WHY CIVIL SOCIETY IN CYPRUS IS DYSFUNCTIONAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L NICOSIA 000918 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/14/2016 TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL CY SUBJECT: WHY CIVIL SOCIETY IN CYPRUS IS DYSFUNCTIONAL Classified By: Classified by CDA Tom Miller; Reasons 1.4 (B) and (D) ¶1. (C) Summary: Civil society in Cyprus is fragmented, weak and riven by personal rivalries. The elephant in the living room -- the Cyprus issue -- further distorts the NGO scene in Nicosia and restricts opportunities for Cypriot activists and organizations to play a broader role on issues of more global concern. We have surveyed a range of activists, academics, politicians and advocates to solicit their views on both the health of the local NGO community and prospects for the future of civil society here. NGOs working in areas as diverse as public health, trafficking and drug addiction must contend with a heavily-politicized environment that is warped and distorted by the division of the island and three decades of enforced separation between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. Those activists brave enough to work directly on the Cyprus issue are at risk of being labeled "traitors" to their community. The potential for NGOs to serve as a driving force in the pursuit of a Cyprus settlement and the reconciliation of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities is tremendous. The reality, however, falls well short of that mark. End summary. All Unhappy Families Are Unhappy in Their Own Way -------------- -------------- ¶2. (C) Civil society is relatively young. NGOs that cut across ethnic lines, such as the British Red Cross, were active in the 1940s, but disbanded following independence in ¶1960. Modern, post-colonial civil society began to emerge in the 1950s and 60s, strongly along communal lines as encouraged by the growth of nationalist movements. Extremist groups like EOKA and the Grey Wolves were some of the first to organize the public. The communal violence of the 1960s and the coup/invasion of 1974 are still fresh in the Cypriot psyche and have shaped the first post-war generation in such a way that politics -- and political parties -- are still the primary and dominant form of civic organization. ¶3. (C) Largely because of this, political parties dominate the public space and suck up much of the oxygen that might otherwise have energized civil society. Ayla Gurel of the Oslo-based International Peace Research Institute (PRIO) and Yiouli Taki of the think tank "Index" both pointed to the high level of party loyalty in Cyprus and the peculiar strength of the bond between family and party as a significant limitation on civic activism. In Cyprus, all interests and all forms of expression are seen as inherently political. Leftists and right-wingers have their own coffee shops and football clubs. Gurel pointed out that on the Turkish Cypriot side there were "right" and "left" associations for the blind. The same holds true for labor unions, which are far and away the largest civil society organizations in Cyprus. DIKO politician Christos Yiangou admitted to us that the parties looked at civil society organizations as potential competitors for the affections and loyalties of their voters. "We don't like organizations that we don't control," Yiangou said. The Elephant in the Living Room -------------- ¶4. (C) The Cyprus problem itself warps and distorts the environment in which NGOs operate. "Human rights" organizations focus largely on the violations of the rights of one community by the other. Greek Cypriot "human rights" organizations -- and they are legion -- are concerned almost exclusively with the return of property lost by Greek Cypriots in 1974. The parallel plight of Turkish Cypriots is of little interest to them. The struggle for democracy in Burma or the suffering of refugees in Darfur is utterly irrelevant. Former Turkish Cypriot Chamber of Commerce head Ali Erel observed that this was, at least in part, a function of government-funding practices that advantaged Cyprus-issue NGOs and a small, well-heeled private donor community that thinks inside "the Cyprus box." That the government often disingenously cites the Cyprus problem as the reason for inaction in unrelated areas of concern further encourages Cyprus-based NGOs to stick close to home. Yiouli Taki pointed out that before, during and shortly after the 2004 referenda on the Annan Plan, a large number of civil society groups sprung up to advocate a position either for (a few) or against (many, many more) the UN plan. She noted that many of those groups were fly-by-night and have since disbanded -- leaving a dearth of serious civil society actors. Andreas Theophanous, an academic and the hardest of hard-liners on the Cyprus issue, used the same observation to make essentially the opposite point. Theophanous argued that the network of organizations opposed to the Annan Plan demonstrated the essential strength of civil society in Cyprus. "It's just that we don't care about anything except ourselves," Theophanous concluded. ¶5. (C) The Cypriot media has been openly hostile to NGOs, particularly those that stray from the established government line. The television news and the largest newspapers reflexively toe the government line. Beginning in the fall of 2004, the Greek Cypriot media launched a scorched earth attack on U.S. bicommunal assistance, UNOPS and specific NGOs that had worked with UNOPS to implement bicommunal programs. The charge in the press -- presented without a single shred of evidence -- was that the United States had essentially paid Greek Cypriots to support the Annan Plan and that we had laundered our "black money" through complicit NGOs. Yiouli Taki, for one, has been attacked in the press for authoring the UN-approved "Citizens Guide to the Annan Plan," which anti-plan activists dismissed as presenting only "the good parts" of the settlement proposal. Taki, it was suggested, "took American money" in exchange for supporting the plan. Follow the Money -------------- ¶6. (C) That NGOs in Cyprus are not financially independent makes them vulnerable to both influence peddling and charges of influence peddling. Little private funding is available domestically for charitable causes -- especially in the north -- and civic organizations rely on donations and piecemeal grants from the government. Dependence on government largesse undercuts the independence of NGOs and their willingness to serve in a watchdog function. Ali Erel described "government" funding of NGOs in the north as "requiring something in return." Moreover, there are no established rules regarding NGO funding. Typically, the degree of "government" support an NGO can expect is directly proportional to its degree of intimacy with the political parties in power. In the past, the "Council of Ministers" has voted to close down NGOs when their activities were seen as being at odds with the goals of the governing coalition. Erel added that an NGO applying for international funding should expect authorities to view its activities with suspicion, even if they are specific to human rights, health, or similarly non-controversial themes. ¶7. (C) Rana Zincir of the Chrest Foundation pointed out that Cyprus had a weak tradition of philanthropy and donors tended to concentrate on a few limited areas of personal interest. Josie Christodoulou of the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) -- the only NGO to thus far receive ROC anti-trafficking funds -- and Mine Yucel of Prologue Consulting both noted in separate conversations that Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot organizations (note: there are few if any truly bicommunal NGOs working on human rights) are mostly run by part-time staff who work full-time in other fields. Yucel thought that other elements of civil society, such as labor unions, have been more active because they are related to the economic concerns of individuals. ¶8. (C) NGOs find themselves fighting each other for a share of what can only be described as a pretty small pie. Organizations working in the same area are driven to compete rather than cooperate. Susana Pavlou of MIGS and Doros Polycarpou of the NGO "KISA" (Action for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism) noted that the large number of humanitarian NGOs run by disparate academics, politicians or other public figures rarely join forces for a common cause. Also, the deep fragmentation of the NGO community means that organizations tend to be identified closely with the person leading them. Polycarpou, for example, is not only the head of KISA, he is synonymous with KISA. (He is also one of the most outspoken, argumentative and eccentric NGO characters on the island. Moreover, he was, until recently, employed full-time by the ROC,s welfare services). Mine Yucel noted that because of Cyprus' small-size and close family networks, personal (and political) disputes have a way of spilling over into civil society issues. We have seen this phenomenon regularly in an Embassy-sponsored anti-trafficking network. The leaders of the principle NGOs active on trafficking issues despise each other and spend significantly more energy on themselves than on the problem of trafficking. A well-intentioned attempt to coordinate the activities of leading NGOs working on TIP under the umbrella of an anti-trafficking coalition broke down over personal rivalries and charges of corruption. KISA head Polycarpou accused the husband of the Limassol-based APANEMI Director Julia Kalimeri -- who at one time had been employed by KISA -- of embezzling CYP 7,000 from his organization. Kalimeri instigated a covert slander campaign against Polycarpou, and the whole exercise collapsed in a round of acrimony and recrimination. This is all pretty routine by the standards of Cypriot civil society. What, Me Worry? -------------- ¶9. (C) There may also be aspects of Cypriot society and culture that limit the growth and development of a vibrant civil society. A number of our contacts have pointed to broad trends in tertiary education as one key limiting factor. At the risk of over generalizing, Cypriots from both communities tend to gravitate towards technical disciplines rather than the humanities. Ayla Gurel and Mete Hatay observed that many Cypriot civil servants were educated in the East Bloc during the cold war under a system that did little to encourage civic debate and citizen activism. Spyros Spyrou of Cyprus College's Center for the Study of Childhood and Adolescence contended that the insular and conservative nature of Cypriot society encouraged the public to dismiss transnational problems like trafficking, drug use and crime as being removed from Cypriot society and therefore of limited relevance. Dr. Mehmet Cakici of the Cyprus Mental Health Institute (and a former BDH MP) maintained that culturally, both communities in Cyprus were only just beginning to publicly acknowledge problems like domestic violence and drug use. The stigma attached to social problems like these discouraged open debate. Cakici noted that his clinic in the area administered by Turkish Cypriots was "full of Greek Cypriots" who had come to the north in secrecy to seek help. The Future of NGOs -------------- ¶10. (C) NGOs on both sides on both sides are quick to admit their own shortcomings -- and even quicker to point out the shortcomings of their rivals. Building a vibrant, engaged and effective civil society on Cyprus will take considerable time. The division of the island is one obvious limitation, but it also presents an opportunity if we can successfully focus the fragmented and fractious organizations north and south of the buffer zone on shared goals and objectives. The Embassy has been leveraging the Bicommunal Support Program (BSP) to promote capacity-buidling activities among NGOs. We have had some success with this, particularly in the area of trafficking in persons. There is still a lot to do if civil society is to fulfill its potential in promoting a Cyprus settlement and break the stranglehold that political parties currently maintain on political discourse. MILLER