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
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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
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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