psychiatric School of Nursing under the Ministry, of Health; and the Hotel and Catering Institute under the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance. Private institutions offered courses in business administration, secretarial studies, mechanical and civil engineering, banking and accounting, hotel and catering, and communications.

Cyprus - Health and Welfare

A Cambridge professor, visiting Cyprus in 1801, wrote that "there is hardly upon earth a more wretched spot" than Cyprus, with its "pestiferous air" and contagion. A few years after the British came into possession of the country, it was officially reported that the island was generally healthy; this could be attributed to the disappearance of the plague around the middle of the nineteenth century. According to testimony of the chief medical officer in the mid-1880s, however, the island's situation was far from healthy. As the towns and villages were often surrounded by marshes, drainage was often impossible and water supplies were often contaminated. The draining of marshes, destruction of the anopheles mosquito, securing of sanitary water, and introduction of elementary health measures freed Cyprus entirely of the plague, typhus, and other virulent diseases by the end of the century. Malaria remained a serious concern, whose effects were widely evident. The eradication of this disease after World War II contributed greatly to the wellbeing of the island, so much so that some observers have regarded it as the most important event in the modern history of Cyprus.

Cyprus - Health Care

Mortality rates and the health of Greek Cypriots rose steadily in the postwar era. The eradication of malaria was an important cause for this improvement, as were material prosperity and the diffusion of up-to-date health information. Since independence in 1960, the Ministry of Health has been responsible for improving public health and providing public medical services, as well as overseeing the extensive private health care sector.

Government medical services were available to all at the beginning of the 1990s. The poor were entitled to free services; middle-income families paid for care at reduced rates. These two groups accounted for well over half the population; upper-income persons paid for the full costs of medical services. In addition, there were a number of health plans subsidized by employers and trade unions. Civil servants and members of police and military units received free medical care. Cypriots needing care not available in the republic were sent abroad at government expense.

At the beginning of the 1990s, there were six general hospitals, all in the main towns. In addition, there were twentyone rural health centers and a psychiatric hospital in Nicosia. In 1987 there were 1,870 hospital beds, compared with 1,592 in 1960. The private health sector was extensive, and more than threequarters of all doctors and dentists had their own practices or practiced part time in private clinics. Taking both public and private care into account, in 1989 there was 1 hospital bed per 166 inhabitants, 1 doctor per 482 inhabitants, and 1 dentist for every 1,356 inhabitants.

The improvement in the island's health care during the postwar period was reflected by increased life expectancy. In the 1983-87 period, Cypriot women could expect to live 77.8 years, and men 73.9 years, compared with 69 and 64 years, respectively, for the period 1948-50. The improvement in the infant mortality rate was even more striking, with 11 deaths per 1,000 births in the mid-1980s, compared with 63 per 1,000 at mid-century.

The main reasons for improved health conditions on the island were the Cypriots' constant pursuit of better living standards, their consuming concern with their family's welfare, the close urban-rural ties, and the rapid diffusion of and receptiveness to innovative ideas in health care.

Cyprus - Social Insurance

The five-year development plans adopted by the government of Cyprus increasingly stressed that a developing economy was the best means to improve the welfare and living standards of all sectors of the population. The plan covering the 1989-93 period had as its major objectives improving living standards, attaining higher levels of social welfare, and having a more equitable distribution of national income and economic burdens.

Beginning with independence, the state, trade unions, and the employers' associations had cooperated in establishing an extensive network of social security that included social insurance, death benefits, medical treatment and hospitalization, education, and housing. The crowning success of this effort was the national Social Insurance Scheme. As introduced by colonial authorities in 1957, it was limited with regard to both the number of persons covered and the benefits it could provide. In 1964 the plan was improved and expanded to cover every person gainfully employed on the island, including even the self-employed. The welfare program included maternity leave and assistance for sickness and workrelated injuries. Legislation providing for annual paid vacations was introduced in 1967. By 1987 Cypriots working five days a week were entitled to fifteen days of annual leave a year; those working six days a week had the right to eighteen days. Supporting this entitlement was a central vacation fund to which all participating employers were required to contribute 6 percent of insurable earnings.

A system of unemployment compensation was introduced in 1968. Its main objectives were protecting employees against arbitrary dismissal, regulating how much advance notice was required before dismissal, and setting the amount of unemployment compensation.

The Social Insurance Scheme was fundamentally improved in 1973. For the first time, the plan included a disability pension, and coverage of the self-employed was extended. The social insurance program now included a whole range of benefits. Some benefits were short-range, such as unemployment, sickness, or injury benefits, marriage and maternity benefits and disablement and funeral grants. Long-term benefits included pensions for elderly widow, and invalids, and payments to orphans and survivors.

In June 1974, social insurance payments were increased 25 percent to reach West European standards and meet relevant International Labor Organisation criteria. The economic crisis stemming from the Turkish invasion, with its 30 percent unemployment, compelled the government to reduce all pensions by 20 percent and suspend the payment of unemployment benefits, as well as marriage, birth, and funeral grants. By 1977 benefits were restored to their preinvasion levels, partly through the establishment of a separate fund for unemployment benefits.

The Social Insurance Law of 1980 set contributions and benefits according to the incomes of the insured. The new program maintained the previous flat-rate principle for basic benefits, but introduced supplementary benefits with contributions directly related to the incomes of insured persons. In addition to compulsory coverage of all gainfully employed persons, the new program allowed those formerly employed to continue their social insurance on a voluntary basis. In the second half of the 1980s, participants had amounts equal to 15.5 percent of their insurable earnings paid into the central fund. For employees, the contributions came from three sources: 6 percent from employees themselves, 6 percent from employers, and 3.5 percent from the government. For the selfemployed , the government paid 3.5 percent, and the insured the rest.

Apart from the state Social Insurance Scheme, an increasing number of insurance or pension funds were being registered with the Income Tax Department of the Ministry of Finance. In 1987 there were 1,065 such funds, with a total of C� 5.1 million Cyprus pounds in benefit payments. The number of insured contributors to all funds, public and private, amounted to 214,522 in 1987, compared with 183,000 in 1973. In this period, the government's annual contribution increased from C� 1.7 million to C� 23.7 million. In 1986, the government's payments of social insurance benefits constituted 4.5 percent of GNP, compared with 1.6 percent in 1970.

Cyprus - Social Welfare

Social welfare policy was introduced for the first time in Cyprus in 1946, when legislation was enacted to regulate the supervision of juvenile offenders, the aftercare of reform school boys, and the protection of deprived children. After independence social welfare became the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare Services under the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance. The government committed itself to an active role in social policy when it stated in 1967 that "it recognizes that health, education and other social considerations affect and are interdependent with a vast complex of variables which determine both the social and economic welfare of the island."

By the 1970s, social welfare had evolved into a body of activities designed to enable individuals, family groups, and communities to cope with social problems. In the late 1980s, the state provided five main categories of services: delinquency and social defense; child and family welfare; community work and youth services; social services to other departments; and public assistance.

Delinquency and social defense services were concerned with juvenile and adult offenders. They included pretrial reports on juveniles, supervision of persons placed on probation, follow-up care for those leaving detention centers (obligatory for juveniles, voluntary for adults), and supervision of juveniles involved in antisocial behavior when requested by parents or school authorities.

The primary recipients of child and family welfare were children removed from families where conditions could no longer be remedied. Also served were children needing protection, but remaining with their families, and children threatened by such problems as chronic illness, marriage breakdown, and homelessness. In these cases, the department could supervise fostering arrangements and adoptions. Service of this kind also involved inspecting and licensing homes for children, day nurseries, and childcare personnel. In 1986 there were 207 day- care centers, 164 of them privately run; state and local governments operated the rest. Children placed in the state's care lived in the department's four children's homes; delinquent youth (aged thirteen to eighteen) lived in four youth hostels. There was also a home for retarded children, one section of which was reserved for retarded adults.

Community work and youth services involved the department in providing expert advice, and occasionally financial assistance, to voluntary community and youth organizations. Especially after 1974, the department provided much support for youth centers, where recreational facilities were available for working young people. In the late 1980s, there were ninety-eight of these youth centers, eighty-three of which were run by local governments.

Social services to other departments included long-term care for persons released from psychiatric institutions and, on occasion, for former medical patients; prison welfare measures; and assistance for students having difficulty adjusting to school.

Public assistance was first instituted in 1952 to reduce poverty by offering economic assistance to very poor families, the aged, and the disabled. This service was greatly expanded in 1973, when every Cypriot citizen was made eligible for financial assistance "for the maintenance of a minimum standard of living, and the satisfaction of his basic needs," and promised social services for solving "his personal problems and the improvement of his living conditions." The ultimate objective of these services was to make their recipients socially and economically selfsufficient . By the time of the Turkish invasion in 1974, public assistance expenditures were minimal, given full employment and comparatively high living standards. The years immediately after the invasion saw a swelling of public assistance services. By 1987, when the economy was fully restored, there were only 5,087 recipients of public assistance, half of whom were aged or disabled.

Cyprus - Refugees and Social Reconstruction

During and immediately after the 1974 invasion, the Department of Social Welfare Services undertook the housing, clothing, and feeding of the 200,000 refugees. The social needs stemming from the invasion were so great, however, that a new agency, the Special Service for the Care and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons, was established in September 1974. Initially this agency concentrated on emergency relief by distributing food and clothing and providing medical assistance to the refugee camps. After a few months, it became clear that the thousands of displaced people would not return to their homes in the foreseeable future. As a result, the agency gradually expanded its scope, to aid the reintegration of the displaced into the new society forming in the governmentcontrolled area, once their immediate physical survival had been ensured.

Housing for the wave of refugees was initially provided by the construction of twenty-three camps housing 20,000 displaced persons in tents. Thousands, however, remained outside the camps in shacks, makeshift barracks, public buildings, and half-finished houses. By the end of 1975, the service had replaced its tents with wooden barracks, built by the occupants themselves with materials or money provided by the service.

Another initiative that contributed to solving the refugee problem was the Incentive Scheme for the Reactivation of Refugees. Instituted in 1976, this program provided financial incentives to help refugees get back on their feet. Funds were available to all refugees, but special emphasis was placed on certain occupational groups that could soon become economically self-reliant, such as farmers in remote areas. By fostering economic recovery, the program successfully combated a culture of despair in the refugee community and spared the government a considerable drain on its public assistance funds. Despite the magnitude of the refugee problem, the government concluded that by 1977 its measures had succeeded in rehabilitating all groups affected by the invasion.

The Special Service for the Care and Rehabilitation of Displaced Persons also undertook the construction of low-cost housing projects. In the 1975-86 period, 12,500 low-income families found housing in such projects, which also provided social services in the form of day-care centers, schools, and community and commercial centers. Other government programs that enabled thousands of refugees to live in acceptable housing involved "selfhousing " on either private or state-owned land. In the period 1975- 86, nearly 10,500 houses were built on private properties, and 11,000 on state-owned sites, at a cost to the government of C�80 million. By 1987 more than 43,000 families, about 80 percent of displaced persons, had been housed.

Once the refugee housing problem had been resolved, the government extended its housing program to include lowand middleincome groups, who also faced serious housing problems because of a tremendous increase in the cost of land and construction. Through a combination of controls on the value of land and housing loans, the government succeeded in significantly improving housing conditions.

Also introduced were a number of programs such as child care and youth recreation centers, hostels for the aged, assistance for invalids, and welfare community centers, all of which were incorporated in the existing services of the Department of Social Welfare Services. In this way, the objectives of social policy were redefined as the "systematization, institutionalization, and legalization of public assistance, and the reconstruction of personal, family and social life in the island."

Cyprus - The Economy

CYPRIOTS HAVE EXPERIENCED A SUBSTANTIAL improvement in their living standards since World War II. Cyprus benefited from the war, and in succeeding decades its economy grew at rates that matched those of other countries that profited from the general West European boom that began in the 1950s and lasted up to the first oil price increase of 1973. Cypriot per capita income increased steadily through this period; the economy diversified and ceased to be that of a Third World colony. This success was achieved despite widespread turmoil stemming from shaking off British rule in the 1950s and intercommunal warfare during the 1960s.

Cyprus was affected in 1973 and 1979 by the first and second oil price increases, for it was almost completely lacking in domestic sources of energy. However, energy-related economic disruption was negligible compared with the effects of the Turkish invasion of 1974, which ended in the de facto partition of the Republic of Cyprus. The island's economy disintegrated as a third of its inhabitants fled their homes and livelihoods and many farming, manufacturing, and commercial relationships were shattered. Thereafter, the island's Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities lived separated from one another. Each sought to recreate a functioning economy.

Greeks Cypriots were the more successful. Republic of Cyprus planners adopted an aggressive program of constructive deficit spending, economic incentives, and targeted investments that led the Greek Cypriot economy to reach pre-1974 levels within a few years. This was an astonishing accomplishment in that the island's partition had cost the republic much of its agricultural and manufacturing assets.

The 1980s saw healthy growth and low unemployment. Tourism swelled, and by 1990 more than a million tourists, mostly from Western Europe, visited the republic each year. Housing them caused much construction and an explosion in the value of property along the coast. Manufacturing and trade were encouraged and grew. The destruction of Beirut permitted the republic to become a regional center for services and finance. As the 1990s began, Greek Cypriots were upgrading their tourist trade and aiming at a more diversified and sophisticated manufacturing sector. Leaders of the republic's economy hoped to take advantage of the republic's able and motivated work force and a strong and flexible commercial tradition.

The Turkish Cypriot economy also grew. Facing many obstacles and beginning at a lower point, however, its successes were smaller, and at the beginning of the 1990s Turkish Cypriots enjoyed a per capita income about one-third that of Greek Cypriots. Economic obstacles included the lack of a commercial tradition, a less well-trained work force, and rampant inflation largely imported from Turkey. However, perhaps the most serious economic hurdle Turkish Cypriots had to surmount was their state's lack of international recognition. Its absence deprived them of some international aid and made foreign connections difficult. Despite these difficulties, however, Turkish Cypriots could look with some optimism toward the future. Tourism expanded rapidly in the late l980s and brought in vital foreign exchange. The overall economy had diversified to some extent. Agriculture was more efficient and employed a smaller share of the work force. The service sector had increased in importance. Analysts expected, however, that the Turkish Cypriot economy would likely continue to need Turkish assistance for the foreseeable future.

From independence in 1960 until the Turkish occupation of the north in 1974, the economy of Cyprus performed well overall, and the gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an average annual rate of about 7 percent in real terms. However, the Turkish Cypriot community did not share in this growth, living in its scattered agricultural enclaves under conditions like those of less developed countries.

The Turkish invasion and occupation of the northern 37 percent of the island severely disrupted the economy of the Republic of Cyprus. Fragmentation of the market, a massive displacement of people (about a third of the island's population), and loss of important natural resources had devastating effects. The government responded with the first and second emergency economic action plans, for 1975-76 and 1977-78. The pre-1974 policy of balanced budgets was replaced by expansionary fiscal and monetary policies aimed at stimulating economic activity. Incentive plans to encourage private economic activity were implemented, as were housing and employment programs for refugees who had fled areas seized by the Turks.

These efforts proved phenomenally successful. The economy expanded at a 6 percent rate in real terms between 1974 and 1978, and by 1978 unemployment stood at about 2 percent, compared with 30 percent at the end of 1974. This growth continued through the 1980s. In 1988 the per capita gross national product (GNP) in current prices was about US$7,200 or C�3,597, compared with C�537.9 in 1973.

The economy of the Republic of Cyprus changed as it grew in size and complexity. The primary sector lost ground, as it had in the decades before the Turkish invasion. Agriculture declined from more than 20 percent of GDP at the end of the 1960s to only about 7 percent by the end of the 1980s, although it employed about 15 percent of the labor force. Mining, vital in the 1950s as a source of exports, became insignificant.

Manufacturing increased at double-digit rates during much of the 1980s. At the end of the decade, it accounted for 15.2 percent of GDP, the second largest share, after the service sector's, and was the second largest source of employment. Manufacturing depended on exports, most to the Middle East and the European Economic Community (EEC). However, rising labor costs and relatively low quality products stood in the way of future industrial growth. Construction provided just under 10 percent of GDP in 1989 and was the fourth largest private employer. Construction had declined in importance since the second half of the 1970s, when much housing for refugees was built and work began on constructing the tourist facilities that were important to the south's economy.

The service, or tertiary, sector was the dominant sector in the Greek Cypriot economy after the late 1970s. In 1988 it accounted for 50.2 percent of GDP. The sector's most dynamic component was trade, restaurants, and hotels (or tourism), which supplied 20.8 percent of the GDP and employed 22.3 percent of the labor force in 1988. The gigantic increase in the number of tourists--from 165,000 in 1976 to 1,376,000 in 1989--was the main cause of this subsector's growth. Tourism was also an important source of foreign exchange, exceeding the income from the export of domestic goods from 1985 through 1988.

The other branches of the service sector--transportation, storage, telecommunications, finance, insurance, real estate, and business services--also experienced steady growth and improvement. Another dynamic component of the sector, important to Cyprus's future economic growth, was offshore enterprises, which conducted diverse businesses abroad from a base in southern Cyprus. Attracted by generous tax concessions, the island's strategic location between Europe and the Middle East, and stable political conditions, many foreign businesses established themselves in the republic. By 1990 more than 5,000 permits for offshore enterprises had been issued.

The government played an active and successful role in planning after 1974. This planning was indicative in nature. That is, the government set goals for the economy and limited its direct participation to improving the nation's infrastructure and supporting and guiding the private sector. These activities were costly, however, and resulted in large and expanding budget deficits. By the end of 1987, the total deficit of the 1975-87 period amounted to C�640.6 million.

Another problem was a consistently unfavorable trade balance. In most years, however, expanding surpluses in the invisibles account, mainly from tourist receipts, nearly offset the trade deficits. At the beginning of the 1990s, it was not yet clear what effect the 1988 Customs Union Agreement with the EEC would have on this deficit. Many Cypriots saw the agreement as an opportunity. Access to the community's market of 320 million people might prove beneficial, provided that the manufacturing sector, consisting of small labor-intensive firms, was restructured and modernized. Undoubtedly, the economy would face more intense competition in the 1990s, but its main asset, a versatile and educated human capital, could make the difference again as it had often done in the past.

Cyprus - Development of the Economy since Independence

Cyprus faced a number of structural problems when it gained independence in 1960. Agriculture, the dominant sector, was subject to fluctuating weather conditions and characterized by low productivity. The island's small manufacturing sector centered on small family firms specializing in handicrafts. Tourism was limited to a few hill resorts. The main exports were minerals. The country's infrastructure was that of a Third World country.

These problems and the prevailing view that the market system alone would not be able to provide the basis for major structural changes and for intensive infrastructure building led to the conclusion that economic planning was necessary. The government adopted a system of indicative planning, setting goals for the economy and seeking to encourage and support the private sector's efforts to reach those goals through legislation and monetary and fiscal policies. In addition, the state spent substantial resources to improve the country's physical and institutional infrastructure. Planners believed such measures would be sufficient for the island's dynamic private sector to function well and reach by itself the selected goals, with minimal government participation in the day-to-day operations of the economy. Indicative planning was managed by the Planning Bureau under the Ministry of Finance. The bureau, aided by expert advice from abroad, formulated three fiveyear development plans before the Turkish invasion in 1974, four emergency economic action plans after 1974, and a revised five-year plan for 1989 to 1993.

The first five-year plan, for 1962 to 1966, aimed at achieving higher incomes, full employment, price stability, an improved balance of payments, and greater economic equality between rural and urban areas. The plan provided for a sizeable public investment expenditure, C�62 million, on development projects for roads, ports, airport facilities, irrigation projects, and telecommunications and electricity systems. The Agricultural Research Institute was established in 1962 to improve the quality of agriculture, and the Central Bank of Cyprus was created in 1963 to ensure that an appropriate volume of credit was available to the private sector. This first plan achieved remarkable success, most obviously in agricultural production.

The second five-year plan, for 1967 to 1971, moved beyond the fundamental approach of the first plan, seeking to provide the social and legal structures needed by a more advanced economy. It also gave the business community a more active role in planning. The third five-year plan, for 1972 to 1976, stressed regional planning, to promote more even economic growth throughout the island. This plan also concerned itself with the social and cultural aspects of development. The Cyprus Development Bank was established to provide medium- and long-term loans for development projects, as well as technical and administrative assistance. The Higher Technical Institute and the Hotel and Catering Institute were established to provide specialized training.

The success of these plans was shown by the great gains the Cypriot economy made in the first fourteen years of independence. Although agriculture had become much more productive, the secondary and tertiary sectors had shown even greater productivity as Cyprus became a more developed nation. The primary sector's share of GDP declined from 26.3 percent in 1960 to 17 percent in 1973, while the secondary and tertiary sectors' shares expanded, respectively, from 19.5 to 25 percent and from 54.2 to 58 percent. In addition, the productivity of these two latter sectors was considerably higher than that of the primary sector.

The economy was devastated by the 1974 Turkish invasion and the subsequent occupation of the northern 37 percent of the island. Serious problems included a large number of refugees (about a third of the populations of both communities), fragmentation of the island's market, and the loss by the government-controlled area of land containing raw materials, agricultural resources, and important infrastructure facilities such as the Nicosia International Airport and Famagusta, the island's largest port. The need for reconstruction and development was critical. To meet this challenge, a series of emergency economic action plans for two-year periods was instituted.

The first and second emergency economic action plans, covering the period from 1975 to 1978, aimed mainly at aiding the refugees, then living in camps, by establishing a housing program for them. The plans also directed the government to stimulate the economy by adopting expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. The results were positive. The economy expanded by about 6 percent per year, and the unemployment rate declined to about 2 percent in 1978. Increased domestic consumption and rising oil prices, however, produced some overheating of the economy; the inflation rate reached 7.4 percent in 1978. Despite this problem, the achievement of housing the refugees and getting the economy going again with fewer resources in such a brief period of time was considered almost miraculous.

The third Emergency Economic Action Plan, covering 1979 to 1981 (the last of the two-year plans), aimed at countering the overheating of the economy by adopting a restrictive monetary policy. The main goal of the fourth Emergency Economic Action Plan, covering 1982 to 1986, was to balance economic expansion with monetary stability. These goals were reached. Retail price inflation fell from 13.5 percent in 1980 and 10.8 percent in 1981 to 5 or 6 percent in the next few years and 1.2 percent in 1986. High growth rates with low unemployment continued.

Overall, the economy of Cyprus performed relatively well in the three areas of economic growth, full employment, and monetary stability between 1976 and the late 1980s. Between 1976 and 1986, GDP grew at an average annual rate of 8.4 percent in real terms. Per capita GNP in current prices increased from C�537.9 in 1973 to C�3,597 in 1988, or US$7,200, one of the highest in the Mediterranean area. Unemployment averaged 3.2 percent per year, and price increases 6.3 percent per year, during the 1976-88 period. The price increases of 1980 and 1981 pushed the average up, and the increases of the late 1980s were substantially lower (2.8 percent in 1987 and 3.8 percent in 1989). Government support of the private sector, through tax incentives, loan guarantees for export-oriented industries, grants and loans to agriculture and small industries, training programs for the manufacturing sector, and the substantial improvement of the infrastructure, contributed greatly to this success.

Analysts believed that the 1990s would challenge the economy. The Customs Union Agreement with the EEC could be disastrous if manufacturing were not fundamentally restructured. The high tariffs that had protected manufacturing for decades would be dismantled in the 1990s under the terms of the agreement. The republic's seemingly permanent trade deficit would have to be substantially reduced if it were not to damage the economy in the long term. Agriculture would also be affected; some of its branches, mainly cereals and livestock, which enjoyed direct or indirect subsidies, might fall to foreign competition. The service sector would grow in importance. Tourism, which could not expect further growth in quantity, would have to bring in more receipts by improving the quality of its product. Financial services and offshore enterprises would likely increase in importance.

Cyprus - The Government Sector of the Economy

The government accounted for about 12 to 13 percent of GDP during the 1980s. The need to stimulate the economy after the division of the island in 1974 caused the government to abandon the old policy of balanced budgets and to adopt expansionary fiscal and monetary policies. The results were large and widening budget deficits paid for by borrowing at home and abroad. Domestic public debt rose from C�7.5 million in 1976 to C�161.5 million in 1988. Public and publicly guaranteed foreign debt increased from C�61.8 million in 1976 to C�602.5 million in 1988. The total public and publicly guaranteed domestic and foreign debt rose from C�760.8 million in 1987 to C�764 million (38.7 percent of GDP) in 1988. The foreign debt service ratio (total service payments as a percentage of exports of goods and services) was 11.8 in 1987 and 10.8 in 1988. Domestic borrowing only was used to cover the budget deficit in 1988. Thus, there was a decline in government foreign borrowing in 1988 to C�602.5 million, compared to C�617.5 million in 1987. Still, the burden of servicing the foreign debt continued to be significant. For instance, servicing the external debt was more than half the revenue from exports of domestically produced goods in 1987.

Furthermore, it was anticipated that the tariff reductions that would result from the Customs Union Agreement with the EEC would produce revenue losses, raising the fiscal deficit to C�126 million in 1992, compared with C�73.5 million in 1987. As a consequence, both public and foreign debts were expected to increase. The president of Cyprus, George Vassiliou, forecast a rise in the per capita public debt from C�2,107 in 1987 to C�3,563 in 1992 and a rise in the total foreign debt to C�1,082 million in 1992.

Given the government's ever-present fiscal deficit, there were concrete proposals at the beginning of the 1990s for the introduction of a value added tax (VAT) to improve the state's finances. The Republic of Cyprus lacked a broad-based consumption tax, and a VAT would generate much revenue. The income tax system was also to be overhauled, to reduce tax evasion.

A specific look at government public finances shows that the Republic of Cyprus maintained three types of budgets: the Ordinary Budget, which included expenditures for government operations and other current expenses; the Development Budget, which included development programs; and the Special Relief Fund, which covered state aid for the housing and care of refugees.

The major sources of revenue of the Ordinary Budget included direct taxes; indirect taxes; loan proceeds; sales of goods and services; interest, dividends, rents, and royalties; and foreign grants. Revenue in 1987 from direct taxes was C�107 million, or 27 percent of the total revenue for the Ordinary Budget; revenue from indirect taxes was C�151.3 million, or 38.2 percent; and proceeds from loans were C�68 million, or 17.2 percent. These three main sources of revenue brought in 82.4 percent of the total revenue of the Ordinary Budget.

The major expenditures of the Ordinary Budget were salaries, fees, and allowances; public debt charges; and subventions and contributions and subsidies. Salaries, fees, and allowances accounted for 33.9 percent of total expenditures in 1987; public debt charges, 30.7 percent; subventions and contributions, 9.4 percent; and subsidies, 6.1 percent. The Ordinary Budget showed deficits of C�17.9 million in 1985, C�12.5 million in 1986, C�32.1 million in 1987, and C�28.7 million in 1988.

There was no revenue in the Development Budget during the period 1976-87. If there had been public savings (i.e., excesses of current revenues over current expenditures) in the Ordinary Budget, they could have provided the means to finance all or a part of the investment and other development expenditures. However, for most of the years of the 1976-87 period, there were no public savings. Thus, the Development Budget had to rely on domestic and foreign borrowing to cover its expenditures. The major expenditure items of the Development Budget were investment, capital transfers, and land acquisition. Another sizeable item was expenditures for wages and salaries. Investment expenditures amounted to C�46 million in 1988. Investment expenditures in the period 1985-88 were mainly to finance the Southern Conveyor Project, the Khrysokhou Irrigation Project, the Nicosia-Limassol Highway, several other major roads, and Larnaca Airport. For this reason, construction activity absorbed most of the investment expenditures between 1985 and 1988. Investment's share of the total development expenditures was 60.22 percent in 1985, 76.19 percent in 1986, 75.1 percent in 1987, and 67.74 in 1988.

The revenues of the Special Relief Fund were C�21.5 million in 1987. Expenditures were C�21.5 million. The fund showed a surplus in the period 1985-88. The main sources of revenue were direct taxes (a special contribution), indirect taxes (a temporary refugee levy on imports), and foreign grants. The main expenditures of the fund in 1988 included investment, C�10 million; current transfers, C�7.6 million; capital transfers, C�4.2 million; and wages and salaries, C�1.4 million.

Cyprus - Employment and Labor Relations

The south's successful economy kept unemployment rates low. During the 1980s, unemployment rose above 3.3 percent only once, in 1987, when it reached 3.7 percent. In 1988 unemployment was 2.8 percent. Unemployment rates were also low in the years just before the Turkish invasion of 1974, averaging about 1 percent. The invasion and division of the island disrupted the economy, and in the government-controlled area unemployment averaged 16.2 percent in 1975 and 8.5 percent in 1976. During 1977 the rate fell to 3 percent, a rate typical for the south's economy during the 1980s.

The south's economy frequently had to contend with a shortage of workers and in some years was forced to import workers from abroad to meet the needs of various sectors, especially the tourist industry. This shortfall reflected the changing employment patterns of the economy as a whole. The only population group that consistently had difficulty finding employment was composed of university graduates. Their discontent sometimes resulted in demonstrations and demands that the civil service be expanded.

In 1973 about 37.5 percent of those gainfully employed were members of labor unions. Union membership increased greatly between 1974 and 1977, reaching 62 percent at the end of 1977. This trend continued, and in 1988 labor unions represented more than 80 percent of the work force.

The most prominent unions in the government-controlled area were the left-wing Pan-Cyprian Federation of Labor (Pankypria Ergatiki Omospondia--PEO) with about 70,000 members at the end of the 1980s, and the right-wing Cyprus Workers' Confederation (Synomospondia Ergaton Kyprou--SEK) with about 50,000 members. Third in importance was the civil servants' labor union, with a membership of about 13,000. Employers were organized in various associations represented in the Cyprus Employers' and Industrialists' Federation.

Terms and conditions of employment were negotiated either directly between employee and employer or through collective bargaining between trade unions and employers' organizations. The government's policy was to remain largely uninvolved in these negotiations unless a deadlock had been reached or its participation had been requested, when it acted through its Industrial Relations Section, a part of the Ministry of Labor and Social Insurance. This section routinely acted to prevent laboremployer discord by providing both groups with guidance and information about good industrial relations. As a result, the number of working days lost to strikes was among the lowest in the Western world relative to the size of the work force.

In the 1980s, wages rose faster than prices. A part of the wage increase was brought about through wage indexation, with automatic quarterly wage increases equal to about half the inflation rate. Even at this rate, however, wage increases could be troublesome for the economy. In 1988, for example, average wages and salaries increased 4.5 percent in real terms, but exceeded the productivity gain of 3.5 percent. The relative scarcity of labor and rising labor costs affected the economy in the 1980s and were expected to continue to do in the 1990s.

Cyprus - Agriculture

When Cyprus achieved independence in 1960, the backbone of its economy was agriculture, mostly small farms, and sometimes even subsistence farms. During the 1960s, irrigation projects made possible vegetable and fruit exports; increasingly commercialized farming was able to meet the demands for meat, dairy products, and wine from the British and United Nations troops stationed on the island and from the growing number of tourists.

In the early 1970s, Cypriot farms, still overwhelmingly small owner-run units, furnished about 70 percent of commodity exports and employed about 95,000 people, or one-third of the island's economically active population. Given the expansion of the manufacturing and service sectors, however, agriculture's importance was declining, and in the first half of the 1970s its share of GDP amounted to 18 percent.

The de facto division of the island in 1974 left the Turkish Cypriot community in the north in possession of agricultural resources that produced about four-fifths of the citrus and cereal crops, two-thirds of the green fodder, and all of the tobacco. The south retained nearly all of the island's grapegrowing areas and deciduous fruit orchards. The south also possessed lands producing roughly three-fourths of the valuable potato crop and other vegetables (excluding carrots), half the island's olive trees, and two-thirds of its carob trees. In addition, the south retained two-thirds of the livestock population.

The Turkish occupation caused a large-scale uncoordinated exchange of the agricultural work force between the northern and southern zones. The resulting substantial agricultural unemployment was countered by government actions that included financial assistance on easy terms to farmers. By 1978 the number of persons working in agriculture in the government-controlled area amounted to about 47,000, or 23 percent of the working population. Thereafter, however, agriculture's portion of the work force declined to 20.7 percent in 1979 and 15.8 percent in 1987. Its contribution to the economy also declined; from 17.3 percent of GDP in 1976 to 10.7 percent in 1979 and 7.7 percent in 1988. This share was important to the south's economy, however, and in 1988 value added in agriculture, at constant 1985 prices, was C�112.7 million.

Agriculture's share of the national economy could be expected to decline still further in the 1990s, as the Greek Cypriot economy became even more dominated by the service sector. The island's favorable climate and its location near its leading market, Western Europe, however, meant that farming would remain an important and stable part of the overall economy. Government irrigation projects, subsidies, and tax policies encouraged farming's existence, as did research in new crops and new varieties of ones already in cultivation.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources oversaw efforts to improve agriculture, fishing, and forestry. Subordinate to this ministry and assisting it were, among others, the Agricultural Research Institute, the Veterinary Service, the Meteorological Service, the Department of Water Development, the Department of Forests, and the Department of Geological Survey.

In addition to macroeconomic considerations, the government encouraged agriculture because it provided rural employment, which maintained village life and relieved urban crowding. Small-scale agricultural activity prevented some regions from losing much of their population. Part-time agricultural work also permitted urban residents to keep in contact with their villages and gave them supplemental income.

Cyprus - Water Resources

Cyprus's water supply was both inadequate and irregular. The average rainfall of 500 mm, mostly in the winter, left the island quite dry much of the rest of the time because no rivers flowed year round. During the colonial period, a dam and reservoir construction program was begun, and by independence Cyprus had sixteen dams with a storage capacity of six million cubic meters, or 1 percent of the island's estimated 600 million cubic meters of usable runoff from annual rainfall.

After independence a number of large projects were mounted to increase reservoir storage capacity, which reached 300 million cubic meters by 1990. The most important of these projects, and the largest development project in Cyprus since independence, was the Southern Conveyor Project, which collected surplus water from the southwestern part of the island and conveyed it by a 110-kilometer long water carrier to the central and eastern areas. When the project reached completion in 1993, it, and a number of other large projects, would guarantee farmers and the inhabitants of Nicosia and other towns adequate amounts of water into the next century.

Cyprus - Land Use and Tenure

Three categories of landownership existed in Cyprus during the Ottoman period: private, state, and communal. This division continued to characterize landholding in the Greek Cypriot area in 1990. Most land was privately owned. The largest private landowner was the Church of Cyprus, whose holdings before the Turkish invasion included an estimated 5.8 percent of the island's arable land.

Unrestricted legal ownership of private land dated only from 1946, when the British administration enacted a new land law that superseded the land code in effect under the Ottomans, in which all agricultural land belonged to the state. Those who worked the land were in effect hereditary tenants, whose right to the land was usufructuary. Land could be transmitted from father to son, but could not be disposed of otherwise without official permission.

The Immovable Property (Tenure, Registration, and Valuation) Law of 1946 established the present-day legal basis for landholding. All former state lands that had been properly acquired by individuals were declared to be private property; private property as defined in the former Ottoman land code also continued to be private property. Communal land remained the property of villages or towns, and all unoccupied and vacant land not lawfully held (most forest land, for example) became state land.

Both Greek and Turkish inheritance practices required the division of an estate among the surviving heirs. At the time of the 1946 law, fragmentation of land was already great, many holdings did not have access roads, and owners frequently possessed varying numbers of plots that might be separated by distances of several kilometers.

Despite the 1946 law, however, fragmentation of plots continued. The 1946 census showed 60,179 holdings averaging 7.2 hectares. By 1960 the number of holdings had risen to 69,445, an increase of 15.4 percent, and the average holding had decreased to 6.2 hectares. By 1974 the average holding was an estimated 5 hectares. Holdings were seldom a single piece of land; most consisted of small plots, an average of ten per holding in 1960. In some villages, the average number of plots was 40, and extremes of 100 plots held by a single farmer were reported.

The government enacted the Land Consolidation Law of 1969 to resolve the problem of land tenure. The law established the Central Land Consolidation Authority, with the power to buy and also acquire compulsorily land and other property, which it could sell or use for land consolidation. The authority's board included members of several ministries and departments and also representatives of the farmers. At the village level, committees of government representatives and local farmers coordinated and supervised the local program.

Land consolidation consisted of merging fragmented holdings. Dual and multiple holdings were to be eliminated, and plots smaller than the minimums listed in the 1946 land law were to be expropriated. Government-owned land could be used to enlarge holdings; recipients could purchase the land at current market prices, paying in installments at low interest rates. A farmerowner who lost land in the redistribution process was to receive land having the same value as his former holding. The land consolidation program also involved the construction of a service road network to connect all plots to larger roads.

By the end of 1988, twenty-eight land consolidation projects had been completed, and thirty-one projects were underway. Where projects had been completed, minute plots were almost completely eliminated, the average size of plots increased by 100 percent, and the number of plots declined by about 70 percent.

Cyprus - Agricultural Cooperatives

The agricultural cooperative movement in Cyprus was founded in 1909 by a village society of farmers who had returned from an inspection tour of Britain and Germany. The cooperative movement's development was slow, largely because few villagers were qualified to manage cooperatives. The Agricultural Bank, established in 1925 to furnish medium- and long-term loans to farmers, functioned through the cooperative societies. In 1937 a new impetus was given to the movement by the establishment of the Cooperative Central Bank (CCB), with membership limited to the cooperative societies.

The bank's initial function was to furnish the societies with funds for short-term loans to members. This function was expanded in 1960 (when the CCB absorbed the Agricultural Bank) to include medium- and long-term loans. By the late 1980s, the CCB was the third largest bank in the government-controlled area in terms of deposits. The cooperative movement's banking activity was especially strong in the countryside, but also competed with conventional banks in urban areas and had about a 30 percent share of the banking business as a whole.

In addition to banking and credit activities, the cooperative movement maintained retail stores. Cooperatives also marketed agricultural products and exported large amounts of citrus fruits, other fruits, table grapes, and vegetables. The largest winery on the island was the Cooperative Winery SODAP Ltd.

Cyprus - Crops

Crop production was by far the most important component of agriculture. In 1988 it contributed 71 percent of total value added in agriculture, compared with 19 percent for livestock. Ancillary production contributed 6 percent; the shares of fishing and forestry were 3 and 1 percent, respectively.

A wide range of crops were grown on Cyprus. Cereals (wheat and barley), legumes, vegetables (carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes), fruit and other tree crops (almonds, apples, bananas, carobs, grapes, grapefruit, lemons, melons, olives, oranges, and peaches).

Crops were rainfed or irrigated. Wheat and barley were rainfed or dryland crops, as were carobs, olives, fodder, and wine grapes. Crops that required irrigation included vegetables, citrus fruits, deciduous fruits, bananas, and table grapes. These irrigated crops accounted for half of agricultural production.

Cereals, mainly wheat and barley, grew mostly on the Mesaoria, the island's central plain. Production fluctuated widely, depending on rainfall. Wheat's importance relative to barley declined steadily during the 1980s, the result of greater subsidies paid for the raising of barley. Despite the subsidies and a doubling of barley production, only part of the domestic need for cereals was met, and substantial imports were necessary.

Market vegetables grew in many areas around the island. The potato was the most important of these crops, far outstripping tomatoes, carrots, water and sweet melons, cucumbers, and others in both weight and value. In fact, the potato was the most important agricultural product in the late 1980s, during which more than 80 percent of its production was exported. In 1987 the potato earned 10 percent of the total value of domestic exports, more than any other item except clothing. Because the Cypriot potato was harvested twice, in winter and in early spring, it had a competitive advantage in the European market. Britain was the largest consumer. A shortage of suitable land and a need for irrigation meant that the potato's importance for Cypriot agriculture would likely decline in the 1990s, but it would remain one of the sector's main supports.

Citrus production was another irrigated crop that was important for exports; about 75 percent of production was consumed abroad. Groves of oranges, lemons, grapefruit, and tangerines were located along the coasts. Unlike potato production, that of citrus fruits was expected to expand greatly in the 1990s, and one estimate foresaw a yield of 350,000 tons by the turn of the century, compared with 169,000 tons in 1989.

Viniculture and the production of wine have been major economic activities for centuries in Cyprus. Most vineyards are located in the southwestern part of the island on the slopes of the Troodos Mountains in the Paphos district and in hilly areas in the Limassol district. Some grapes were grown for table consumption, but about four-fifths of the harvest was used for wine, two-thirds of it exported. In 1989 the grape harvest amounted to 212,000 tons, and wine production was 34.1 million liters. The most commonly grown grapes were the xymisteria and mavro varieties. Systematic efforts were undertaken by the government to improve the quality of Cypriot grapes, and different kinds of wine were manufactured to increase exports, mainly to Europe.

Deciduous tree crops common to temperate climates, including olives, apples, pears, peaches, carobs, and cherries, were also grown. These crops required some cool weather during the year, and the orchards were almost entirely in mountainous areas. Almond trees, which do not need cool weather, were widespread on the plains. Olives were easily the most important export item of these tree crops.

Cyprus - Livestock and Poultry

Livestock products, including poultry and milk, made up a significant part of the gross output by value of the agricultural sector. In 1989 there were 49,000 cattle, 325,000 sheep, 208,000 goats, 281,000 pigs, and 2,475,000 chickens in the governmentcontrolled area. During the 1980s, livestock production roughly doubled, as a result of subsidies, strict import regulations, and government-sponsored research that improved both the quality of livestock and its management. Although Greek Cypriots had become self-sufficient with regard to pork and poultry, it was necessary to import beef, veal, and mutton to meet domestic needs. Specialists believed that the gradual lifting of import restrictions, as required by the EEC Customs Union Agreement, would put many inefficient breeders of livestock out of business.

Cyprus - Fishing and Forestry

Fishing has been of small importance to Cyprus throughout history. The intermittent nature of the rivers inhibits natural propagation of freshwater fish, and the surrounding waters are generally deficient in the nutrients and associated plankton essential to the growth of a large marine fish population.

The Turkish invasion resulted in the loss of some of the better fishing areas. By the second half of the 1980s, loans and subsidies from the Department of Fisheries had secured the existence of a fishing fleet of several hundred small vessels, and annual catches exceeded those preceding 1974. In 1989 the catch totaled 2,600 tons at live weight.

The 1980s also saw saltwater and freshwater fish farms come into operation. Much of their production was exported. An experimental fish farm was scheduled to open in the 1990s at Meneou, near Larnaca.

Forestry played a very small role in the Greek Cypriot economy. In the period 1986-1988, its value added was 0.01 percent of the agricultural total in all three years.

Nearly all of the south's forests were owned by the state, which had long managed an active and sophisticated program for their care and improvement. The Turkish invasion of 1974 damaged the island's forests extensively, but by the 1980s reforestation projects had repaired much of the harm. The College of Forestry, established by the British in the colonial period, enjoyed an international reputation for excellence.

Cyprus - Mining and Quarrying

For several millennia, Cyprus was an important source of copper ores (mainly cuprous pyrite) and other ores and minerals, including chromite, iron pyrite (mined for its sulphur content), asbestos, gypsum, and umber. In addition to these minerals, exploited mainly for export, limestone, sand, and aggregates were quarried in substantial quantities for the domestic cement and construction industries. In the 1950s, minerals accounted for three-fifths of exports and employed 6,700 persons. By 1963 minerals's share of exports had fallen to 34 percent, owing to both a changing world market and the growth of other sectors of the Cypriot economy. The Turkish invasion of 1974 disrupted or ended much mining activity. Many deposits in the government-controlled territory were nearing exhaustion. In 1981 minerals supplied only 4.5 percent of exports, and by the end of the 1980s less than l percent. Mining and quarrying also employed fewer persons: 1,800 in 1979 and half that in 1987. The branch's contribution to GDP had also become quite small: 0.5 percent to GDP in 1985 and in 1986 and 0.4 percent in 1987 and 1988. With the closure of the asbestos mine in 1988, the industry's contribution to GDP declined still further. In 1989 the principal minerals mined were flotation pyrites (57,455 tons), copper concentrates (1,752 tons), and copper precipitates (1,080 tons). The quarrying of sand, gravel, and road aggregate depended on construction demands. In the late 1980s, demand was generally good. In 1982 a port was constructed at Vasilikos on the south central coast to handle the mining and cement production of the Hellenic Mining Company.

Cyprus - Manufacturing

At independence the manufacturing sector consisted almost entirely of small, family-owned enterprises, most with fewer than five workers. Production consisted mainly of consumer goods and items for the construction industry, all for the local market. Obstacles to the development of larger establishments were the limited domestic market, a generally low level of income, a lack of available capital, and a shortage of skilled labor.

During the period of the second five-year plan (1967-71), steps were taken by the government to encourage industrial development. Import duties on raw materials were reduced or abolished, and tariffs were imposed to protect domestic industry. Generous depreciation allowances and tax remissions were granted. In addition, training centers were set up for management, technical personnel, and workers. Industrial parks were established in Nicosia, Limassol, and Larnaca. Government policy generally left manufacturing to private enterprise, but in some cases, such as the petroleum refinery at Larnaca, the government made direct investments.

During the plan period, some seventy larger manufacturing plants were constructed. These plants included a petroleum refinery, biscuit and margarine factories, fruit- and meat-canning plants, a brewery, an edible oil plant, paper products factories, textile and hosiery mills, pharmaceutical plants, and metal fabricating plants. A 1972 census of industrial production, covering Greek Cypriot establishments plus estimates for the Turkish Cypriot community, showed that more than four-fifths of the 7,612 plants in manufacturing (excluding cottage industries) still had 1 to 4 employees; only about thirty establishments had more than 100. These larger establishments, however, accounted for 81.4 percent of the value added by manufacturing. Despite this change, manufacturing as a whole remained largely geared to the local market, the principal exception being canned goods, most of which were exported.

The Turkish occupation resulted in a major division of the island's manufacturing sector, because one-third of the larger enterprises were located in the north. Another immediate effect was disruption of the domestic market. The division also cut off the sources of some raw materials and intermediate goods.

The sharp general drop in incomes in the south after mid-1974 forced the manufacturing industry to reorient production toward exports. A principal objective of the first Emergency Economic Action Plan (1975-1976) was the reactivation of manufacturing with emphasis on the development of such labor-intensive industries as clothing and footwear aimed at the export market. This effort also included measures to reestablish in the Greek Cypriot area the operations of entrepreneurs who had fled the Turkish Cypriot zone. During this plan period, 200 new or reopened plants went into production, and at the end of the period more than 130 additional ones were under construction.

The Greek Cypriot government took other steps to create an export climate attractive to industrial entrepreneurs. Raw material and machinery imports were duty-free, a guarantee scheme was established for bank credits for exports, and a tax allowance was granted on foreign exchange earnings from exports. Trade centers were also set up abroad, and there was participation in foreign trade exhibitions. Some indication of the success of the overall effort was seen in the tripling of exports of manufactured goods from C�22.5 million in 1975 to C�66.5 million in 1978. By the late 1970s, manufacturing was very close to wholesale and retail trade in its contribution to GDP, and there were some 1,320 manufacturing enterprises covering a broad range of industrial activity.

During the decade of 1979-88, the contribution of manufacturing to GDP at current prices nearly tripled. Manufacturing's share of GDP, however, declined slightly during this period, beginning in 1984. The decline moved manufacturing into second place, after the category of wholesale and retail trade, restaurants, and hotels.

The principal industrial products were food, beverages, and tobacco; textiles, wearing apparel, and leather; wood and wood products; paper and paper products; printing and publishing; chemicals and toiletries, petroleum, rubber, and plastic products; nonmetallic mineral products, such as cement; and metal products, machinery, and equipment.

The three subsectors of food, beverages, and tobacco; textiles, wearing apparel, and leather; and chemicals and toiletries, petroleum, rubber, and plastic products represented 65.4 percent of the total gross industrial output in 1979, and in 1987 they represented 64.7 percent. In 1987 the relative share in industrial output of food, beverages and tobacco was 27.4 percent; of textiles, wearing apparel, and leather 23.2 percent; and of chemicals and toiletries, chemical, petroleum, rubber, and plastic products 14 percent. During the period 1979-87, the two most important subsectors for exports were food, beverages, and tobacco and textiles, wearing apparel, and leather. In 1987 they accounted for 21.6 and 54.2 percent of total industrial exports, respectively.

Industrial output came to depend on exports. The Arab Middle East was a key market for industrial production, but the EEC purchased 39.3 percent of exported manufactures in 1987. These two markets and the protected domestic market absorbed about 90 percent of manufactured products.

The traditional markets for Cypriot manufactured goods could not be regarded as secure at the beginning of the 1990s. The Arab Middle East markets were often highly volatile, for both political and economic reasons, and the European market had also become increasingly competitive. A main threat to Cypriot exports in these areas were Asian manufacturers with lower labor costs and higher quality goods. The domestic market was also increasingly threatened because the terms of the Customs Union Agreement with the EEC required the country to gradually dismantle its highly protective tariff system. (In the late 1980s, for example, Cypriot tariffs on clothing imports from the EEC were over 80 percent.)

In meeting these mounting challenges, Cypriot manufacturers were striving to raise the quality of their production, improve marketing, and contain labor costs through productivity gains as tariffs came down. The government continued its longstanding policy of encouraging manufacturing by improving the infrastructure and creating industrial parks and free industrial zones. It also identified new industries and products suitable for future development. Because of the number of small labor-intensive plants with well-qualified workers adept at learning new technologies, the government recommended that these plants adopt the principle of "flexible specialization," with modern design techniques, quick turn-around times, and computer-controlled machinery, to meet the rigors of the global market of the 1990s.

Cyprus - Energy Resources

Cyprus had an unfortunate energy situation. The island had no known deposits of mineral fuels, and the lack of rivers that flowed year-round made significant generation of hydroelectric power impossible. The island did have a great amount of sunlight, however, and in the government-controlled sector about 35 percent of houses were fitted with rooftop solar panels for heating water. By 1990 Cyprus was one of the world's foremost users of solar energy. The only other domestic source of energy was firewood.

Petroleum, all of it imported, supplied about 95 percent of the island's energy. Oil imports consumed about 50 percent of foreign exchange earnings in some years. Imported crude was processed by the Larnaca refinery of the Cyprus Petroleum Refinery Ltd. In 1989 this refinery had a capacity of 17,000 barrels a day, or 800,000 tons a year. Major users imported their own heavy fuel oil directly via oil terminals at Larnaca, Dhekelia, to the east of Larnaca, and Moni, near Limassol.

The largest single user of petroleum, consuming about 35 percent of the total, was the Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC), a public corporation founded in 1952. The EAC was responsible for nearly all of the island's generation, transmission, and distribution of electric power. The "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC") had no significant power plants and received its electricity from the EAC. As of 1990 it had not paid for any of this power.

In 1989 the EAC produced 1.84 gigawatt-hour from three oilfired thermal stations, two at Dhekelia (one old plant with a capacity of 42 megawatts, used only in emergencies, and a new plant with a capacity of 240 megawatts), and one at Moni, near Limassol, with a capacity of 180 megawatts. EAC also had a few small standby diesel plants. A number of industrial operations had their own generating facilities. At the beginning of the 1990s, there were plans to construct a coal-fired power plant at Vasilikos to reduce petroleum dependency, but environmental concerns may prevent its being built.

Cyprus - Construction

Increased economic activity from the late 1960s, stimulated in part by the second five-year plan, resulted in a rapid growth of construction, including new urban and rural housing, commercial establishments, industrial facilities, tourist accommodations, and government infrastructure projects. The sector's growth rate averaged 17.5 percent per year in current terms between 1968 and 1972 and rose to 24.8 percent in 1973. Construction workers numbered 25,000 to 28,600 in the 1968-73 period and constituted about one-tenth of the island's gainfully employed work force.

The construction industry was hard hit by the Turkish invasion and occupation; construction by the private sector ceased almost completely. In 1975 the construction work force numbered only about 8,900, or 6.2 percent of persons gainfully employed in the south.

Commercial construction revived in 1976, when the industry, in response to government policy decisions and actions, began to build housing for nearly 200,000 refugees, many of whom were living in tents and makeshift shacks. This construction boom lasted until 1981. The boom was further energized by events in the Middle East, which caused many businesses to move their headquarters or offices from Lebanon to Cyprus. Rapidly expanding tourism also stimulated construction of new facilities, as did industrial plant construction. After the refugees were housed, the government began its program of building housing for low-income groups as part of a new, wider concept of government social responsibility. An especially strong year in the boom period was 1979, when the construction industry expanded 36.3 percent and made up 13.4 percent of the GDP in 1979.

The construction industry experienced much lower growth rates in the 1980s. In the 1985-87 period, it actually shrank in real terms, and some Cypriot contractors were obliged to go abroad to find work. The industry remained an important part of the economy, however, with regard to both its contribution to the GDP and the employment it provided. In 1987, a representative year, dwellings absorbed about half of total construction investment, nonresidential buildings about a quarter, and hotel infrastructure (such as roads, bridges, dams, irrigation works, and telecommunication and electrical transmissions lines) the rest.

Important spurs to the construction industry were the Housing Finance Corporation and the Land Development Corporation, government entities created to enable middle- and low-income people to acquire their own houses. During the late 1980s, these organizations provided low-cost loans and managed the construction of several hundred houses a year (in 1989 eighty-two housing units in Nicosia alone). The goal for 1990 was to construct 575 units in the whole of the Republic of Cyprus.

Cyprus - Trade, Restaurants, and Hotels

Since the late 1970s, the largest and most dynamic component of the service sector has been that of wholesale and retail trade, restaurants and hotels (tourism). It grew at double-digit rates between 1979 and 1988, except for 1986. Its contribution to the GDP in current terms quadrupled between 1979 and 1988. By the late 1980s, with about 50,000 workers, it had also become the largest source of employment.

Tourism gained importance in this subsector during the 1980s, but had not overtaken trade. Trade (wholesale and retail) contributed C�76.7 million, in current terms, to GDP in 1979 (79.56 percent of the sector) and C�217.3 million (55.4 percent) in 1988. Restaurants and hotels (tourism) contributed C�19.7 million in 1979 (20.43 percent of the total sector) and C�174.6 million (44.55 percent) in 1988. The value added to GDP by trade nearly tripled in current prices between 1979 and 1988, and that of restaurants and hotels (tourism) increased about nine times.

Tourism was seriously disrupted by the Turkish invasion of 1974. Only 47,000 tourists came to the island in 1975, down from 264,000 in 1973. However, under the influence of the emergency economic action plans of 1976-78, 1979-81, and 1982-86, earnings from tourism increased at least 20 percent for eleven straight years, and the number of tourists who visited the Republic of Cyprus went from 165,000 in 1976 to 1,376,000 in 1989. Foreign currency earnings from tourism amounted to almost C�500 million in 1989. Earnings were so significant that tourism was a greater source of foreign exchange than the export of domestic goods from 1986 through 1989.

Most of the tourists who came to the government-controlled areas were middle-income Europeans. For many years, British visitors were the most numerous and made up about one-third of the total. Swedes were the second largest group in the late 1980s, closely followed by Germans. Most tourists came for stays of about ten days and arrived during the warm months, despite efforts by the Cyprus Tourism Organisation (CTO) to achieve a more even seasonal distribution of visits. In the late 1980s, the CTO began to be successful in increasing conference tourism as a step toward this goal.

By the late 1980s, efforts were underway to raise the quality rather than quantity of tourism because the south's ability to receive more tourists had reached a saturation point. A one-year ban on licenses for new hotels in coastal areas was announced in March 1989 to check unplanned development. The volume of demand had surpassed the available infrastructure to support it, with resulting problems of traffic congestion, water shortages, and inadequate sewerage capacity.

Future growth was to depend on attracting wealthier tourists, who would spend more money during their stays. This aim was to be accomplished by turning away from simple sun-and-sea tourism and developing higher quality hotels with facilities such as golf courses, marinas for yachting, and casinos. Emphasis was also to be placed on building mountain resorts and developing the island's archaeological sites for sightseeing.

Cyprus - Foreign Trade and the Balance of Payments

Cyprus's trade balance has been consistently unfavorable since before independence. Given its large and expanding trade deficit, the Republic of Cyprus was fortunate to have a large and growing surplus in its invisibles account, enough even to offset the trade deficit in 1987 and 1988. The major factors contributing to this surplus were tourist receipts, receipts from transfers, and income from other goods and services (such as foreign military expenditures, in Cyprus, embassy expenditures, and foreign exchange from offshore enterprises). Tourist receipts expanded from C�232 million in 1985 to C�386 million in 1988. Income from other goods and services increased from C�173.3 million in 1985 to C�208.2 million in 1988.

Cyprus experienced its first overall balance-of-payments deficit after independence in 1973. During the 1980s, the influx of capital in the form of loans and investments was sufficient to give the country a positive balance of payments in all years except 1985 and 1988, despite the usually negative current account balance.

The foreign exchange reserves of the Republic of Cyprus at the end of 1988 reached C�571.8 million, an improvement over the reserves of C�501.2 million at the end of 1987. These reserves were estimated to be sufficient to cover about nine months of imports.

Even though the trade balance was chronically unfavorable, exports had greatly increased since the Turkish occupation in 1974. Exports of goods and services rose by an average of 20.7 percent annually (in current prices) during the 1975-86 period; they increased 16.5 percent in 1987 and 10.5 percent in 1988.

The main domestic exports had been agricultural exports, especially citrus fruits and potatoes, and manufactured products, most importantly clothing, footwear, chemicals, and machinery. Agricultural exports amounted to 24.7 percent of total domestic exports in 1985 but declined to 20.5 percent in 1988; manufactured exports were 71.7 percent of the total in 1985 and rose to 77.4 percent in 1988.

The European Economic Community (EEC) continued to be the main market for the republic's exports, absorbing 42.7 percent of total domestic exports in 1986, some 45 percent in 1987, and 47 percent in 1988. Among the EEC countries, the top customer continued to be Britain, with a share of 50.4 percent in 1988, followed by Greece with a share of 19.5 percent. The other major block of countries to which the republic's exports continued to do well were the Arab countries. In 1986 this group took 42.2 percent of total domestic exports, in 1987 38.6 percent, and in 1988 36.7 percent.

The Republic of Cyprus was dependent on imports for many raw materials, consumer goods, transportation equipment, capital goods, and fuels. Total imports increased from C�177.8 million in 1976 to C�1.130 billion in 1989. The seemingly permanent trade deficits amounted to C�365.8 million in 1987, C�476.6 million in 1988, and C�668.6 million in 1989. In 1989 consumer goods were 18.8 percent of total imports; intermediate goods (raw materials), 41.6 percent; capital goods, 9.5 percent; transport equipment, 20.4 percent, and fuels 9.6 percent.

Most of the republic's imports came from the EEC: 60.7 percent in 1986 and 54.5 percent in 1988. Britain was the largest source of imports among the EEC countries, accounting for 22.1 percent of imports from the group in 1986 and 25.5 percent in 1988. Italy, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), and Greece had the next three largest shares. Other major trading areas that provided imports to the republic were Eastern Europe (5.2 percent of total imports in 1986 and 7.1 percent in 1988) and the Arab countries (7.2 percent in 1986 and 4.8 percent in 1988). The rest of the world provided 26.8 percent of imports in 1986 and 33.5 percent in 1988; Japan accounted for 34.7 percent of this group's exports in 1988, and the United States 13.6 percent.

The balance of payments record of the Republic of Cyprus indicated the economy's vulnerability in the early 1990s. Imports continued to outpace exports, resulting in ever-expanding trade deficits. This situation would have been worse if it were not for the high protection afforded the domestic market. Although the Customs Union Agreement with the EEC, which became effective in January 1988, abolished all import duties on Cypriot industrial exports to the EEC countries, the real test for Cypriot manufacturing was expected in the second half of the 1990s, when all tariffs on EEC industrial and agricultural exports to Cyprus were to be phased out. EEC duties on Cyprus's agricultural exports to the EEC will also be phased out by then. Although some exceptions were allowed, the agreement would require free trade with the main Cypriot export market.

The Customs Union Agreement was the outcome of long negotiations. After Britain's entry into the EEC, Cyprus signed an association agreement, to become effective in June 1973 and to cover a ten-year period. According to the terms of the agreement, Cyprus received preferential access to the British market in return for a 35 percent reduction of tariffs on EEC goods, phased in over five years. A follow-up phase of the agreement, covering 1978 to 1983, would have led to a full customs union. The Turkish occupation interrupted the natural progress of this agreement. Cyprus was still allowed to export most of its industrial goods to the EEC without tariffs, but rules of origin restrictions applied, as did some restrictions on agricultural exports.

The Customs Union Agreement posed a major challenge to the highly protected manufacturing sector of Cyprus, revealing its competitive weaknesses. Only a restructuring of the sector by increasing the size of its units, reducing its labor-unit costs, improving its productivity, and strengthening the marketing of products to new markets would allow it to prosper. At the beginning of the 1990s, the sector's restructuring was under way, and the government had established the Council for the Promotion of Exports to make Cypriot products better known abroad.

Cyprus - Government and Politics

THE SHAPE, STRUCTURE, and status of Cyprus's government have been sources of bitter controversy for most of the nation's history since independence in 1960, and have become the "national" question for both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Politics in both communities, governed separately since 1964 and physically separated since 1974, have been dominated by the lack of consensus, both between and within the two communities, over the very identity of the state and the structure of its government and political institutions.

The original political arrangements outlined in the 1960 constitution were in effect for only three years. By 1963, after proposals by President Archbishop Makarios III (1960-77) to amend the constitution in ways widely viewed as favoring the majority Greek Cypriot population, Turkish Cypriots withdrew from many national institutions and began self-government in the Turkish quarters of the island's towns and cities and in villages in Turkey.

A more significant change occurred after the 1974 Turkish intervention. Following the dislocation and resettlement of large segments of both communities, the current situation emerged: two separate governments--only one of which enjoys international recognition as the legitimate government--functioning in two discrete geographic zones. In February 1975, the provisional Turkish Cypriot administration declared itself the "Turkish Federated State of Cyprus" ("TFSC"), although it stated its intention to move toward a federal solution with the Greek Cypriots and pledged not to seek recognition as an independent state. In October 1983, after continued stalemate of United Nations (UN) efforts toward a settlement, Turkish Cypriots renamed their "state" the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"). While restating their commitment to working toward a federal solution, Turkish Cypriot authorities launched an international campaign for recognition of their state, arguing that recognition would facilitate a solution by according the island's two political entities equal status. As of the early 1990s, however, only Turkey had recognized the "TRNC."

Greek Cypriots maintained that the Republic of Cyprus established in 1960 continued to exist, with functioning institutions, absent Turkish Cypriot participation. The status of the 1959 treaties that established the republic in 1960 remained in dispute, posing a challenge to the Greek Cypriot claim of legal authority and sovereignty over the whole island (except for the 256 square kilometers that are sovereign British base areas). The Greek Cypriot position on the legal status of the 1959 agreements is not completely clear. The late president Makarios attempted to invalidate the Treaty of Guarantee, and later Greek Cypriot leaders claimed it violated their sovereignty, but on occasion they have tried to invoke it. For example, after the 1983 Turkish Cypriot declaration of statehood, the republic's president tried to persuade the British government to intervene under the terms of that treaty's Article IV.

Since the 1974 crisis and the emergence of the Cyprus question as an international political problem, the Republic of Cyprus has had three presidents. Makarios, the dominant political and religious figure for Greek Cypriots, died of a heart attack in the summer of 1977 at age sixty-three. He was succeeded by Spyros Kyprianou, leader of the ruling Democratic Party, and Makarios's ecclesiastical responsibilities were assumed by Bishop Chrysostomos of Paphos. Kyprianou was reelected unopposed in January 1978 and was reelected in contested elections in 1983. In February 1988, Kyprianou was ousted in an upset by newcomer George Vassiliou, a successful businessman with no party affiliation, who campaigned on a promise to bring fresh ideas and energy to the settlement process.

Leadership of the Turkish Cypriot community has remained since 1974 in the hands of Rauf Denktas, elected president of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TFSC") in July 1975 and reelected in 1981. In 1985, under a new constitution in the newly formed "Turkish Federated State of Cyprus" ("TRNC"), Denktas again won at the polls, by a margin of 70.4 percent, and in April 1990 received 67.1 percent of the vote, defeating two opponents.

The search for a settlement through creation of a new federal republic continued in the late 1980s and in 1990. Talks intensified after Vassiliou's election, and the UN-sponsored negotiations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in 1988-90 aimed at outlining a framework for establishing a federal republic that would be bicommunal with respect to constitutional issues and bizonal with respect to territorial concerns. Early optimism that Vassiliou would be the catalytic force to bring the talks to a successful conclusion was dampened when talks broke down in early 1990. Despite tentative progress on closing the gap between Greek Cypriot demands for freedom of movement, property, and settlement and the Turkish Cypriot demand for strict bizonality with considerable authority to the two provinces or states, the process was encumbered by deep mistrust between the two sides and a growing conviction that the Turkish Cypriot side was more inclined to work for its separate status than for power sharing in a unitary state with Greek Cypriots.

The Republic of Cyprus was created in 1960 through international agreements reached in Zurich and London in February 1959, with a constitution that went into effect in August 1960. The constitution recognized the strong bicommunal character of the new state, with elaborate safeguards for the minority Turkish Cypriot community. In the preindependence debate over the governmental structure of the new state, neither Britain nor the Turkish Cypriot community accepted the concept of "minority rights" as an organizing principle. Rather, the Turkish Cypriots were recognized as one of two "communities" with certain rights; the legitimacy of the state would derive from the partnership between the two communities. The Cypriot consociational experiment had some unique features designed to achieve a delicate balance between the prevailing Greek Cypriot preference for a unitary state and the Turkish Cypriot desire for as much recognition as a separate political entity as possible. The tension between these two communal priorities proved insurmountable.

Since 1964, the constitution of 1960 has not been the legal document governing relations between the two communities, although it remains the basis of government and law for the 80 percent of the population that are Greek Cypriot and residing in the twothirds of the island controlled by the authorities of the Republic of Cyprus. The "TRNC" approved a new constitution in 1985, which established a parliamentary system in the north.

Cyprus - 1960 Constitution

At independence, Cyprus's constitution called for a government divided into executive, legislative, and judicial branches, headed by a president, with strong guarantees for the Turkish Cypriot community. The constitution arranged for a Greek Cypriot president and Turkish Cypriot vice president, elected by their respective communities for five-year terms of office. Members of the island's other minorities--Armenians, Maronites, and Roman Catholics--were given the option of joining one of the communities for voting purposes. All chose to be identified as Greek, although some have continued to live in the Turkish zone since the 1974 division of the island. Greek and Turkish were designated as official languages, and the two communities were given the right to celebrate, respectively, Greek and Turkish national holidays.

The constitution further provided that executive power in all but communal matters be vested in the president and vice president. The two executives had the right of veto, separately or jointly, over certain laws or decisions of both the Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives, the legislative body. The constitution spelled out in detail their powers and duties.

The Council of Ministers was to be composed of seven Greek Cypriots and three Turkish Cypriots, with the former appointed by the president and the latter by the vice president. Decisions of the council were to be taken by absolute majority. Of three key portfolios--defense, finance, and foreign affairs--one was to be held by a Turkish Cypriot.

The unicameral House of Representatives was designed to legislate for the republic in all matters except those expressly reserved to separate communal chambers. The constitution provided that thirty-five of its members be Greek Cypriots and fifteen Turkish Cypriots. (Representation in proportion to communal strength would have resulted in a forty-to-ten ratio.) Members, elected from separate communal rolls, were to serve for terms of five years. The House of Representatives's president was to be a Greek Cypriot and its vice president, a Turkish Cypriot.

Voting in the House of Representatives was to be by majority, except that separate majorities in the two communities were required for imposition of taxes or duties, modification of the electoral law, or laws relating to the separate municipalities in the five main towns. The establishment of these municipalities became one of the most controversial intercommunal issues. While the constitution called for their establishment, implementing legislation was never passed, because the Greeks were convinced that such laws could lead to partition. Turkish Cypriots have long cited this issue as evidence of the Greek Cypriots' intention to undermine the Turkish Cypriots' separate communal identity.

The constitution also called for the creation of two communal chambers, composed of representatives elected by each community. These chambers were empowered to deal with religious, educational, and cultural matters, questions of personal status, and the supervision of cooperatives and credit societies. To supplement an annual provision to the chambers from the government budget, the constitution enabled the communal chambers to impose taxes and fees of their own to support their activities.

The judicial system broadly outlined in the Zurich-London accords and stipulated in detail in the constitution included the Supreme Constitutional Court, the High Court of Justice, district and assize courts, and communal courts. At the summit was the Supreme Constitutional Court, composed of three judges: a Greek Cypriot, a Turkish Cypriot, and a contracted judge from a neutral country who would serve as president of the court. The president, who was entitled to two votes, would serve for six years, while the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot judges would serve until age sixty-eight. The court was to have final jurisdiction on matters of constitutional interpretation and adjudication of disputes centering on alleged discrimination in law against either of the two communities.

This bicommunal structure was duplicated in the High Court of Justice, which exercised appellate jurisdiction over lower courts in civil and criminal matters. The lower courts were assize courts, with criminal jurisdiction, and district courts, with civil jurisdiction except in questions of personal status and religious matters. Disputes between plaintiffs and the defendants belonging to the same community were to be tried by tribunals composed of judges belonging to the appropriate community. Disputes between members of different communities were to tried by mixed tribunals whose compositions were to be determined by the High Court of Justice.

Civil disputes relating to questions of personal status and religious matters were to be tried in communal courts. These courts were rigidly limited in jurisdiction and could not impose restraint, detention, or imprisonment.

The constitution set forth other safeguards for the Turkish Cypriot minority in sections dealing with the civil service and the armed forces of the republic. According to the 1960 census, Greek Cypriots composed 77 percent of the population, Turkish Cypriots 18.3 percent, and other minorities the remainder. The constitution required that the two groups be represented in the civil service at a ratio of 70 to 30 percent. In addition, the republic was to have an army of 2,000 members, 60 percent Greek Cypriot and 40 percent Turkish Cypriot. After an initial period, a 2,000-member security force consisting of police and gendarmerie was to be 70 percent Greek Cypriot and 30 percent Turkish Cypriot.

The organizational structure and qualifications of the civil service were laid down on the model of the British civil service, with provisions for tenure, career status, and promotion through a grade-level system. The ten-member Public Service Commission determined the rules of conduct and qualifications for the various positions.

Cyprus - 1963 Constitutional Breakdown

The 1960 constitution did not succeed in providing the framework for a lasting compromise between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Rather, its bicommunal features impeded administration and gave rise to continuing dissension, which culminated finally in armed violence between members of the two communities. Beginning in late 1963, Turkish Cypriots withdrew from the government, and by 1965 the Greek Cypriots were in full charge.

The constitution failed to allay the suspicion and distrust that had increasingly divided the two communities, especially since the eruption of intercommunal violence in 1958. Many Greek Cypriots viewed the Zurich-London agreements as imposed on Cyprus from outside, and therefore illegitimate. Their main objection to the agreements, however, was that they barred the unification, or enosis, of Cyprus with Greece. Greek Cypriots also viewed the constitutional provisions drafted to safeguard minority rights as granting the Turkish Cypriots disproportionate privileges that the Turkish Cypriots abused. Therefore, some politically active elements of the Greek Cypriot community were motivated to undermine the constitution, or at least press for modifications.

Turkish Cypriots, some of whom also would have preferred different arrangements than those contained in the independence documents, such as taksim, or partition, of the island and union of its two parts with the respective motherlands (so-called double enosis), nonetheless maintained that the separative provisions of the constitution were essential to their security and identity as a separate national community.

A number of quarrels broke out over the balance of representation of the two communities in the government and over foreign policy, taxation by communal chambers, and other matters, bringing the government to a virtual standstill. The leading cause of disagreements was the ratio of Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots in the civil service. Turkish Cypriots complained that the seventy-to-thirty ratio was not enforced. Greek Cypriots felt that the provisions discriminated against them, because they constituted almost 80 percent of the population. Another major point of contention concerned the composition of units under the sixty-to- forty ratio decreed for the Cypriot army. President Makarios favored complete integration; Vice President Fazil K���k accepted a mixed force at the battalion level but insisted on segregated companies. On October 20, 1961, K���k used his constitutional veto power for the first and only time to halt the development of a fully integrated force. Makarios then stated that the country could not afford an army anyway. Planning and development of the national army ceased, and paramilitary forces arose in each community.

From the start, Greek Cypriots had been uneasy about the idea of separate municipalities, which Turkish Cypriots were determined to preserve. Also, the Greek Cypriot Communal Chamber never set up a communal court system, whereas Turkish Cypriot communal courts were established.

Still another issue that provoked strong Greek Cypriot criticism was the right of the veto held by the Turkish Cypriot vice president and what amounted to final veto power held by the Turkish Cypriot representatives in the House of Representatives with respect to laws and decisions affecting the entire population. Turkish Cypriot representatives had exercised this veto power with respect to income tax legislation, seriously limiting government revenues.

In late 1963, after three years' experience of unsteady selfgovernment , Makarios declared that certain constitutional provisions "threatened to paralyze the State machinery." Revisions were necessary, he said, to remove obstacles that prevented Greek and Turkish Cypriots from "cooperating in the spirit of understanding and friendship." On November 30, 1963, Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to be considered immediately by the leaders of the Turkish Cypriot community.

These proposals, outlined in a presidential memorandum entitled "Suggested Measures for Facilitating the Smooth Functioning of the State and for the Removal of Certain Causes of Intercommunal Friction," reflected all the constitutional problems that had arisen. The president's action had far-reaching implications. Most important, it deeply eroded Turkish Cypriot confidence in the fragile power sharing arrangement. The proposals also automatically involved Greece, Turkey, and Britain, which as signatories to the Treaties of Guarantee and Alliance had pledged to guarantee the status quo under the constitution.

The proposed amendments would have eliminated most of the special rights of Turkish Cypriots. For instance, they would have abolished many of the provisions for separate communal institutions, substituting an integrated state with limited guarantees for the minority community. The administration of justice was to be unified. Instead of the separate municipalities that the constitution had originally called for in the five largest towns, municipalities were to be unified. The veto powers of the president and vice president were to be abandoned, as were the provisions for separate parliamentary majorities in certain areas of legislation. Turkish Cypriot representation in the civil service was to be proportionate to the size of the community. By way of compensation, the Turkish Cypriot vice president was to be given the right to deputize for the Greek Cypriot president in case of his absence, and the vice president of the House of Representatives was to be acting president of the body during the temporary absence or incapacity of the president.

K���k reportedly had agreed to consider these proposals. The Turkish government, however, rejected the entire list. In any case, intercommunal fighting erupted in December 1963, and in March 1964 the UN Security Council authorized the establishment of an international peace-keeping force to control the violence and act as a buffer between the two communities.

Cyprus - 1964-74 Situation: Separate Communal Life

By the spring of 1964, the legislature was effectively a Greek Cypriot body. Turkish Cypriot representatives, like their counterparts in the civil service, feared for their safety in the Greek-dominated parts of Nicosia, and did not participate.

Turkish Cypriots have argued that what they considered their involuntary nonparticipation rendered any acts of that parliament unconstitutional. Greek Cypriots have maintained that the institutions continued to function under the constitution, despite Turkish Cypriot absence.

In 1964 the Greek Cypriot-controlled House of Representatives passed a number of important pieces of legislation, including laws providing for the establishment of an armed force, the National Guard, and for the restoration to the government of its rights to impose an income tax. Other laws altered the government structure and some of the bicommunal arrangements, including abolishing separate electoral rolls for Greek and Turkish Cypriots, abolishing the Greek Cypriot Communal Chamber, and amalgamating the Supreme Constitutional Court and the High Court of Justice into the Supreme Court.

Reaction of the Turkish Cypriot judiciary to this judicial change was apparently not unfavorable, since a Turkish Cypriot was named president of the Supreme Court. He assumed his post, and other Turkish Cypriot judges returned to the bench. For about two years, Turkish Cypriot judges participated in the revised court system, dealing with both Greek and Turkish Cypriots. In June 1966, however, the Turkish Cypriot judges withdrew from the system, claiming harassment. The Turkish Cypriot leadership directed its community not to use the courts of the republic, to which, however, they continued to be legally entitled, according to the Greek Cypriots. In turn, the judicial processes set up in the Turkish Cypriot community were considered by the Greek Cypriot government to be without legal foundation.

The establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot administration evolved in late 1967, in the wake of renewed intercommunal hostilities. Turkish Cypriot leaders, on December 29, 1967, announced the formation of a "transitional administration" to oversee the affairs of the Turkish Cypriot community "until such time as provisions of the 1960 constitution have been fully implemented." The administration was to be headed by K���k as president and Rauf Denktas (the former president of the Turkish Cypriot Communal Chamber, who had been living in exile in Turkey) as vice president.

The fifteen Turkish Cypriot former members of the republic's House of Representatives joined the members of the Turkish Cypriot Communal Chamber to constitute a Turkish Cypriot legislative assembly. Nine of the members were to function as an executive council to carry out ministerial duties. President Makarios declared the administration illegal and its actions devoid of any legal effect.

On February 25, 1968, Greek Cypriots reelected Makarios to office, in the first presidential election since 1960, by an overwhelming majority. Running against a single opponent campaigning for enosis, Makarios won about 96 percent of the votes cast.

Intercommunal talks for a solution to the constitutional crisis began on June 24, 1968, and reached a deadlock on September 20, 1971. Talks resumed in July 1972, in the presence of UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim and one constitutional adviser each from Greece and Turkey. Both sides realized that the basic articles of the constitution, intended to balance the rights and interests of both communities, had become moot and that new constitutional arrangements had to be found.

At the same time, extralegal political activities were proliferating, some based on preindependence clandestine movements. The emergence of these groups, namely, the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B--EOKA B) and its Turkish Cypriot response, the Turkish Resistance Organization (T�rk Mukavemet Teskil�ti--TMT), were eroding the authority of conventional politicians. There were mounting calls for enosis from forces no longer supportive of Makarios, notably the National Guard, and there was a radical Turkish Cypriot reaction.

Cyprus - The 1974 Crisis and Division of the Island

Pressures mounting within the Cypriot communities and within the military junta ruling Greece converged in the summer of 1974. Greek military officials, angered by Makarios's independence from Greece and his policy of nonalignment, backed a coup d'�tat by Greek Cypriot National Guard officers intent on enosis. The coup imposed Nicos Sampson as provisional president.

The Turkish response was swift. On July 20, Turkish troops reached the island and established a beachhead in the north. A ceasefire was reached two days later, with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies of Greece and Turkey working urgently to avoid an intra-alliance confrontation. Peace talks were hastily convened in Geneva, but those talks did not satisfy Turkish concerns. On August 14, the Turks began a second offensive that resulted in their control of 37 percent of the island. The ceasefire lines achieved after the extension of Turkish control formed the basis for the buffer zone manned by the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), which has been in place since 1964.

The events of 1974 dramatically altered the internal balance of power between the two Cypriot communities and coupled their prevailing political and institutional separation with stark physical and geographical separation. In a grim historical echo of the widely praised 1930 Greek-Turkish exchange-of-population agreements, roughly a third of each community, displaced by the war, was transferred to the side of the island that its community controlled. As a consequence, in 1990 nearly a third of the people of Cyprus lived outside their birthplaces or places of residence in 1974.

Institutionally, Turkish Cypriots simply consolidated what had been a separate administration run out of Turkish Cypriot enclaves across the island into the northern third, made secure by Turkish troops. That presence altered the political life of the Turkish Cypriots, however. Many decisions affecting the life of the community had a security dimension, and the economy of the small entity has been dependent on Turkish subsidies and trade. Thus, the extent of the real autonomy of Turkish Cypriot authorities from their mainland protectors and benefactors was the subject of continued speculation and uncertainty.

Cyprus - SEARCH FOR A NEW POLITICAL FORMULA

Clearly, the debate over government and politics on the island of Cyprus is more fundamental than in many other countries. The lack of consensus between the two major communities over how to govern and administer the island shapes daily life in each community and dominates the island's relations with the outside world. At issue is whether the island should have one government or two, whether the two communities in fact constitute two distinct political entities and "nations," and whether some form of cooperation and power sharing between the two communities is possible.

After 1974, the debate over these issues resumed, mainly in a formal process under the auspices of the UN secretary general. Political leaders in each community asserted that there was general agreement on how to proceed with the settlement negotiations, and that both sides had minimum requirements that had to be recognized. These mainstream positions fell along a continuum from a concept of federalism, in which major powers and functions would be retained at the federal level and residual powers at the level of the province or state, to something more like confederalism, with emphasis placed on maximum authority in the constituent states and more symbolic power for the overarching apparatus.

The interests of the two communities diverged over this range, with Greek Cypriots seeking to maximize prospects for functional reunification of the island and internal mobility of people and goods, and Turkish Cypriots arguing that separation of the communities and their authority best served their security interests. As a consequence, the two sides did not share the same sense of urgency about settlement. Greek Cypriots believed that time was not on their side, and that continued division of the island favored the separation preferred by Turkish Cypriots. Greek Cypriots thus felt a greater sense of urgency than Turkish Cypriots, who were more satisfied with the status quo.

At the same time, dissident voices, with little political significance, argued for options other than the federal solution, including returning to preindependence proposals such as enosis, possibly with certain rights provided to Turkey, or double enosis, in which the two parts of the divided island would become states or provinces of their respective motherlands.

As of 1990, the governments of the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and the world community had embraced the idea that settlement of the Cyprus question was possible through negotiations aiming to reestablish a single government, bizonal with respect to territory and bicommunal with respect to constitutional aspects. This process continued to dominate national life and political debate in both communities.

Cyprus - Milestones in the United Nations Settlement Process

In the immediate aftermath of the 1974 crisis, acting Greek Cypriot president Glafkos Clerides met with Rauf Denktas in September. These intercommunal talks were initially limited to humanitarian issues, such as the exchange of population between the two sides of the island. Later, at the urging of the United States, the two men, with Clerides the intercommunal negotiator in a restored Makarios government, resumed a substantive agenda and met in Vienna in January 1975. They both declared their support for the principle of an independent, nonaligned, and demilitarized Cyprus. Beyond these broad concepts, however, there were serious differences over the form of government, the size of the area to be retained by Turkish Cypriots, the return of refugees and compensation for property losses, and the timing of the withdrawal of Turkish troops.

By February 1976, the two sides, according to statements, had discussed territorial and constitutional issues and had agreed to exchange written proposals before May. Before the May meeting, however, difficulties arose within the Greek Cypriot camp. Clerides resigned as negotiator because of differences of view with Makarios and allegations that he was willing to accept a bizonal federation, an idea that Makarios opposed at the time.

Makarios appointed Tassos Papadopoulos, deputy president of the House of Representatives, to replace Clerides. Denktas, who declined to deal face to face with Papadopoulos because he had been an active member of the EOKA, appointed �mit S�leyman Onan to serve as negotiator.

Cyprus - 1977 Makarios-Denktas Accords

After intensive efforts by Waldheim, Makarios and Denktas met on January 27, 1977, the first meeting between the two men since the Turkish Cypriots had withdrawn from the government of the republic in 1964. By then Makarios was leaning toward negotiation on the basis of a bizonal federation, provided that there be some Turkish Cypriot territorial concessions. He continued to insist on a strong central government and freedom of movement for all Cypriots. He demanded 80 percent of the territory, proportionate to the size of the Greek Cypriot population, but indicated that he might accept 75 percent if it included Varosha, the formerly prosperous tourist area of Famagusta to which 35,000 Greek Cypriots wanted to return. Denktas apparently indicated readiness to consider about 68 percent.

On February 12, 1977, the two men met and agreed on four guidelines. The first was that Cyprus would be an independent, nonaligned, bicommunal federal republic. Second, the territory under the administration of each community was to be discussed in light of economic viability, productivity, and property rights. Third, questions of principle such as freedom of movement and settlement, rights of ownership, and certain special matters were to be open for discussion, taking into consideration the fundamental decision for a bicommunal federal system and certain practical difficulties. Finally, the powers and functions of a central government would be such as to safeguard the unity of the country.

This achievement raised hopes among Cyprus's foreign friends that a settlement could be reached. These hopes were dashed when President Makarios, the central figure in the Greek Cypriot community, died of a heart attack in August 1977. Spyros Kyprianou, his successor, pledged to adhere to positions he believed Makarios would have taken.

Over time, it became clear that Kyprianou enjoyed less political room to maneuver than his predecessor, partly because of the growing political strength of the refugees and displaced persons. Kyprianou found in this group a ready-made constituency, and he embraced their advocacy of their right to return to homes and property and their call for a permeable border and unimpeded free movement and unrestricted settlement. This position sharpened differences with the Turkish Cypriot advocacy of a tightly controlled border and guarantees that the ethnic balance established by the de facto partition would remain undisturbed.

In April 1978, a new set of Turkish Cypriot proposals was made public, but was quickly rejected by the Greek Cypriot negotiator, Papadopoulos, who objected to both the proposals constitutional and territorial aspects. Kyprianou dismissed Papadopoulos in June over disagreements.

Later in 1978, external powers tried their hand at a Cyprus proposal. President Jimmy Carter had convinced a slim majority in the United States Congress to lift the arms embargo imposed against Turkey because of its intervention on Cyprus; Carter pledged to renew diplomatic efforts to resolve the Cyprus problem. The United States then worked with Britain and Canada to launch a new settlement plan. The twelve-point plan (often called the ABC plan because of its American, British, and Canadian sponsorship) proposed a biregional, independent federal republic. The state's constitutional structure would conform to the Makarios-Denkta guidelines of February 1977, as well as to pertinent clauses of the 1960 constitution. There would be two constituent regions. The federal government would be responsible for foreign affairs, defense, currency and central banking, trade, communications, federal finance, customs, immigration and emigration, and civil aviation. Residual functions would rest with the two regions. A bicameral legislature would be established, with the upper chamber evenly divided between the two communities, and the lower one divided on a population-ratio basis. The Council of Ministers would be jointly selected by the president and vice president, one of whom would be a Greek Cypriot and the other a Turkish Cypriot. On territorial issues, the plan envisioned significant Turkish Cypriot geographic concessions, although the size and locale of the two regions would take into account factors such as economic viability, security, population distribution, and history. The plan addressed the refugee issue, and called for essentially a demilitarized republic and withdrawal of all foreign forces except for an agreedupon contingent.

The Republic of Cyprus government objected to many points in the plan, largely because it preempted various positions of the two sides. The Greek Cypriot foreign minister said he would have preferred an agenda that did not go into so much detail. Other Greek Cypriot forces, including the church and some political parties, also opposed the plan. In the Greek community, only Glafkos Clerides urged its acceptance as a basis for talks. Turkish Cypriots also formally rejected the plan as an overall settlement package.

However, the ABC plan stimulated further efforts toward a settlement, and the UN Security Council acted quickly to resume intercommunal talks, on the basis of an agenda that combined the Makarios-Denktas guidelines with some aspects of the allied plan.

Two other effects of the American initiative should be noted. The plan was the last American-drafted proposal for Cyprus and convinced some in the Western policy community that even a fairminded effort had little chance of winning Cypriot acceptance. Second, it reinforced Cypriot anxiety about having solutions imposed from outside. By the early 1990s, many features of the initiative remained part of the UN-brokered negotiating effort, but Cypriots remained committed to writing their own plan.

Cyprus - 1979 Kyprianou-Denktas Communiqu�

In early 1979, President Kyprianou was persuaded by his political advisers to resume talks with Denktas, and Javier P�rez de Cu�llar, then undersecretary general of the UN, called the two to a meeting in Nicosia in June. The two intercommunal negotiators, Minister to the President George Ioannides for the Greek Cypriots and �it S�leyman Onan for the Turkish Cypriots, pursued talks aiming at a communiqu� stating the broad agenda for further talks. This process stalled temporarily when Greek Cypriots sought to give the Varosha issue priority above all other issues. On May 18 and 19, the two leaders held a second summit that led to the successful conclusion of a ten-point agreement that called for a resumption of talks on all territorial and constitutional issues; placed priority on reaching agreement on the resettlement of Varosha; stated the parties' commitment to abstain from actions that could jeopardize the talks; and, envisaged the demilitarization of Cyprus. The agreement also repeated past statements about guarantees against union with any other country, partition, or secession. The ten points were largely a tactical means to secure further negotiations and did not resolve any substantive issues. One more meeting was held in June 1979, but the talks were then suspended until August 1980.

The UN-established common ground on which the talks resumed was a four-part agenda addressing, on a rotating basis, the resettlement of Varosha under UN auspices, initial practical measures to promote good will, constitutional issues, and territorial issues. The talks, conducted in Cyprus under the chairmanship of the UN secretary general's Special Representative on Cyprus, Ambassador Hugo Gobbi, continued without a major breakthrough and were temporarily suspended for the spring 1981 parliamentary elections on both sides of the island. In August and October 1981, the two sides made substantive presentations, which were welcomed as signs of commitment to compromise, but which also revealed the serious gap in the two sides' concepts of a solution.

The Turkish Cypriot proposal, submitted in August 1981, named four fundamental principles: a bicommunaand bizonal federal republic shall be established, but the two federated states will not form a unitary state; the Turkish Cypriot community will be regarded as an equal cofounder with the Greek Cypriot community and all government institutions will be staffed on a fifty-fifty ratio; the federal or central government will not be so strong as to imperil the independence of its component states; and the three freedoms of movement property, and settlement, will be restricted as set out by the 1977 guidelines. The proposal identified as "federal matters" six functions, including foreign affairs; foreign financial affairs; tourism and information; posts and telecommunications; federal health and veterinarian services; and, standards of weights and measures, patents, copyrights, and trademarks. The Turkish Cypriots also submitted two maps, one defining a proposed boundary line between the two federated states and one focused on Varosha in particular. The Turkish Cypriot proposal treated the federal concept narrowly, limiting federal authority.

The Greek Cypriots submitted their proposal on October 1, 1981. It contrasted sharply with the Turkish Cypriot proposal, with a heavy emphasis on the unity of the island and the powers of the federal republic. The plan's six principles included the indivisibility of the territory of the federal republic; the federal republic as sole subject of international law, to the exclusion of the provinces; and the use of the federal legislative and executive powers to ensure Cyprus's economic reintegration. The Turkish Cypriots considered this proposal merely an elaboration of a 1977 Greek Cypriot plan.

Despite the failure to make headway on the core political issues, this phase had one notable achievement: the agreement on terms of reference for a Committee on Missing Persons, consisting of representatives of the two communities and an international participant designated by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The committee's first meeting was held on July 14, 1981. The committed met sporadically throughout the 1980s, and new proposals to invigorate its work were discussed in early 1990. The work of the committee was hampered by sensitivity about exchanges of dossiers and information. Sensitivity areas included security matters and religious questions, such as whether graves should be disturbed.

By late 1981, UN officials and other supporters of the settlement process had concluded that the talks needed new stimulus. Secretary General Waldheim issued an evaluation of the negotiations in November, in what he called a "determined effort to lend structure and substance" to the negotiating process. The evaluation identified major points of "coincidence and equidistance" in the two sides' positions and proposed that the contemplated republic's executive authority be exercised by a federal council composed of six ministerial functions, corresponding roughly to the narrow Turkish Cypriot concept. Waldheim also suggested a bicameral legislature, provincial chambers, and a territorial compromise in which the Greek Cypriot side would administer at least 70 percent of the island.

The settlement process in the early 1980s was affected by the need for President Kyprianou to establish his credibility and demonstrate his loyalty to the national cause after the death of the charismatic Makarios. To many observers, it appeared that Kyprianou had less room for maneuver and was less inclined, by political preference or capability, to put forth new strategic positions. The election of a socialist government in Athens in October 1981 may also have affected the attitudes of the parties; Greek Cypriots welcomed Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou's desire to "internationalize" the Cyprus problem, which effectively gave Greek Cypriots some breathing room in the intercommunal process. Meanwhile, the Turkish Cypriot leaders were developing new formulas and concepts of their own, and generally disapproved of efforts to internationalize the issue.

On November 15, 1983, after months of speculation, Rauf Denkta declared Turkish Cypriot statehood, on the basis of the universal right to self-determination. His proclamation, which cited the United States Declaration of Independence, declared the establishment of the "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus" ("TRNC"). The move was not intended to block progress toward creating a federal republic, Denktas said. Rather, the assertion of the political identity and equality of the Turkish Cypriots would, in his view, enhance prospects for a new relationship between the two sides of the island. He also pledged that the new state would not join any other state, meaning Turkey.

The move was widely condemned by Western powers and the UN. The secretary general considered the declaration contrary to past Security Council resolutions and at odds with the high-level agreements of 1977 and 1979. The United States urged nonrecognition of the entity and joined a nearly unanimous Security Council resolution (541) which called for reversal of the declaration. (Jordan voted no; Pakistan abstained.)

Cyprus - 1984 Proximity Talks

The statehood declaration did not end the negotiation process. In August 1984 the two sides met UN Secretary General P�rez de Cu�llar in Vienna. They agreed to proximity talks, that its, talks in which the portier do not meet directly, but communicate through an intermediary. These talks began in New York in September. After three months, P�rez de Cu�llar determined that the differences between the two sides had narrowed enough to allow for a direct summit between the two leaders. That meeting took place in New York on January 17, 1985.

The 1985 summit was in some ways a watershed in Cypriot settlement efforts, because it altered, at least temporarily, external observers' perceptions of the sources of the stalemate, and because it represented the beginning of a phase of settlement efforts. But that phase would come to an end in early 1990.

Cyprus - 1985-86 Draft Framework Exercise

At the January 1985 summit, UN officials presented a draft framework agreement for the establishment of a bizonal, bicommunal federal republic. The parties, according to many accounts, had been briefed on its contents but not directly involved in its drafting. Denktas indicated his willingness to sign the draft, on the understanding that details would be worked out in separate talks. However, Kyprianou declined to sign, saying he considered the draft a basis for negotiations but that such a commitment was premature.

The collapse of the summit redounded to Turkish Cypriot favor, in the reactions of the news media and Cyprus's Western friends. By 1990, however, Turkish Cypriots referred to the 1985 summit as a regrettable Turkish Cypriot acquiescence to external pressure, from Turkey and the United States in particular.

The UN worked intensively with the two parties after the summit, on the assumption that a tactical misstep need not undermine the considerable achievement of drafting an outline reflecting broad areas of agreement. Yet UN efforts in the months that followed showed the near-impossibility of bridging the gaps; drafts proved acceptable to one side or the other, but never both. In April 1985, a draft framework agreement won acceptance by Greek Cypriots and was rejected by the Turkish Cypriot side. After extensive consultations a new draft was promulgated; it was embraced by the Turkish Cypriots and rejected by the Greek Cypriots.

Cyprus - 1988-90 Vassiliou-Denktas Meetings

The politics of the settlement process appeared to change significantly when Greek Cypriots elected George Vassiliou president in February 1988. Vassiliou, a successful businessman with no important political party base (although his parents were founding members of the island's communist party, the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou-- AKEL), campaigned on a pledge to solve the Cyprus problem with new vigor and creativity. His upset victory over Spyros Kyprianou seemed to indicate popular support for a new approach and for more rapid progress on a settlement. The UN and Cyprus's western partners welcomed Vassiliou's election and his statements about the settlement process.

The UN arranged for informal meetings between Vassiliou and Denktas at the Nicosia home of the UN special representative, Oscar Camillion. The first round of these meetings took place between August and November 1988. A second round occurred between December 1988 and April 1989, but the talks faltered when the two sides began submitting papers and drafts that began to dominate the discussions. These two rounds raised new concerns that the UN had lost control of the process, and that reaching agreement on a fixed agenda or schedule might prove difficult.

In May 1989, a more formal process began, after Secretary General P�rez de Cu�llar assigned his two aides, Camillion and Gustave Feissel, to meet separately and jointly with the parties to draft an outline, which could be based on an "ideas paper" that the UN circulated on a noncommittal basis to the parties. This third round was stalled for the second half of 1989, over procedural and substantive difficulties, with the Turkish Cypriots' objecting to the "ideas paper." The parties met in New York with the secretary general to discuss their progress in February and March 1990.

The secretary general reported that the gap between the two sides remained wide and that he was not convinced there was an agreed-upon basis on which to proceed. He turned to the Security Council for clarification of his good offices mission, and the clarification was passed unanimously in Resolution 649 on March 13.

The two sides separately indicated satisfaction with the UN resolution, Greek Cypriots emphasizing the active role proposed for the UN, including the right to make suggestions, and Turkish Cypriots pleased with the resolution's references to the separate status of the two communities and to bizonality as an enshrined principle in a prospective settlement.

This eighteen-month round of settlement efforts had begun hopefully. A period of creative tension and groping to create new understandings occurred in mid-1989, when Vassiliou and his advisers privately and informally offered important concessions to the Turkish Cypriot side. That is, none of the Greek Cypriot proposals or suggestions were binding or formally entrenched in official documents, but were offered discreetly as the basis for discussion. These concessions included a willingness to phase in the three freedoms, beginning with freedom of movement and holding freedom of settlement and property in abeyance. New thinking and flexibility on the territorial issue was displayed, with a range of options presented to the Turkish Cypriot side, such as a smaller but nearly exclusively Turkish Cypriot zone, rather than various larger but more demographically mixed zones. Greek Cypriots tried to link the size of the territorial swap with the degree of communal purity. They were more flexible than in the past on the issue of the presidency, offering alternatives such as rotating the position between the two communities or having joint elections with Turkish Cypriot votes weighted. Turkish Cypriots found themselves challenged by a more flexible interlocutor and reacted with caution, expressing new legal reservations about the proposals. At that point between October 1989 and February 1990, the Greek Cypriot side seemed to withdraw some of its new ideas, and the president found his freedom of maneuver limited by new domestic resistance to further concessions.

When the talks collapsed in early 1990, both sides appeared to be turning away from the UN process. The two governments seemed able to withstand domestic criticism of the talks; opposition complaints on both sides appeared to focus on tactics, and did not challenge the fundamental government positions. Both leaders appeared to be preparing to defend their positions to outside partners. Greek Cypriots mounted a renewed effort to win international support for their position, and for the need for international pressure on Turkey to win concessions from the Turkish Cypriots. For Turkish Cypriots, the end of the talks heralded a period of active domestic politics. A push for new diplomatic recognition of the "TRNC" was under consideration.

Cyprus - POLITICS

In 1990 the Republic of Cyprus operated under the terms of the 1960 constitution as amended in 1964. It consisted of three independent branches: executive, legislative and judicial. The republic's president, George Vassiliou, was head of state and presided over a council of eleven ministers.

Presidential authority remained as outlined in the constitution. Cabinet portfolios included agriculture and natural resources, commerce and industry, communications and works, defense, education, finance, foreign affairs, health, interior, justice, labor and social insurance. Policy making was in the hands of administrative directors who were appointed civil servants with lifelong tenure. In an effort to make government more of a meritocracy, Vassiliou reassigned a number of ministerial directors to other positions, but encountered resistance from the parties when he tried to replace some of these directors.

The legislative body, the House of Representatives, consisted of fifty-six Greek Cypriot members, with twenty-four seats held for Turkish Cypriots, who had not recognized or participated in the republic's legislative life since the constitutional amendments of 1964. Originally a chamber of fifty, with thirty-five Greek Cypriots and fifteen Turkish Cypriots, the House of Representatives was enlarged in 1985.

The Republic's judicial branch largely followed the original structure outlined at independence. The 1964 amalgamation of the Supreme Constitutional Court and the High Court of Justice into the Supreme Court, combining the functions of the two former courts and eliminating the neutral judge, also led to the establishment of the Supreme Council of Judicature. Assigned the judicatory functions of the former high court, it was composed of the attorney general of the republic, the president and two judges of the Supreme Court, the senior president of a district court, a senior district judge, and a practicing advocate elected every six months by a general meeting of the Cyprus Bar Association.

As a result of the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriot public servants from the government, the Public Service Commission could not function as provided for in the constitution. Therefore, the Public Service Law of 1967 established a new commission to exercise the same functions. Its five members were appointed by the president. President Vassiliou's effort to replace the incumbents with members of his choice was thwarted when the parliament would not provide funding to complete the contracts of the replaced members.

At the district level, a district officer coordinated village and government activities and had the right to inspect local village councils. The mayors and councils for municipalities were appointed.

At the village level, there had been since Ottoman times councils, each composed of a village head (mukhtar) and elders (aza; pl., azades). Large villages that prior to 1974 had sizable mixed populations had separate councils, one for each community. Under the Ottoman empire, the village head and elders were elected by the villagers. In the British period and after independence, the village heads were appointed by the government and then chose the elders. New legislation in 1979 provided that village and town government officials should be elected rather than appointed, and elections for village councils and their presidents have occurred every five years beginning in 1979. The cycle for municipal elections was different: elections were held every five years, most recently in 1986. These election results generally followed the national pattern, in terms of the relative shares won by each of the parties. In some cases, however, parties were able to cooperate at the village level, while competing nationally.

Cyprus - Political Parties

In the early postindependence period, Greek Cypriot political party life was centered around a loose coalition of Makarios supporters called the Patriotic Front, plus the communist party, AKEL. The front dissolved in the late 1960s; its major factions broke into discrete parties. The House of Representatives afterwards maintained a fairly stable balance among four parties that ranged from a communist party to one that was right of center. Each of these parties generally received at least 9 percent of the vote, more than the 5 percent being the minimum required to win seats in the legislature.

Three of the four parties so divided the vote that none ever won a clear majority. The Republic of Cyprus has a modified proportional representation system. There were occasional proposals for a simple proportional system, and the electoral law has been modified five times in the 1980s.

As of 1990 the Democratic Rally (Dimokratikos Synagermos--DISY) was the largest parliamentary party. Created in 1976 and led by Glafkos Clerides, it evolved from the Unified Democratic Party (Eniaion), which was one of the factions that emerged from the Democratic Front in the 1970 parliamentary elections. DISY's platform focused on free enterprise economic policies and a practical solution to the intercommunal problem. It was the most explicitly pro-Western and pro-NATO of Cyprus's parties, and drew its support from middle-class professionals, businessmen, and white-collar employees. Its shares of parliamentary election votes were 24.1 percent in 1976 (but no seats because of the electoral law), 31.9 percent in 1981 (twelve seats) and, 33.6 percent in 1985 (nineteen seats).

The Democratic Party (Dimokratiko Komma--DIKO), formed in 1976, was seen as the closest to President Makarios and was headed by his successor, Spyros Kyprianou. The party platform in its first electoral campaign emphasized a nonaligned foreign policy and a long-term struggle over Turkish occupation in the north. Over the years, this party formed uneasy alliances with the two more leftist parties, the communists and socialists. The Democratic Party won twenty-one seats in 1976, eight seats in 1981 (19.5 percent), and sixteen seats in 1985 (27.7 percent). In June 1990, Kyprianou was reelected party leader.

The socialist party, the United Democratic Union of Cyprus (Enie Dimokratiki Enosis Kyprou--EDEK), generally called the Socialist Party--EDEK (Socialistiko Komma), was formed in 1969 by Makarios's personal physician, Vassos Lyssarides. The party advocated socialized medicine and nationalization of banks and foreign-owned mines. It was anti-NATO and pro-Arab, and favored a nonaligned foreign policy, although those positions seemed to have softened in the late 1980s. The party supported enosis with a democratic Greece, opposed continued British sovereignty rights on the island, but differed from the communists in keeping its distance from the Soviet Union. Its appeal was strongest among noncommunist leftists, intellectuals, and white-collar workers. Its electoral strength was the weakest of the four parties. In 1976 EDEK won four seats, three in 1981 (8.2 percent), and six in 1985 (11.1 percent).

The communist movement has been a major force on the island since the 1920s, often vying with the Church of Cyprus for the role of dominant political player. The first communist party was formed in 1924 in Limassol, was banned in 1931, and reappeared in 1941 with the creation of the Progressive Party of the Working People (Anorthotikon Komma Ergazomenou Laou--AKEL). Banned in the preindependence emergency from 1955 to 1959, AKEL has been in every parliament since 1960. AKEL won nine seats in 1976, twelve in 1981 (32.8 percent) and, fifteen in the enlarged chamber in 1985, which represented a drop to 27.4 percent.

Reflecting the serious crisis in the communist movement since the collapse of East European regimes in late 1989, AKEL held internal conferences in early 1990, but resisted reform proposals. As a consequence, AKEL dissidents formed a new leftist grouping called the Democratic Socialist Renewal Movement (Anorthotiko Dimokratiko Sosialistiko Kinima--ADISOK) in May 1990. The reformers included five members of parliament elected in 1985 as AKEL leaders. ADISOK selected House Deputy Pavlos Dhinglis as chairman and criticized AKEL for undemocratic behavior and an anachronistic mentality. It petitioned President Vassiliou for representation on the National Council, a forum in which all political groups met to discuss political issues.

The parties had held fairly constant positions on key policy issues since the second half of the 1970s. AKEL and DISY, while at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, were regarded as most flexible and forthcoming on settlement matters. EDEK and DIKO took a harder line, pushing for a more punitive approach to Turkey. On social and economic policy, the parties' ideological predilections prevailed: EDEK and AKEL advocated greater government support for workers and free public health services; DISY favored free enterprise. Some Cypriot analysts believe that DISY and DIKO have an overlapping constituency and could merge into a single centrist party if DIKO were to drop its far-right support, estimated at 5 percent of its strength.

Cyprus - Media

The press was another major player in Greek Cypriot politics. There were ten Greek-language and one English language daily papers for a population of 500,000. The television was government-owned. In 1989 President Vassiliou proposed a press law, aimed at setting guidelines and a professional code of ethics and at stimulating greater competition by allowing private radio stations (thus ending the monopoly of the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation). An early version of a comprehensive press bill passed the parliament and in 1990 was under review for further revisions, to address criticisms that in its original form it set too many regulations. In mid-1990, parliament approved and the president signed legislation to make municipalities, companies, and individuals eligible to establish private radio stations. A new relationship with the Greek media, allowing Cypriot television to broadcast Greek programs, was established in 1990, although it was seen as threatening to the financially weak Cyprus Broadcast Corporation.

Cyprus - Political Dynamics

The politics of Cyprus have gradually evolved from the shadow of the dominant figure of Makarios, who embodied the struggle for independence from Britain and enosis with Greece. After independence was achieved without enosis, Makarios's own thinking changed, and Cypriot politics struggled with its internal ghost-- enosis. Makarios became persuaded that true national independence for Cyprus had advantages, and Greek political trends by the mid1960s convinced him that Cyprus had a destiny distinct from that of Greece. The Greek Cypriot population did not let go of the dream of enosis as quickly, and pro-enosis forces eventually turned on Makarios, leading to the 1974 coup.

While the drive for enosis subsided as a mobilizing force, the difficulties of creating a nation out of a bifurcated society took center stage. Makarios failed to draw the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities together, but, helped by his unusual position and special gifts, he created a consensus among Greek Cypriots. Although the authority of the Church of Cyprus diminished with the rise of new secular institutions, Makarios, as its head, Hellenism and, as elected president, had legitimate political authority. Coupled with these advantages were an extraordinary charisma and a mastery of diplomacy that his adversaries saw as deviousness and duplicity. By the time of the 1974 coup, however, it was clear that Makarios's total domination of Cypriot politics was coming to an end. From July to December 1974, Makarios was out of the country, and the government of the truncated republic was run competently by Glafkos Clerides. Makarios and Clerides then competed as heads of rival political groups, with the differences between them focused on the intercommunal process. Makarios reportedly welcomed this competition as a sign of growing Cypriot political maturity.

After Makarios's death in 1977, Kyprianou succeeded to the presidency, and Clerides continued as the principal opposition leader. The two men differed, among other things, over how to deal with the intercommunal talks.

Sharing the stage with Kyprianou were several other major figures, including Archbishop Chrysostomos, who had succeeded Makarios as head of the Church of Cyprus. Although the archbishop traveled the world meeting with overseas Greeks, Chrysostomos's personal political impact was judged by many to be far less significant than that of Makarios or that of the church as a whole.

Kyprianou was in many ways typical of the centrist, noncontroversial political figures who often follow charismatic leaders. He sought to preserve the Makarios legacy and pursue policies that would further Makarios's goals. But Kyprianou did policies that would further Makarios's goals. But Kyraianou did not have the tactical dexterity or diplomatic skill of Makarios, and he became associated with an approach to the settlement process that preserved the status quo, rather than displaying the openness and initiative that characterized Makarios at the end of his life. The Kyprianou presidency, by the late 1980s, was considered weak and passive, unable to break the stalemate in the settlement process and losing respect at home. At the same time, Kyprianou's less authoritative style did allow more competition in Greek Cypriot politics, permitting independents and other party leaders to contest presidential elections with greater prospects for success.

Cyprus - Political Culture in the Vassiliou Era

The election of George Vassiliou in February 1988 was unexpected. Although many Cypriots were increasingly disaffected because of the lack of progress in the intercommunal talks and the incumbent's reputation for passivity and ineffectiveness, the results were an upset. The first round, held on February 14, gave a plurality and 33.3 percent to Glafkos Clerides of DISY. Vassiliou, an independent, came in second, with 30.1 percent, and the incumbent, Spyros Kyprianou of DIKO, came in third with 27.3 percent. Kyprianou was defeated, according to Cypriot press opinion, because of inflexibility in the settlement talks and because of party maneuvering, including an unpopular tactical alliance with the communist party, AKEL.

The runoff between Clerides and Vassiliou was held on February 21, and Vassiliou won by a little over 10,000 votes. He polled 51.6 percent; Clerides, a veteran of Cypriot politics and acting president in 1974, polled 48.4 percent. Ironically, in the final contest the two men were in substantial agreement over the settlement issue; both expressed eagerness to engage in talks with Denktas, and neither made withdrawal of Turkish troops a precondition for talks. Some believe that Clerides narrowly missed victory because of his past associations with right-wing political groups.

Born in Famagusta in 1931, Vassiliou completed secondary school in Cyprus, and spent more than a decade studying and working in Europe. He received a doctorate in economics in Hungary. Upon his return to Cyprus in 1962, he founded and remained president of the Middle East Marketing Research Bureau, the largest consultancy in the region, with offices in eleven countries.

Vassiliou's campaign emphasized his wish to invigorate the settlement process. He offered to meet directly with both thenPrime Minister Turgut �zal of Turkey and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Denktas. Without a strong party base, Vassiliou also decided to resurrect the National Council, first created by Makarios, with the hope that the political parties meeting together could forge a collective and consensus-based policy toward the settlement process. Vassiliou proceeded to work out new rules with the party leaders, including guidelines on which issues required their unanimous consent. He pledged to put any settlement plan to the people in a referendum. But his seemingly liberal views on a settlement were tempered by his policy commitment to reorganize and reinforce civil defense and increase defense spending.

A number of factors brought Vassiliou to power. The electorate, to be sure, was frustrated by the impasse in the settlement process and welcomed someone who spoke of new ideas and energy. More broadly, the vote may have signaled the end of the Makarios era, and the desire for new leaders, rather than Makarios's heir apparent.

Vassiliou brought to the presidential palace skills learned in the private sector, such as prompt decision making, cost-benefit analysis, marketing, and open competition, that promised livelier and more effective policy making. Some Cypriots welcomed his attempt to bring corporate boardroom concepts into politics. Others resented it. In his first two years in office, Vassiliou was constrained by the island's experienced politicians, who had different agendas, and by Turkish Cypriot strategies that did not embrace the spirit of Vassiliou's settlement message.

The new president tried to introduce fresh faces into the executive branch. His first cabinet had only two ministers who had previously held office: George Iacovou continued to serve as foreign minister, ensuring continuity in external relations, and Christodoulos Veniamin took the post of interior minister, which he had held, along with other cabinet posts, between 1975 and 1985. In May 1990, President Vassiliou replaced four of his cabinet ministers and appointed several who had not served in previous cabinets. For the most part, the outside appointees were people who had the approval of one or more of the major parties.

Vassiliou had promised first and foremost to achieve progress in the talks with Turkish Cypriots, through intercommunal talks and negotiations with Turkey. However, in his first two years he made no breakthrough toward a settlement.

He achieved more in other areas. In the 1988 election campaign, Vassiliou spoke of his desire to make changes in the civil service, to end the spoils system that had created a large and inefficient public sector. He pledged moves toward a meritocracy, and promised to bring into government energetic, talented people from private sector. During his first two years in office, he was unable to replace the incumbent appointees to the Public Service Commission with his own candidates, because the parliament did not approve funds for it. Nor did another campaign promise, to create a government ombudsman as a clearinghouse for complaints, make headway in the first two years of his presidency. He was also unable to wrest from the political parties appointments to quasigovernmental posts such as utilities boards. He failed to pursue vigorously a campaign pledge to investigate charges of corruption in the police force.

Vassiliou's modest gains in these efforts were constrained by the parties' resistance to the businessman-president's ideas. The parliament failed to approve many of his requests for new positions, such as political appointments for ministerial special assistants and even experts to assist the president.

Vassiliou did manage to dilute the parties' power to some extent. Political patronage jobs, formerly the perquisites of the largest party, were shared among the major parties, reflecting Vassiliou's desire for a consensus-based political system. Vassiliou often chose for appointed positions associates whose skills he respected but who were also acceptable to one or more of the major parties. This power sharing with the parties, however, kept the new president from keeping his promise to reduce the size of the public sector.

Yet Vassiliou's intelligence, energy, and worldliness were valued by Cyprus's friends overseas. Vassiliou visited all major European capitals, traveled in the United States, and attended multilateral conferences to explain the Cyprus situation and enlist support for new settlement efforts. He was troubled that the dramatic and triumphant world events of 1989 and 1990 distracted world attention from the Cyprus problem, and he was concerned about the prospects for its neglect. His presidency, nevertheless, although it did not produce dramatic results, won respect and attention from a number of friendly governments.

Cyprus - FOREIGN POLICY

Beginning with independence, Cypriots saw their problem on several levels. First and foremost, it was an intercommunal problem that required local, domestic political solutions. Next, and very close to this level, was the relationship of the island to its motherlands, Greece and Turkey; the two Cypriot communities struggled with the question of how much their foreign policies should be determined by the foreign policy interests and resources of the motherlands. At another level, many Cypriots considered their island a pawn in the superpower struggle, often exaggerating its strategic significance. Because the two motherlands, Greece and Turkey, were North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members, Cyprus was by definition a problem within the Western camp, a circumstance the Soviet Union and its allies, during the Cold War, occasionally sought to exploit. As a response to these constricting relationships, Cypriot foreign policy was nonaligned, and both communities found support among Third World countries for whom the Cyprus problem resonated with their own problems, be it the matter of a larger nearby state occupying territory of a smaller one, or the matter of a religious minority suffering discrimination at the hands of the majority.

Cyprus's relations with the outside world were shaped profoundly by the chronic dilemma of the island's political identity. The two communities conducted narrow foreign policies focused on this single issue. Yet the Republic of Cyprus conducted active and effective diplomatic efforts in many countries to win support for its position in UN settlement talks and in support of sympathetic resolutions in multilateral forums of which Cyprus was a member. The "TRNC" by the mid-1980s tried to break out of its isolation and began to conduct its own foreign policy, in some ways mirroring the efforts of its Greek Cypriot neighbors. Recognition as a state was the primary foreign policy objective of the regime in the north. Foreign policy in general was considerably more important for the republic; the "TRNC" was persuaded that its cause would benefit from "benign neglect" by the world community, allowing the two communities to develop normal relations without external pressure.

Cyprus - FOREIGN POLICY - The Republic of Cyprus

The founding documents of Cyprus's independence set some requirements for its foreign policy and linked the republic to three NATO members--Turkey, Greece, and Britain--through a Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Guarantee. These treaties, calling for the motherlands to garrison troops on the island and for the three NATO countries to guarantee and protect the independence of the republic, seemed to constrain or contradict the commitment to nonalignment enshrined in the constitution. Cypriots complained about these implied limits on their sovereignty, but in time developed foreign policies that were independent of the motherlands.

Cyprus - The Foreign Policy of Internationalization

Greek Cypriots have focused most of their foreign policy energies since 1974 on winning broader international support for a Cyprus settlement providing for a withdrawal of Turkish troops and, to the extent possible, a restoration of the status quo ante of a single government on the island and the free flow of people and goods throughout its territory. The republic continued to enjoy international recognition as the legal government of Cyprus, and Cyprus's membership in the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), the United Nations, and the Commonwealth Conference provided opportunities to promote these aims. Resolutions passed by these organizations called for the withdrawal of foreign troops, condemned Turkey's settler policy, urged the immediate implementation of UN resolutions, and called for sanctions against Turkey.

Cyprus placed considerable importance on its membership in the NAM. It hosted a number of NAM meetings and headed an effort in 1989 and 1990 to redefine the NAM's objectives in light of the dramatic changes in East-West relations and the virtual end of superpower rivalry and competition. Support from the nonaligned states was particularly important during UN debates. Greek Cypriots were aware that UN resolutions lacked direct effect on Turkey unless accompanied by substantive sanctions, but they hoped that collective international pressure might yield some results. On occasion, the republic was persuaded by its Western allies to forego the annual UN General Assembly resolution debate, avoiding repetitious and largely ineffective rituals and allowing the UNsponsored talks to proceed without undue pressure. President Vassiliou adapted the traditional Greek Cypriot strategy to his new thinking by occasionally modifying his language, avoiding punitive measures, and emphasizing positive incentives to engage Turkish Cypriots in negotiations. After the collapse of the 1990 UN talks, however, Greek Cypriot positions in international organizations returned to earlier phases, seeking direct condemnation of Turkish and Turkish Cypriot policies and practices.

The strategy of internationalization became more Europeoriented in 1990. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the commitment to unification of the two Germanies, the Greek Cypriot republic perceived its situation as increasingly anomalous and unacceptable. It argued that, after Soviet troops completed withdrawing from Eastern Europe, Cyprus would be the only country in Europe with foreign occupying troops. The unification of Germany also underscored the deep Greek Cypriot yearning for reunification, and Greek Cypriots held candlelight processions around the old walls of the capital, Nicosia, calling for an end to the division of the island.

The decline of the relative importance of NATO among European institutions had both advantages and disadvantages for Greek Cypriot foreign policy. On the one hand, it appeared to reduce Turkey's leverage over its Western allies and opened the way for broader pressures on Turkey. On the other hand, the potential loosening of Turkey's ties with Western partners could also weaken those countries' influence on Turkey's policies. In addition, the preoccupation with Germany and the emergence of new violent conflicts in the Balkans made it harder to keep the attention of European powers on Cyprus.

The proposals in mid-1990 to expand the mission and scope of the CSCE appealed to Greek Cypriots. They had found participation in the CSCE, along with six other neutral and nonaligned European states, less satisfactory when the organization's main function was as a forum for East-West confidence-building measures. In a future united Europe, however, Cypriots could envision a greater role for the small states in the CSCE, and some believed that the CSCE's expanded conflict-mediation role might have benefits for Cyprus. The Italian proposal for a southern variant of the CSCE, the CSCMediterranean , found tentative support from both Cypriot communities.

Cyprus - Relations with Greece

After the troubles of 1963-64 and the effective separation of the two communities, the Greek Cypriots controlling the republic's institutions did not, ironically, orient their foreign policy more toward Greece. Instead, the growing authority and confidence of President Makarios and divergent trends in Greek and Greek Cypriot politics led to the republic's foreign policy becoming more independent. Greek Cypriots were disappointed that Greece had placed the interests of the Western alliance above those of the island in the preindependence London and Zurich talks. Greek Cypriots also viewed as inadequate the Greek response to the 1963- 64 troubles, with Greece again deferring to NATO interests.

Relations deteriorated further when the military seized power in Athens in 1967. Makarios was anathema to the staunchly anticommunist regime in Greece. His flirtation with Eastern Europe and Third World nations, his refusal to stem criticism of the dictatorship, and his charismatic appeal to Greeks everywhere were major concerns of the new Greek leadership. The infiltration of Greek soldiers from the mainland, in excess of levels approved in the Treaty of Alliance, became a threat almost equal to that from the Turkish mainland. By the early 1970s the rift between the Athens junta and the Makarios government had become open. Athens allegedly financed operations of anti-Makarios organizations and newspapers and was widely thought responsible for attempts on Makarios's life. Pressures mounted, and in July 1974, after Makarios openly challenged the junta's interference, the Cypriot National Guard, led by Greek officers, staged a coup that ultimately resulted in Turkish intervention and the junta's demise.

With the 1974 restoration of civilian government in Athens and the environment of crisis in the Greek-controlled part of the island after the Turkish intervention, relations between the republic and the government in Greece were restored to normal, and closer coordination of foreign policy began, particularly focused on winning support for resolutions in international organizations and from Greeks abroad. Greece gave full public support to policies adopted by the republic and pledged not to interfere in domestic Cypriot politics. The two governments agreed that Greek Cypriot participation in settlement efforts was essential and tried to uncouple the Cyprus issue from other Greek-Turkish disputes, such as those about territorial rights in the Aegean Sea.

Differences remained over the two governments' priorities. Greek prime minister Konstantinos Karamanlis was said to favor a more moderate and conciliatory stand on Cyprus than either Makarios or Kyprianou, both of whom advocated a "long struggle" in the face of what they perceived as Turkish intransigence. The Greek government was also eager to return to NATO, which it did in 1981, and to reduce tensions with Turkey. In addition, the tripartite American-British-Canadian plan (the ABC plan) of 1978 won Greece's approval, although it was rejected by Greek Cypriots as a framework for negotiations.

When Greeks elected the socialist government of Andreas Papandreou to office in 1981, the foreign policy of Greece shifted. Less inclined to demonstrate Greece's loyalty to NATO and other Western institutions, Papandreou sought to "internationalize" the Cyprus settlement effort, and took a more confrontational approach to bilateral differences with Turkey. This led to a new, and sometimes uneasy, division of labor between Greece and the republic, with the latter engaged in intercommunal talks and the former raising the Turkish troop issue in NATO and other international forums. Cyprus was relinked to bilateral GreekTurkish problems, insofar as Papandreou insisted that relations between the two NATO allies could not improve until the Cyprus problem was solved and Turkish troops withdrawn. This policy was temporarily suspended in early 1988, when Papandreou and Turkish prime minister �zal conducted talks known as the Davos process, aimed at improving ties through Aegean confidence-building measures. The process was stalled in late 1988 by political and health problems of the Greek premier. For most of 1989 and early 1990, Greece was ruled by interim governments that took no new foreign policy initiatives, although the 1988 election of the activist George Vassiliou in Cyprus gave some new vigor and interest to the frequent consultations in Athens between the two governments.

In April 1990 Greeks returned to power the centrist New Democracy Party, and the new prime minister, veteran politician Constantinos Mitsotakis, pledged to renew Greece's efforts to solve the Cyprus problem. The two governments formed a joint committee, administered by their foreign ministries, to share information and coordinate policies, and thus avoid the strains that had arisen from divergent approaches to the Cyprus problem.

Cyprus - Relations with the United States and the Soviet Union

Cyprus had ambivalent relations with the superpowers during the Cold War. Despite its nonalignment, the cultural, political, and economic orientation of Cyprus was to the West, and NATO allies played crucial roles in the achievement of Cyprus's independence, the treaties guaranteeing that independence, and the composition of the UN peace-keeping force that was on the island continuously after 1964.

Relations with the United States after the 1974 crisis were shaped by Cypriot convictions that the United States had been too close to the Greek junta, could have prevented its coup against Makarios, supported or acquiesced in the Turkish intervention, and gave insufficient attention to solving the Cyprus problem. Relations between Cyprus and the United States were also haunted by the 1974 assassination of United States Ambassador Roger Davies in Nicosia. Yet, pressed by the United States Congress and the aroused Greek-American community, the Nixon and Ford administrations became involved in refugee resettlement and peace talks during the 1974 crisis and its aftermath.

As the Turkish intervention was consolidated, leading to a long-term division of the island, Greek Cypriots continued to have misgivings about the strategic intentions of United States policy. Cypriots occasionally pressed for new American initiatives, although none was offered after the 1978 ABC plan. A more activist American policy was institutionalized through the establishment in 1981 of a Special Cyprus Coordinator in the Department of State. The position was held by Reginald Bartholemew (1981-82), Christian Chapman (1982-83), Richard Haass (1983-85), James Wilkenson (1985- 89), and Nelson Ledsky after 1989. Yet efforts by these diplomats to stimulate discussion about confidence-building measures, intercommunal projects and cooperation, and new directions in the US$15 million annual aid program to Cyprus met resistance from the republic's government. The republic looked to the United States Congress and the Greek-American community to correct what they considered a pro-Turkish bias in United States policy.

Relations with the Soviet Union were more distant and reflected ups and downs in superpower influence in the Mediterranean and in United States-Turkish relations. The Soviets had supported the Greek Cypriot position after 1974 and generally pursued policies that fostered strains in intra-NATO relations. They worked with the island's communist party, but equally well with the centrist governments. In the late 1970s, the Soviets were cooler toward the Greek Cypriot view because of improved relations with Turkey. The Soviets under Mikhail Gorbachev became more interested in Cyprus settlement efforts. In 1986 the Soviets outlined their policy for a Cyprus settlement, calling for a withdrawal of all foreign troops and bases (presumably including the British sovereign base areas), a demilitarization of the island, and a new federal government. Greek Cypriots welcomed the proposal, although in subsequent months it was interpreted by many as part of a broad Third World-Soviet public relations exercise more than a serious diplomatic initiative to which resources would be devoted.

Cyprus - Relations with the Europe

The Republic of Cyprus also participated in foreign policy debates on issues of broader interest to Cyprus as a small, nonaligned country. When approached by its Western friends, including the United States, Cyprus proved a reliable and effective partner in issues of common concern, such as antiterrorism measures and control of illegal narcotics, and it became increasingly interested in environmental causes, particularly in the Mediterranean region.

Cyprus was also compelled because of proximity to address the Arab-Israeli issue and the Lebanon crisis that plagued the nearby Middle East throughout the 1980s. The island was occasionally touched by the violence of these disputes, when Israeli and Palestinian commandos carried out missions against each other in Cypriot coastal towns, and even in Nicosia. For the most part, Cyprus remained neutral, allowing the island to be the meeting place for informal diplomatic encounters between Arabs and Israelis. Cyprus had active trade and cultural relations with Israel, and a fully accredited Israeli Embassy functioned in Nicosia. At the same time, Cyprus supported moderate Palestinian positions in international forums and sought more active Arab support of its position, appealing to Arab sentiment over what it saw as analogous situations in the respective Israeli and Turkish occupations of their territories.

Cyprus - The "TRNC"

Turkish Cypriots began developing a rudimentary foreign policy after 1963, focused mainly on public relations efforts to explain the communal perspective on the island's political difficulties. Two factors constrained the development of a Turkish Cypriot foreign policy. First, Turkish Cypriots lacked the personnel and resources to project themselves on the world scene. Second, Turkish Cypriot administrations, in their various forms since 1963, lacked international recognition and were dependent on Turkey's acting as an intermediary to international opinion. The situation changed gradually after 1985, although Turkish Cypriot activism in foreign policy focused on expanding trade and political contact, rather than on the settlement process. The view of the Turkish Cypriot government was that less, not more, international attention would help a Cyprus settlement.

As was the case with Greek Cypriots and their mainland, relations between the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey could be characterized as close and cooperative, although many observers detected strains barely beneath the surface. Turkey usually supported Turkish Cypriot policies in their broadest sense, although tactical differences often occurred. On several key occasions in the UN settlement process, Ankara pressed the Turkish Cypriot government to be more forthcoming. From 1975 until the declaration of the "TRNC" in 1983, for example, it was reported on numerous occasions that Turkey had persuaded Denktas to delay his unilateral declaration of independence.

The main institutional vehicle for Turkish-Turkish Cypriot cooperation was the Coordination Committee (Koordinasyon Komitesi) formed in the 1960s to administer the extensive economic relationship between the two. The participants in these coordination activities, which became more ad hoc as Turkish Cypriot bureaucratic competence grew, were representatives of the prime minister's office in Turkey and a collection of key decision makers from the Turkish Cypriot executive branch. From 1974 to 1983 coordination was close, including Turkish participation in Turkish Cypriot cabinet meetings. After the establishment of the "TRNC," such contact was replaced with more formal state-to-state relations. Turkey demonstrated in various ways its recognition of the separateness of the Turkish Cypriot political entity, although opposition parties and many observers believed that the Turkish Embassy in the north was engaged in activities beyond the normal purview of a foreign mission.

The economic dimension of bilateral relations also showed its strains. After 1974, the Turkish contribution to the Turkish Cypriot budget was estimated at 80 percent, but by 1990 that subsidy was reported to be in the 30 to 40 percent range. The opposition press in Turkey occasionally complained that aid and assistance to northern Cyprus was an economic burden on Turkey, whose economic performance was uneven in the 1980s. For their part, Turkish Cypriots complained of inadequate aid, the failure as of late 1990 to establish a customs union, and the importation of Turkey's economic problems, most notably rampant inflation in the late 1970s and again in the late 1980s. Relations were also strained by social differences between mainland settlers and the higher levels of education and more urban and secular lifestyles of most Turkish Cypriots.

Most Turkish Cypriot foreign policy efforts were focused on achieving recognition of the "TRNC" and explaining the Turkish Cypriot position on the settlement process. The "TRNC" had one Embassy, in Ankara, two consulates, in Istanbul and Mersin, and five representation missions, in London, Washington, New York, Brussels, and Islamabad. These missions did not have diplomatic status. In 1990 there were reports that additional missions might be opened in Abu Dhabi, Canada, Australia, Italy, and Germany.

The Islamic nations were the key target of Turkish Cypriot recognition efforts. In wooing Islamic support, Turkish Cypriot officials emphasized the religious aspect of the Cyprus conflict and stressed the importance of Muslim solidarity. Meetings of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), in which Turkey played an increasingly active role in the 1980s, were an important focus for the "TRNC." The OIC passed several resolutions urging economic support and cultural contact with the Turkish Cypriots, but stopped short of embracing the recognition issue. Many Arab Islamic countries had ambivalent relations with Turkey, because of the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, and also because they wished to maintain good relations with the Republic of Cyprus, which served as a financial center and entrep�t for Middle Eastern business activity. These reservations inhibited the "TRNC" in seeking to achieve its goals in the Islamic world. Among these countries, Pakistan, Jordan, and Bangladesh were considered the strongest supporters of the Turkish Cypriot cause.

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