The government installing barbed wire is a communication trick
Article by Eleni Mavrou, AKEL Political Bureau member
Sunday 14th March 2021, ‘Haravgi’ newspaper
The Cypriot government has installed two kilometers of barbed wire along the buffer zone at the Astromeritis checkpoint, announcing at the same time that it would extend the barbed wire wall by another nine kilometres in the direction of Nicosia, claiming that by doing so this would…block the entry of migrants from the confrontation line. It is obvious that this action anything but serves the declared goal.
How exactly will the barbed wire stop the migration flows along even 11 kilometers from the entire 180 kilometers of the confrontation line? After all, we have seen how easy it is for someone to cross it. Do the government ruling forces really think that anyone, so desperate who has walked hundreds of miles or boarded a boat risking his/her life to reach a safe place, would stop in front of any barbed wire fence? Or that traffickers who are making crazy money out of human misery will not have figured out beforehand how to deal with the problem?
Nowhere in the world has the issue of migration been solved by erecting fences. Trump tried to do so and failed. They tried in Hungary, Spain, Slovenia and Bulgaria…The Spaniards started moving the fences it erected in December. The Slovenians did so long ago, while others followed. It should be pointed out that the Court of Justice of the European Union recently condemned Hungary because you cannot prevent refugees on your territory from applying for asylum. Unless the government intends to relinquish the buffer zone as well, which although it is under the control of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), it has however been vested by the Republic of Cyprus on the UN and corresponds to 3% of the Cypriot territory, approximately 350 sq.km.
The truth about the increased migration flows is quite different. The large numbers of migration flows started after 2016 and the huge increase was recorded in the period 2018-2020, which goes to prove that the current government has failed to handle the issue. The stacks of asylum applications files that are waiting to be processed for two, three or more years are, I consider, enough proof. Let alone the fact that Cyprus has received more than 100 million euros from the European Union over the past seven years to handle the migration issue. How the government ruling forces have handled the whole matter, of course, is another, interesting, issue.
Most dangerous of all are the political messages that this action to install barbed wires conveys, just a few weeks before the informal five-party conference is due to convene in Geneva on April 27, where, among other things, the Greek Cypriot side will raise the issue of the barbed wire of division with which Turkey has divided our country! And while we are all protesting about Turkey’s provocative positions for a “two state” solution (N. Anastasiades is now also protesting), the Minister of Interior, in his attempt to defend the government’s decision to install the barbed wire, referred to the implementation of similar measures by the Greek government in Evros (Note: northernmost regional unit of Greece, borders Turkey to the east across the river Evros)! That’s where borders between states do apply! And then we all wonder why the international community doesn’t understand the Greek Cypriot side’s position.
Everybody, even those in the ultra-right Greek Cypriot party ELAM realise that the Anastasiades government, in view of the upcoming parliamentary elections, is exploiting the issue of migration to fish for votes in murky waters! A little the “golden” passports scandal and the unprecedented levels of corruption, a little the failure in handling the pandemic – the government ruling forces need to use the rhetoric and practices of the extreme-right to limit DISY losing votes going towards ELAM…
