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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
(see Intercommunal Violence
, ch. 1). 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 Küçük 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 (Türk Mukavemet Teskilâti--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
(see
Conflict Within the Greek Cypriot Community, 1967-74
, ch. 5).
Data as of January 1991
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