The Cyprus Referendum

A Slap in the Face of Imperialism

The peoples of Cyprus have now expressed their opinion on the Annan Plan. An overwhelming majority ( 75.8 %) of the Greek population of the island said "No!" to the settlement proposed by US and EU imperialisms through the mediation of the general secretary of the UN. On the Turkish side, 64.9 % said "Yes!", as a manifestation of their opposition to the Denktash regime and of their will to end the misery of their lives in the occupied part of the island and to unite with their Greek brothers and sisters. The results imply that there will be no unification of the island in the short term and that the Republic of Cyprus will accede to the EU without the Northern Turkish sector.

The collapse of the Annan Plan is a slap in the face of imperialism. This plan was tailored to suit the interests of US imperialism and also of EU imperialism, in particular those of the UK. The maintenance of the UK military bases on the island, long considered by imperialism an unsinkable aircraft carrier, clearly had the intention of using Cyprus as a beachhead for imperialist aggression against the peoples of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. This possibility was even enhanced relative to the past by provisions stipulating future UN military installations, implying in practice the establishment of US bases.

On the other hand, the resounding approval of integration with Greek Cypriots implied by the "yes" vote of two thirds of the Turkish Cypriots amounts to a rejection of Turkish domination on the Northern part of the island and signifies the total bankruptcy of the entire policy of Rauf Denktash, the chauvinist president of the Turkish community, who, in alliance with the fascists and the chauvinistic pseudo-leftists of Turkey, called for a "no" vote for the referendum. Denktash should resign immediately! The bloody attacks staged in the days before the referendum by the fascists against the people of Northern Cyprus signal an impending danger of internal strife within the Turkish community itself. The revolutionary Marxists of the region, first and foremost those of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey, are duty bound to do everything in their capacity to help prepare the self-defense of the Turkish community in the face of the prospect of civil war, overt or covert, provoked by the fascists.

The "no" vote in the South cannot be taken as a sign of reluctance on the part of the Greek Cypriot population to reunite with the Turkish Cypriots. Only recently, the removal of the ban on travel between the two sectors was followed by a massive spontaneous fraternization between the two communities. It is only to the conditions of reunification stipulated by the Annan Plan that the Greek Cypriot population reacted negatively.

The Greek and Greek Cypriot bourgeoisie, with their interests closely tied to those of imperialism, supported the Annan plan. The "no" vote is a slap in the face of the bourgeois forces and all the political parties that had campaigned and pressurized for a "yes" vote: in Greece the new government of the right-wing Karamanlis, the official opposition of "socialist" PASOK , the reformists of Synaspismos; in Cyprus, the second strongest party, the right wing DISI, a number of smaller parties and , initially, the majority of the Political Committee of the strongest party of the island, AKEL, the Communist Party! Even the small forces of the so called "United Secretariat of the Fourth International" that supported a "yes" vote in the name of integration into a "social and democratic Europe" have definitely received a powerful blow by the popular masses' rejection of the Annan plan.

The real solution to the Cypriot question is conditional upon the ending of imperialist intervention and of the interference by the Greek and Turkish bourgeois states in the affairs of the island. Struggle against imperialism and capitalism will bring the workers and youth of the two communities together. It is only on this basis that a lasting solution can be found.

Imperialist hands off Cyprus!

No to Greek and Turkish interference and chauvinism!

Dismantle all imperialist bases on the island! All imperialist and foreign troops (Turkish, Greek, British, UN) out of Cyprus!

For a united socialist Cyprus!

25 April 2004

EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party - Greece)

RML (Revolutionary Marxist League - Turkey)