{"id":17127,"date":"2018-04-25T21:56:31","date_gmt":"2018-04-25T18:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.onisilos.gr\/?p=17127"},"modified":"2018-04-27T16:46:25","modified_gmt":"2018-04-27T13:46:25","slug":"an-open-letter-to-h-e-mr-antonio-guterres-the-secretary-general-of-the-united-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.onisilos.gr\/?p=17127","title":{"rendered":"An Open Letter to H.E. Mr. Ant\u00f3nio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"

24 April 2018<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

OPEN LETTER<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Date: 24 April 2018<\/span><\/p>\n

Dear Secretary-General<\/span><\/p>\n

Re: The ill-fated \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 submitted to \u2018separate, simultaneous referenda\u2019 held on 24 April 2004<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Today marks the passage of 14 years since the United Nations oversaw what it described at the time as two \u2018separate simultaneous referenda\u2019.\u00a0 These \u2018referenda\u2019\u00a0were held on 24 April 2004 in what the United Nations also described at the time as \u2018the two sides\u2019, i.e. the area of the Republic of Cyprus which has been unlawfully occupied by Turkey since 1974 and the area which has not been occupied by Turkey.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was chosen as the date upon which the two \u2018referenda\u2019 were held.\u00a0 The choice of date was an affront to the many citizens of the Republic of Cyprus of Armenian heritage; by extension, it was likewise an affront to the memory of all\u00a0those who perished or suffered during one of the worst crimes in human\u00a0history.\u00a0 Even so, the choice of date was\u00a0in keeping with the institutional racism and the other forms of direct or indirect discrimination which have blighted so many parts of the Eastern Mediterranean for far too long.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the heart of the two \u2018referenda\u2019 held on 24 April 2004 was a package of draft documents including a draft \u2018foundation agreement\u2019, draft \u2018main articles\u2019, three draft constitutions, a handful of draft constitutional laws, many draft federal laws\u00a0and\u00a0a number of\u00a0other draft\u00a0legal texts.\u00a0 Back then, the Secretary-General of the United Nations was Mr Kofi Annan.\u00a0 Accordingly, the United Nations named this package of draft texts as \u2018the Annan Plan for Cyprus\u2019 (otherwise known as \u2018the Annan Plan\u2019).<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

On 31 March 2004, when Mr Annan unveiled the tip of the iceberg of draft texts embodied in the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019, the United Nations issued a statement entitled \u2018Annan submits final plan for Cyprus referenda\u2019. In its statement, the United Nations\u00a0disclosed that the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 amounted to a \u20189,000-page text\u2019.[1]<\/span><\/p>\n

Built into the United Nations statement, dated 31 March 2004, was a hyperlink to a page on the United Nations website dedicated to the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019.\u00a0 That page, at www.cyprus-un-plan.org\/Annan_Plan_April2004.pdf<\/a>, does not appear to exist anymore.\u00a0 Nor does the website, www.cyprus-un-plan.org<\/a>, of which that page formed an integral\u00a0part.\u00a0 All those years ago, this United Nations website carried some\u00a0elements but certainly\u00a0not every element\u00a0of the overall package of draft\u00a0documents forming part of the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

On 21 April 2004, three days before the two \u2018referenda\u2019 were due to be held, Mr Annan delivered a \u2018video message\u2019 addressed to persons whom he described as \u2018Cypriot friends\u2019.\u00a0 According to the transcript, as published by the United Nations, Mr Annan revealed that \u2018parts of the plan were put together by the United Nations.\u2019\u00a0 That being said, Mr Annan added that \u2018most of its 9,000 pages were drafted by hundreds of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.\u2019\u00a0 In the judgment of Mr Annan, \u2018[t]heir extraordinary efforts produced one of the most comprehensive peace plans in the history of the United Nations.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

With all this in mind, Mr Annan suggested that the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 envisaged \u2018one independent and sovereign state, the [proposed] United Cyprus Republic.\u2019\u00a0 However, Mr Annan was quick to add that his \u2018Plan\u2019 also envisaged that this \u2018state\u2019 would rest on \u2018a bi-communal, bi-zonal federal structure, based on the political equality of the two communities\u2019 and the formation of two new \u2018constituent states\u2019.[2]\u00a0If created, the new\u00a0constituent state in the south would have been named as the \u2018Greek Cypriot Constituent State\u2019 and the other one\u00a0in the north would have been named as \u2018Turkish Cypriot Constituent State\u2019.\u00a0 In turn, these two \u2018Constituent States\u2019 would have come into existence alongside two truncated but surviving British Sovereign Base Areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

In other words, the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 envisaged that the\u00a0population and the territory of the Island of Cyprus would have been legally divided in a number of different ways and thereby subjected to an Orwellian state of affairs in which re-division and re-segregation would have been misleadingly portrayed as \u2018reunification\u2019.\u00a0 Indeed, the misleading word \u2018reunification\u2019 appeared on no less than two occasions\u00a0in the message\u00a0of Mr Annan, as delivered on 21 April 2004.[3]<\/span><\/p>\n

In his aforementioned message, Mr Annan did not explain that the \u2018Plan\u2019 bearing his name amounted to a capitulation to post-1964 Turkish strategy.\u00a0 After all, since 1964, a full decade before the two Turkish invasions of the Republic of Cyprus,\u00a0this strategy has sought to achieve a number of improper\u00a0outcomes, all of which would have been facilitated by the full force of an unjust set of laws if the\u00a0\u2018Annan\u00a0Plan\u2019 had been implemented in 2004.\u00a0 In effect, this post-1964 strategy has rested on a number of doctrinal tenets.\u00a0 These include:<\/span><\/p>\n

(i)\u00a0 \u2018bi-communal\u2019 segregation via the continued existence of two separate \u2018communities\u2019 (owing their historical and intellectual\u00a0origins to the Ottoman imperial division of people into Muslims and non-Muslims);<\/span><\/p>\n

(ii) \u2018bi-zonal\u2019 supremacism via the legalisation of two segregated \u2018zones\u2019, including a \u2018Turkish-Cypriot zone\u2019 (of the type manufactured by the use of brute force after the two Turkish invasions of the Republic of Cyprus launched on 20 July and 14 August 1974);<\/span><\/p>\n

(iii) the legalisation of demographic engineering via\u00a0ethno-religious cleansing (of the type carried out after the two Turkish invasions of 1974);<\/span><\/p>\n

(iv) the formation of a fiction of a \u2018federation\u2019 amounting to a confederation; and<\/span><\/p>\n

(v) sustained interference by Turkey and by another former imperial power, the United Kingdom, plus Greece, not least via updated versions of the Treaty of Establishment 1960 and the Treaty of Guarantee 1960, as well as\u00a0the Treaty of Alliance 1960 (to which the United Kingdom has never been a party).<\/span><\/p>\n

All in all, the\u00a0\u2018Annan Plan\u2019 effectively\u00a0turned a blind eye to gross human rights violations and to what appear to have been grave international crimes[4] resulting in the occupation and ethno-religious cleansing of 36 per cent of the territory and 57 per cent of the coastline of the Republic of Cyprus.\u00a0 These crude outcomes, as achieved by brute\u00a0force in 1974, were consistent with post-1964 Turkish strategy (as endorsed in 1974\u00a0by the United Kingdom and the United States)\u00a0in favour of a \u2018compulsory exchange of population\u2019 involving the \u2018compulsory movement of people\u2019 from their homes \u2018under duress\u2019; the essence of this strategy was ably identified by Dr Galo Plaza, the then United Nations Mediator, in a landmark report, dated 26 March 1965.[5]<\/span><\/p>\n

As events were to unfold, the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 was rejected by\u00a0a total of 76 per cent of the voters who voted in one of the two \u2018referenda\u2019 held on 24 April 2004; this was the one held south of the cease-fire lines which have snaked across the Republic of Cyprus since 1974.\u00a0 In consequence, the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019 was\u00a0duly declared null and void.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the aftermath of this outcome, further details emerged as to what had happened in the days and months leading up to the \u2018referenda\u2019.\u00a0 For example, in his post-\u2018referenda\u2019 report as Secretary-General, dated 28 May 2004,[6] Mr Annan shed light on some of the texts which could be found in the 9,000 or so pages of the \u2018Plan\u2019 bearing his name.\u00a0 To quote Mr Annan, these texts included \u2018131 federal laws\u2019 which, in turn, comprised \u20184 constitutional laws, 124 federal laws and 3 Cooperation Agreements, and running in total to almost 9,000 pages\u2019.\u00a0 In addition, these texts included \u2018a final list\u2019 which consisted of \u20181,134 treaties and instruments\u2019 that would have been binding upon the proposed \u2018United Cyprus Republic\u2019 if the latter had come into being in the event of\u00a0\u2018a double yes\u2019 in the two\u00a0\u2018referenda\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Contrary to the most basic principles of democracy, such as procedural fairness, accountability, transparency and public participation in decision-making, the 9,000 or so pages of the \u2018Annan Plan\u2019, including three\u00a0draft constitutions and dozens of\u00a0draft laws,\u00a0were composed in secret.\u00a0 Moreover, it appears as if these 9,000 or so pages were submitted to two \u2018referenda\u2019 in the absence of any consultation exercises and without having passed through any meaningful process of line-by-line parliamentary or public scrutiny.\u00a0 This in spite of the fact that, on 1 May 2004,\u00a0the Republic of Cyprus was due to accede to the European Union, an organisation which is\u00a0supposedly a bastion of democracy and democratic values.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the light of the above, in the interests of historical scholarship and for the sake of an accessible public record, I hereby ask eight sets of questions of a procedural character, which I trust you will answer on behalf of the United Nations:<\/span><\/p>\n