The Work of the UN in Cyprus

Also by Oliver P. Richmond

MEDIATING IN CYPRUS: The Cypriot Communities and the UN

The Work of the UN in Cyprus Promoting Peace and Development

Edited by

Oliver P. Richmond Lecturer in International Relations University of St Andrews St Andrews

and

James Ker-Lindsay Co-ordinator Greek-Turkish Forum Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies London

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* Selection, editorial matter and Jntroduction © Oliver P. Richmond and james Ker-Lindsay 2001 Chapters 2 © james Ker-Lindsay 2001 Chapter 4 © Oliver P. Richmond 2001 Other chapters © Palgrave Publishers Ltd 2001 Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-91271-3

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First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin's Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd}.

ISBN 978-1-349-42266-1 ISBN 978-0-230-28739-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230287396

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The work of the UN in Cyprus: promoting peace and development 1 edited by Oliver P. Richmond, james Ker-Lindsay.

p.cm. lncludes bibliographical references and index.

1. Cyprus-Politics and government. 2. United Nations­-Cyprus. 3. Cyprus-lnternational status. 1. Richmond, Oliver P. Il. Ker-Lindsay, james, 1972-

0554.8 .W67 2000 341.23' 5693-dc21

10 9 8 10 09 08

7 6 5 4 3 2 07 06 os 04 03 02

1 01

00-034790

978-1-349-42266-1 ISBN

Contents

List of Contributors viii Acknowledgements x List of Maps xi List of Abbreviations xii

Introduction: Testing the United Nations Organization: the Case of Cyprus xiv fames Ker-Lindsay and Oliver Richmond

The UN and Cyprus: a troubled relationship xv The UN in Cyprus as a paradigm for modern peace operations xvii Testing the UN in Cyprus xix The structure of the work xx

Part I The Historical Background to the UN's Involvement with Cyprus

1 The UN and the Internationalization of the Cyprus Conflict, 1949-58 3 Hubert Faustmann Introduction 3 The internationalization of the Cyprus dispute until 1954 4 The first Greek appeal to the UN 9 The Cyprus question and the UN in 1955 17 From the Makarios-Harding talks to the XI session of the General Assembly 20 The fourth recourse to the UN: the XII session of the General Assembly 25 The last recouse to the UN: the XIII session of the General Assembly 29 Conclusion 35

2 The Origins of the UN Presence in Cyprus 50 fames Ker-Lindsay Introduction 50 Initial attempts to involve the UN 51 The United Kingdom takes the lead 53

v

vi Contents

Attempts to create a NATO-based peacekeeping force 56 The end of efforts to find a NATO-based force 60 The preparations for the Security Council debate 63 The Security Council debates 66 The resolution of the five 69

Part II The UN, Peace and Security in Cyprus

3 Assessing the Role of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus 77 Dan Lindley Introduction 77 Containing intercommunal conflict, 1964-74 77 Peacekeeping since 1974 83 Conclusion 94

4 UN Mediation in Cyprus, 1964-65: Setting a Precedent for Peacemaking? 101 Oliver Richmond Introduction 101 UN mediation in Cyprus: setting the stage 102 Direct UN mediation and the Galo Plaza report 108 The consequences of the failure of direct UN mediation 117 Conclusion 120

5 The Most Impossible Job in the World: the Secretary-General and Cyprus 127 Edward Newman Introduction 127 The international civil service and the Secretary-General 128 The Secretary-General's Role in Cyprus: the Waldheim years 132 Javier Perez de Cuellar 137 The 1990s: Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Kofi Annan 140 Teace within our grasp' - again 144

Part III The UN, Development and Humanitarian Issues

6 Contested 'Development': a Retrospective of the UN Development Programme in Cyprus 157 Peter Hocknell

Contents vii

Introduction 157 Perspectives on UNDP 158 A retrospective of UNDP in Cyprus 162 Developing a transboundary 'urban ecosystem' 165 Developing a transboundary 'island ecosystem' 170 Conclusion 180 Appendix 184

7 'Waiting For Ulysses': the Committee for Missing Persons 193 Paul Sant Cassia Introduction 193 A brief history of the issue 194 1963-64: Virisque acquirit eundo (rumour acquires strength as it progresses) 196 Official Turkish Cypriot perceptions of missing persons: from missing hostages, to disposed missing, to honorary martyrs 206 Greek Cypriots: the bureaucratization of uncertainty 211 Involvement of international bodies, tertium numen, tertius gaudens? 218 Conclusion: the individual, rights and empowerment 225

8 Going Political: the Work of the UN High Commission for Refugees in Cyprus 236 Madeleine Demetriou Introduction 236 The UNHCR and bicommunal activities 238 The UNCHR and humanitarian aid 239 Rehabilitation and integration 242 Bicommunal co-operation 245 Conclusion 247

Index 251

List of Contributors

About the Editors James Ker-Lindsay completed his doctorate on the origins of the United Nations Force in Cyprus at the University of Kent at Canterbury. He is currently the co-ordinator of the Greek-Turkish Forum at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies, in London and has been closely involved with the recent Greek-Turkish rapprochement.

Oliver Richmond is a lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of St Andrews in the UK. Formerly he taught and researched in Cyprus for many years. He is the author of Mediating in Cyprus: The Cypriot Communities and the UN (1998). His research interests include the UN, Cyprus, and peacemaking in civil conflicts.

About the Contributors Madeleine Demetriou is a doctoral candidate working on the subject of Diaspora in the Graduate School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Prior to this she was a staff reporter at The Cyprus Mail.

Hubert Faustmann is a researcher in the Department of History at the University of Mannheim, Germany and a lecturer at Intercollege in Cyprus. His main interest is the subject of British colonial rule in Cyprus.

Peter Hocknell wrote his doctoral thesis on geopolitical boundaries and functional institutions in the Department of Geography at the University of Durham.

Dan Lindley is an assistant professor of International Relations at Notre Dame University in the United States.

Edward Newman is based at the United Nations University, Tokyo where he works on the Peace and Governance Programme. He is the author of The UN Secretary-General from the Cold War to the New Era (Macmillan, 1998).

viii

List of Contributors ix

Paul Sant Cassia is Reader in Anthropology at the University of Durham.

Acknowledgements

As with any edited volume it is hard to put together a list of acknowl­edgements for all of the contributing authors. However, the editors, would like to thank all those who have contributed to this study, directly or indirectly, on the island of Cyprus and beyond. To those who consented to be interviewed and the mainly anonymous authors of the many official documents consulted, a great debt is owed. On a more personal level we would like to acknowledge those who thank­fully put up with us while work on this volume progressed.

x

List of Maps

3.1 Ethnic demographic changes in Cyprus: 1960, 1964 and 1990 79

3.2 Cyprus from UNFICYP's perspective 86

XI

List of Abbreviations

AKEL Communist Party of Cyprus CBD Central Business District CITES Convention on the International Trade in Endangered

Species CMP Committee for Missing Persons CYPOL Cyprus Police EAS Ethnikos Apeleftheroticos Synaspismos (National

Liberation Coalition) EC European Community EOKA Ethniki Organosi Kypriou Agoniston (National

Organization of Cypriot Fighters) EPM environmental planning management EPTA Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FO Foreign Office FOE Friends of the Earth GNP Gross National Product IAEA International Atomic Energy Authority IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and

Development ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development ILO International Labour Organization IO International Organizations IR International Relations ITU International Telecommunication Union NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NG National Guard NGO non-governmental organization NMP National Master Plan TCHRC Turkish Cypriot Human Rights Committee TF Turkish Forces TF CFL Turkish Forces cease-fire line TMI Turk Mukavemet Teskilati (Turkish Defence

Organization)

Xll

List of Abbreviations xiii

TRNC UN UNBZ UNCHS (Habitat) UNCIVPOL UNCLOS UNDOF UNDP UNDTCD

UNEF UNESCO

UNFDAC UNFICYP UNGA UNICEF UNIDO UNO UNPA UNPROFOR UNSF UNYOM UPU WHO WFP WMO

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus United Nations UN BufferZone UN Centre for Human Settlements United Nations Civilian Police UN Convention on the Law of the Sea United Nations Disengagement Observer Force United Nations Development Programme UN Department of Technical Cooperation for Development UN Emergency Force UN Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus UN General Assembly UN International Children's Emergency Fund UN Industrial Development Organization UN Organization UN Protected Area UN Protection Force UN Special Fund UN Yemen Observation Mission Universal Postal Union World Health Organization World Food Programme World Meteorological Organization

Introduction Testing the United Nations Organization: the Case of Cyprus fames Ker-Lindsay and Oliver Richmond

As a source of concern to the international community for over forty years the conflict in Cyprus needs little by way of introduction. Sporadic incidents of violence arising from the simmering tensions between the island's Greek and Turkish communities, as much as the seemingly endless reports of yet another 'forthcoming initiative' to promote peace talks, have ensured that Cyprus has been a source of regular media interest. As much as the world is aware of the Cyprus Problem, there are few people unlikely to know that for most of this period it has been the United Nations (UN) which has been responsible for keeping such tensions at bay and promoting dialogue. These objec­tives have been undertaken by the UN through the parallel tasks of peacekeeping and peacemaking. However, what has tended to be neglected in the media coverage, and even academic studies, of the UN in Cyprus is the extent to which these two tasks have been accompa­nied by efforts to facilitate the rebuilding of civil society through a range of other humanitarian activities. This work combines an analysis of the peacekeeping and peacemaking operations with an account of these lesser-known aspects of the UN operations on the island; the first time that this has been done in a single volume.

During the course of the investigation into the various aspects of the UN's operation, the work finds that the UN operation can, and should, be divided for analytical purposes. At the diplomatic level the organiza­tion has largely failed in its work. At various other levels of social and political interaction, more usually ignored, the UN has been relatively more successful. To highlight these differences across the levels, contri­butions are drawn from diverse academic disciplines that focus on the range of the levels; such as international relations, history, political geography, security analysis, anthropology and area studies. The degree

XIV

Introduction xv

of concurrence reached by all the authors about the factors determin­ing the UN's failures and successes in Cyprus indicates the true depth of the Cyprus problem; crossing, as it does, all of these disciplines. In the end it is hard not to notice the commonality of the barriers and obstacles thrown up at the level of the high politics of the Cyprus issue which may have stifled efforts by the UN to develop peace, justice, security, and development on the island.

The UN and Cyprus: a troubled relationship

A cynic once said that when the Republic of Cyprus realized that it could not be a world power it decided to become a world nuisance. In the minds of many there is more than a grain of truth to this harsh sounding comment. Within three years of gaining independence in 1960, Cyprus became a serious international issue. It remains so to this day. Although it may not generally be regarded with the same seriousness as the conflicts in the Middle East or the Former Yugoslavia, it nonetheless touches on many similar issues, as will become apparent in the course of the work.

So why has Cyprus not been seen with the gravity that is attached to other conflicts? The answer is simple. It has not been the scene of open fighting for a number of years. If violent conflict is the means by which the seriousness of an issue is judged then Cyprus is not a 'serious' problem at present. The fact that this analysis completely overlooks humanitarian issues, justice, or development - to name but a few areas - is an indication of the degree to which violence is seemingly taken as being the only criteria of seriousness in the contemporary international system.

That many downplay the seriousness of Cyprus under the criteria of violence, is mainly a result of the work done by the UN. For four decades the Organization has been the body entrusted with preventing Cyprus from becoming a threat to international peace and security. It is a job for which it has received little credit and yet the UN has, through a variety of methods, been at the forefront of promoting peace and development on the island. By doing so it has been central in preventing the conflicting parties in Cyprus from descending into violent confrontation.

Yet when we speak of the UN, we can in fact refer to two specific bodies. The first is the UN as an organization comprising the sovereign states of the world. The second is the United Nations as an administra­tive entity. The interaction, or more correctly than not, the contradic­tions, between these two roles have been of great importance to the course of the Cyprus issue in international politics.

xvi Introduction

The UN first became involved with the island of Cyprus during the 1950s, when the question of Cypriot self-determination was brought before the General Assembly, in the face of opposition from the United Kingdom, the island's colonial power. At that time the Greek Cypriots sought to achieve political union (enosis) with Greece by using the UN General Assembly as a lever against the opposition of Britain and Turkey. Over the next few years the matter was brought before the United Nations repeatedly. During these years the debate on the issue outside of the UN started to move away from being seen as a struggle between basic rights and political interest in favour of union with Greece to one in which self-rule and independence, in spite of the popular will of the majority of the island's inhabitants, became the accepted solution. The failure of the UN, as a political body composed of member-states, to solve the issue of the island's course along the lines of self-determination contributed significantly to this change in para­meters. Thus Cyprus reached to the core of the contemporary political debate about what the UN organization's role in world politics should be. These early years seemed to illustrate the gap between the aspira­tions of the UN from an institutional perspective, as laid out in the UN Charter, and the perceptions that states and other actors had of the UN and its practical role. It was also indicative of the tendency of actors in the international system to use the UN forum as an arena to exploit for their own interests. As an organization to promote peace and security, it was found to be lacking; as a body that could be manipulated to main­tain an uncomfortable status quo between North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies, and in a wider Cold War context, it was found to be extremely useful by the Western Alliance.

Although the failure of the UN General Assembly in the 1950s can be said to have been formative of the Republic of Cyprus, it was not until 1964 that the UN as an organization became intimately involved with the island. In that year the UN Force in Cyprus was established in response to the failure of the Republic's constitution, the outbreak of communal violence, and the threat of the emergence of a regional Cold War quagmire. On the island it had been clear for sometime before the first outbreaks of communal violence in late 1963 that the situation was quickly deteriorating towards open fighting between its ethnic groups, but the UN was powerless to intervene until called upon to do so, particular given the interests of the island's guarantor powers, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Turkey.

As a result of the duality of its role, as well as the continuing inter­action of international and regional politics with the domestic politics

Introduction xvii

of the island, so evident in the late-1950s and early-1960s, the UN has found that in the years since its arrival it has been pulled in many directions by a diverse range of actors in the Cyprus conflict. As a result of trying to respond to these competing pressures, the UN has found itself roundly criticised by all for its failure to achieve specific results. As a laboratory for the examination of a multidimensional peace operation, which has spanned several decades of experimenta­tion, and crisis management, the Cyprus conflict is unfortunately unparalleled. What emerges in this work is that the UN has been forced in to a corner by trying to reconcile its two political roles. At the management level, the various UN agencies on the island, includ­ing the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), have been forced to used their thinly stretched resources in a credible and cre­ative manner in order to respond to a series of political, military and humanitarian crises. The combination of these two factors has inevitably left major gaps and inadequacies in the UN operation. As a result, the parties to the conflict, in the widest sense including the international community, have come to see the UN's activities as seemingly lacking co-ordination. As will become apparent, this criti­cism is unfair; especially when one comes to realise that it has often been those same parties that have played a significant part in limiting the powers of the organization by their demand that the UN fulfil a multitude of, often contradictory, roles.

Despite these often proffered criticisms, the contributors in this volume have actually tended to conclude that, in spite of all the exter­nal constraints, the UN operation in Cyprus has actually been a proficient, if forcibly limited, attempt to put a stop to a cycle of events that none of the actors on the island, nor in the region has succeeded in ending for as long, and indeed, far longer than the UN has been present. On balance, the UN operation in Cyprus emerges as credible effort to prevent a serious escalation of conflict and hardship. It is an attempt to make, build, and maintain peace in the face of the shortcomings of the international system, particularly with respect to territorial integrity and sovereignty in contested zones, and the narrow political interests of the political leaders on the island and in the region.

The UN in Cyprus as a paradigm for modern peace operations

The endeavours of the UN in Cyprus are particularly pertinent in the post-Cold War world in which many of the issues that the UN

xviii Introduction

grappled with in Cyprus during the Cold War have become pressing problems in other regions in the contemporary environment. Thus, beyond its focus on Cyprus, the findings in this work also hold specific value for understanding the facets and mechanics of an integrated UN peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peacebuilding operation in other sce­narios. By charting the work of the organization in Cyprus from its infancy through to the contemporary political environment, light is cast on lessons that can be learned by others embarking on similar operations in a world in which such co-ordinated and multi­dimensional operations are increasingly becoming the norm (although not necessarily more co-ordinated or successful). Indeed, one can argue that the UN operation in Cyprus has already been a prototype for more complex operations undertaken since the end of the Cold War; for example in El Salvador and Cambodia. It has also provided warnings for other international organizations wishing to become involved in resolving intractable and deep-rooted conflicts.

As for the UN, it has only partially heeded the warning from Cyprus. On the positive side, the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) at least tried to avoid being caught up in a peacekeeping and humanitarian quagmire. Such lessons were, however, ignored in the case of Somalia, where the UN failed to pacify and reconstruct a failing state by coercive intervention despite the weight of US involvement. If understood properly, the case of Cyprus presents a wealth of insights for those interested in the potential of the UN and international organizations in promoting peace and security, in unravelling classic regional security dilemmas, in resolving identity conflicts, and in aiding development and humanitarian issues.

Yet if there is one lesson that can be learned from the example of Cyprus, it is that if the international community really wants to find a way to ensure the success of the UN in peace operations it must start to re-evaluate the conditions under which the organization is forced to work. It is overwhelmingly clear from this volume that tra­ditional diplomacy of the sort that the UN was designed for lacks the tools for resolving deep-rooted political and identity conflicts at a regional and local level in the contemporary international environ­ment. In a world in which the interests of sovereignty and territorial integrity are still paramount, but are finding themselves increasingly contested, the UN must become disentangled from the debate. There is much that the Organization can quietly achieve if it avoids political issues and concentrates on the practicalities of avoiding the collapse of cease-fires, promoting negotiation, and aiding in humanitarian or

Introduction xix

development areas. Ultimately, however, the inevitability of politic-ization with respect to contests over sovereignty and territory, as many of the following chapters attest, provide obstinate barriers which the UN has failed to overcome, but not necessarily through its own fault. It should not be forgotten that such politicization is inevitable to an extent given that the UN as an Organization of member-states represents an important mechanism of sovereignty and legitimacy in the international system. However, while much of what the UN has achieved remains far short of what one would have hoped to have seen, in the minds of many the Organization remains an important and necessary contribution to international peace and security.

Testing the UN in Cyprus

This book is aimed at developing a wider appreciation of the role of the UN in Cyprus. By applying its own objectives, machinery and resources, in order to appreciate the depth of its role, and the depth of the internal and external obstacles it faces, one necessarily develops a greater, and more sympathetic understanding, of where the failures of the UN in Cyprus really lie. Applying the UN's own standards in an assessment of its role over the course of the Cyprus problem underlines the traditional dichotomy between 'realistic' and 'unrealistic' objec­tives, when placed into the context of individual environments which refuse to succumb to generalization. The work is not a hagiography; the United Nations has made mistakes. It is, however, an attempt to broaden the perspective of those who feel that the relative lack of success in its peacemaking efforts is the sole means by which one should judge the Organization with regard to its work in Cyprus. (This, after all, is where the contradictions of the UN's two roles have been most apparent.) For all of its failures in fostering a reunification of the island, the presence of the UN has been a force for good and those who would deny this are perhaps looking at its role through the narrow per­spective of politicization, instead of through its efforts to develop humanitarianism, justice, peace or security. The UN's presence has been of considerable value and despite receiving little praise for such efforts it has contributed in large measure to the wider improvement of the lives of the inhabitants of the island in the aftermath of conflict. Given the local and regional enmities, this in itself has been a vital and hard-won contribution. Those quick to criticize would do well to remember that.

xx Introduction

The structure of the work

The book falls into three main parts, the first examining the historical back-drop to the gradual association and assignment of the Cyprus problem to the UN, the second examining the direct role of the UN in promoting peace and security and attempting to facilitate negotiations for a settlement, and the third examining the UN's efforts to 'build peace' by concentrating on humanitarian and development issues at the civil level.

Why should this small island in the eastern Mediterranean be such a source for concern? It has often been argued that the reason for Cyprus's place as an international issue is because of its location on a fault line between Greece and Turkey. Cyprus by virtue of its geogra­phy and history is a land inhabited by two peoples that have a relationship that has often, though not always, been marked by conflict. And whereas Greece and Turkey became, for the most part, homogenous as a result of the population exchanges of the 1920s Cyprus, as a British colony, remained an island where Greeks and Turks lived side-by-side in an environment where status and identity was growing in importance, first in terms of the nationalism of the earlier part of the twentieth century, and then in its final decades, in terms of the ethno-nationalism that began to uproot the intellectual foundations of the state as a framework for political representation and consensus-building. This is assessed in Part I.

In Chapter 1, the contribution by Hubert Faustmann illustrates how, during the 1950s, growing calls for self-determination among the Greek Cypriot community led to the first examples of intercommunal conflict on the island. It was at this stage that the UN first became involved with the island of Cyprus when the Greek Cypriots and Greece attempted to have the issue of (Greek) Cypriot self-determina­tion brought before the General Assembly. It is the role, or lack thereof, of the UN that forms the central discussion in this contribu­tion, together with the fact that both Greece and the Greek Cypriot side mistakenly believed that calls for self-determination would over­ride regional interests. Both miscalculated the potential for a stable and mutually acceptable framework for the resolution of the Cyprus ques­tion to emerge from its mechanism. It examines the question of why the UN General Assembly was unwilling to side with the Greek Cypriot community in its quest for liberation from the colonial power, and why the internationalization of the Cyprus issue failed to bring the Greek Cypriots the dividends they expected.

Introduction xxi

In spite of the failed calls for UN involvement to promote the aim of self-determination in the 1950s Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. However, the constitutional arrangements that underpinned the new Republic broke down, in December 1963, when fighting broke out between the Greek and Turkish communities. It was this violence that led to the introduction of the UN as a peacekeeping force in 1964. However the creation of the UN Force, and therefore the establishment of a UN role in Cyprus, was not an easy process. An exploration of these processes leading to the direct involvement of the UN in Cyprus forms the basis for the contribution from James Ker-Lindsay. In Chapter 2 he argues that the intercommunal conflict in Cyprus, which threatened to spark a Greek-Turkish war and weaken NATO, forced Britain, as a guarantor power, and which had specific interests to protect regarding its Sovereign Bases on the island, to step in to prevent further escalation. Unable to contain the situation by itself the United Kingdom called first upon NATO, and then the UN, to offer their service to extricate it from a difficult task.

What has the UN done since it arrived in 1964? Most famously it has been involved in peacekeeping on the island, and provides the basis for Part II. Just how this has been carried is examined by Dan Lindley in Chapter 3. In his contribution, Lindley argues that the UN has played an important role in preserving peace on the island and that despite the criticisms levelled against the UN Force it has served an important purpose in maintaining the peace on the island on a day-to-day basis, often in the face of extremely difficult conditions. UNFICYP should not be expected to have achieved much more than it has, given the conditions which dictate the parameters of UN peacekeeping opera­tions and indeed has provided excellent returns, given the regional fault-line it is situated upon, the fact that the operation is located near the limits of the disputants' consent, and its financial costs (which have been parsimonious to say the least). Despite this, UNFICYP has had the highest exposure and has often been accused of retarding the peace process by reinforcing the status quo; given the assessment pro­vided here this has not been the case and the force has provided vital stability for other UN organs to operate, as well as the for the develop­ment and progress of the Cypriot communities.

In parallel with this activity the UN has taken a central role in peace­making efforts. As Oliver Richmond explains in Chapter 4, direct UN mediation was initiated along with UNFICYP in 1964, and as a comple­ment to the latter's attempted provision of a stable local environment in which peace talks could take place. However, the policies of the

xxii Introduction

Cypriot sides and the motherlands presented UN peacemaking with serious obstacles, which it failed to overcome. Such difficulties obstructed the theoretically complementary nature of the peacekeeping and peacemaking mission in that the peacekeeping force was supposed to provide conditions of stability for the UN Secretary-General and his representatives to mediate a constitutional solution, along the lines pro­posed in numerous Security Council resolutions since 1964. The neces­sary conditions of stability were fragile before 1974, and have ironically been firmer since, given the overwhelming presence of Turkish forces and UNFICYP. Yet the inability of the UN (and many other would-be mediators) is indicative of the intractability of the two sides' positions on the issues in the dispute, and this is partly because of the shortcomings of the international system (of which the UN is merely a creature) with respect to notions of sovereignty, territory, identity and representation.

After 1965 direct mediation was replaced with the more indirect form of peacemaking inherent in the Secretary General's mission of Good Offices, which is examined by Edward Newman in Chapter 5. The role of several Secretaries-General, and the impact of the office in attempting to unravel the local and regional intricacies of Cyprus problem provides valuable insights into both the intractable nature of the dispute and the sort of diplomacy that the UN is capable of given the limitations of the office. This is despite the fact that the office has been heavily constrained by the interests of direct and indirect actors, and of course, the heavy politicization of all discussions about the future of the island.

Despite the apparent emphasis on peace, security and finding a set­tlement, the role of the UN in Cyprus has been marked by the sheer variety of activities that have been conducted on the island. Often such roles have necessarily been given a low profile, given the intense politicization that occurs in the local and regional environment. Apart from the high profile activities of peacekeeping and peacemaking men­tioned above, the UN has been working to address a variety of other issues. These other activities are very much the forgotten story of UN involvement in Cyprus, and are examined in Part III. They have not received the attention, critical or praiseworthy, that they should have, despite the fact that it is these activities that have been indicative of the complex and multi-dimensional nature of the entire UN. Thus, in addition to humanitarian roles in assisting the Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the aftermath of direct conflict, the United Nations has also played a significant role in promoting and assisting the creation

Introduction xxiii

and implementation of economic and social development programmes across the island.

In Chapter 6 Peter Hocknell analyses the initiatives of the UN Devel­opment Programme (UNDP) and argues that it played an important role in the development of the island particularly since 1974, although it had been at the forefront of the islands development since 1960. In fact the development of the state has been contested at a political level, between the two communities, rather than at the economic level. As a result, the role of the UNDP also became heavily politicised as it was to aid in 'national' development, a notion which was contested from the very establishment of the Republic of Cyprus.

In Chapter 7, Paul Sant Cassia examines how the UN has responded to being entrusted with the responsibility for discovering the fate or whereabouts of Greek and Turkish Cypriots who went missing between 1964-74. The question of missing persons has enormous political ramifications, reaching as it does to the heart of the emo­tional aspects of the Cyprus Problem. With a combined total of almost two and half thousand Greek and Turkish Cypriots still unaccounted for, the Committee for Missing Persons is entrusted with finding answers in an emotionally charged atmosphere, and has succumbed to the same politicization that many other aspects of the UN opera­tion have been victim to. As Cassia notes, the UN has had to deal with the problem that with respect to humanitarian concerns and uncover­ing the tragic events of the past, the only fact is that there are no 'facts', and humanitarian concerns are sometimes traded for short-term political goals.

Another significant humanitarian role that has been undertaken by the UN is that of dealing with the large number of refugees in the period following the events of 1974. This task is studied by Madeleine Demetriou in Chapter 8 which not only examines the difficulties faced by the UN in dealing with the aftermath of massive population shifts but also makes the important argument that in the course of its opera­tion the UN High Commissions for Refugees (UNHCR) has become politicized and developed a role that extends beyond the care of refugees. Importantly, it is illustrated how the UNHCR has taken a key initiative in attempting to foster greater bicommunal contact in the aftermath of the division of the island, and has to contend yet again with the politicization of humanitarian issues which have tended to permeate all contentious issues between the two communities, and obstruct the role of the UN.