I defy anyone, President and Mrs. Clinton, our esteemed members of Congress, heads of sundry liberal think tanks, eminent scholars and journalists, even the rank and file of human rights organizations, anyone at all, to account for the demise of Greek-Cypriots Tassos Isaac and Solomos Solomou just shy of a year ago. What meaning can we draw from their deaths? Did they die in vain? Lamentably, such questions have been reduced to rhetorical ones. To force an answer in today's political context--that extends, to be sure, beyond Washington and into our nation's educational institutions--only begs the disclosure of compounded rationalizations and shallow displays that long underscored American policy toward their country.

Ah, the amenity the US enjoys by being the world's only superpower. After the fall of the Soviet Union, it now sees fit to put its prestige on the line only selectively. For this reason we were quick to restore democracy in Haiti, while at the same time ambivalent over the plight of Bosnia; we wring our hands over the erratic Middle East peace process, and vowed never to experience another debacle like that in Somalia. Nevertheless, pragmatism has become the key to our involvement in the new world order. Principled leadership, on the other hand, has been discounted.

Meanwhile, American policies of years past are responsible for the disrupted lives of many to the point where they have little chance to understand, let alone acclimate to, changing world realities. Sadly and perhaps unrealistically, these people still look to the US to do what is just, while now it is resolved to do merely what's expedient.

Which brings us to the perennial question over Cyprus. The twentieth of this month marks yet another grim anniversary when Turkish troops invaded and began occupying nearly forty percent of the island. With all the ensuing havoc, and how later American administrations were content to adhere to the status quo, the US now sees itself before a new threshold to put the matter to rest favorably for all parties involved. Said Nicholas Burns, spokesman for the State Department: "It is...important to [the] US to protect our own interests and those of our allies in that region and to aggressively try to reach a solution of a problem that has existed now for 23 years." Speaking on behalf of his superiors, Burns continued, "[Secretary of State Madeliene Albright] believes, as President Clinton, that the reunification of Cyprus is a necessity, the division of the island is unacceptable. ...[T]he United States will not support a solution to the Cyprus problem that will end with the island divided. ....We are out to reunify Cyprus."

Wait folks, hold the fireworks. On its surface reunification sounds great, a possible diplomatic coup for the US in a region beset with fitful developments. That Richard Holbrooke was slated to be principal mediator appears to show an unparalleled seriousness toward the Cypriot question (now interestingly enough when the Cypriot government is causing a stir, looking to buy Russian missles to deter further Turkish encroachment). The endgame even sounds like what we've all been hoping for. Is it really? Maybe. But if I can be allowed this choice paraphrase, now is the time for the Greeks of Cyprus to beware of Americans bearing gifts.

Let us recall that America's concern for the Cypriot republic was born out not out of humanitarianism, but of geopolitical Cold War realities in the 1960s. As a result, certain intrigues traceable to the US would compel the Makarios government to fall in line with America's need for stability in the eastern Mediterranean. (And in light of recent events, it doesn't take that great an understanding to see the parallel that the US is stepping in for about the same reason.) American policy strategists chafed at the prospect of having tiny Cyprus looking towards the USSR for relief, hence why Makarios' expressed desire for non-alignment got nowhere within the United Nations. Quelling the tensions on the island therefore was made a priority not so much for the welfare of its native peoples but to defuse a Greco-Turkish showdown and keep NATO's unity preserved. This even went far enough to serve as the rationale for a policy then Secretary of State Dean Acheson endorsed to have Cyprus partitioned.

Thus, America's cold warrior mentality denied Cyprus the freedom in its early years to chart its own destiny . In the 1970s, however, this evolved into an ugly specter whose traces are visible enough to gall almost every Greek: that even after the onset of the Turkish occupation in 1974, the US was, and still is, unduly acquiescent to Ankara's will. Making matters worse, the US hypocritically professes evenhanded treatment between the two feuding parties, when in fact its passivity is done more to stymie Greek interests and hence avoid the label that it is anti-Turkish.

Why must have this continued, and continue still, particularly in view of the incongruity between America's espousal of individual liberty and Turkey's proclivity to abuse human rights? Again, the answer lies in pragmatism, in geopolitics.

Granted Cold War realities are now memories, but the need for the US to have a link to shaky Middle East only increased with time. With its Muslim background and seemingly westernized bent Turkey is seen as that link; by contrast and cruel accident of geography, Greece cannot compete with such a basis in fact. Therefore in the eyes of the US, Greek concerns--Cyprus included--pale compared to the uncertainty in a region the US deems more vital to its national interest, one which Turkey will play a major role and in turn continue to curry favor from the US. For that reason comes the fear that once negotiations are underway the plight of Cyprus could be used as a leverage against Greece, and thus sacrificed on the bargaining table as the Greek government tries to resolve its many differences with its eastern neighbor. Mind you, as this being said Turkish aggression is on the rise in the Aegean...

Crowing over this upper hand in foreign policy the Turkish officials now feel they can extend their arrogance in other areas as well. They act as if they have the right, in the name of revisionism, to have sycophants act as impartial historians to spread inaccuracies so the truth can be subject into "legitimate" re-examination. More contemptible is that in their lust for money, our venerable institutions of higher learning in this country are buying into the lie. UCLA does it through Stanford Shaw; Louisiana State through Justin McCarthy. Most disheartening perhaps is Princeton University's Heath Lowry, whose colors were exposed only by chance. And yet regardless of how it came to us, we Greek Americans should welcome the controversy that followed Lowry's appointment and anything like it, if anything to galvanize ourselves with a sense of purpose to rout insidious Turkish influences. That is what we must continue doing to reveal the extent of the Cypriot tragedy of 1974 as well as American hypocrisy. At the same time, we do justice to the memory of Tassos Isaac and Solomos Solomou.

By: Constantin E. Theodosiou

Member Of H.O.U.G.A.