It was the year of our Lord 2010 when the then President of the Republic of Cyprus, Demetris Christofias, referred the issue of the British Bases … to his children and grandchildren. His and that of Gordon Brown, then Prime Minister of Britain.
The … communist leader was speaking at the ‘Brookings Institute’ and mentioned the dialogue with Brown. “I told him,” he said before God and man, “that the Bases will not be disturbed and their future will be left to our children and grandchildren.” And the Bases were not disturbed for 14 years, and while Mr. Christofias had grandchildren, as Gordon Brown probably did too.
In the meantime, in March 2011, when the Bases were to be used for military action in civil war-torn Libya, he expressed opposition but also clarified and claimed that “the Bases are sovereign and Britain can use them only with a simple notification”.
Few reacted then, like the MEP Yiannakis Kasoulides, who stated that the “sovereign Bases” are the British version of the Treaty of Establishment. For the Republic of Cyprus, the Bases have only limited sovereignty, he declared, although neither DISY nor the subsequent Anastasiades government reacted to any act of questioning the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus by the British Bases.
Not that we ever forget them, but we were reminded of the British Bases after confirmation of their use by the British Air Force to support Israel in the latest attacks from Iran. They were also remembered by quite a few cheerleaders of then-President Christofias, as well as the general management (i.e. non-management) of the British Bases by the system of Cypriot power.
And they decided that for 2-3 days they should dust off their anti-imperialist banners and denounce the Bases, without even calling for their withdrawal. As AKEL does, that is, and those who recognise their sovereignty.
Therefore, the issue is not whether the British helped to intercept Iranian missiles and we should remain silent, as some argue, but that they are involving Cyprus in conflicts that are completely irrelevant to our country. That as long as there are British Bases and as long as there is a British and Cypriot version of their so-called sovereignty, the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus will also be questioned. Which has so many problems, so many threats and so many ‘suitors’, and does not need any further questioning.
Let’s not even discuss for the moment that the British have not paid the agreed compensation to the Republic of Cyprus since 1963 and the Turkish mutiny (editor’s note: Cypriot intercommunal violence).
In other words, on the occasion of the latest developments, let us reopen the discussion on the completion of the decolonisation of Cyprus, following the example of the decision of the International Court of Justice in The Hague on the Chagos Archipelago in Mauritius, a decision that should be ‘erga omnes,’ that is, against all, a decision that makes it clear that the illegal British Bases in Cyprus also constitute a remnant of colonialism.
And this is not said by us ‘intransigents’, but by the Supreme Court of London itself, which on 30.7.2018 ruled that the areas of the Bases “must be considered as constituting a colony acquired by conquest or cession on 5 November 1914.”
How can we still be discussing this?
