VZCZCXRO8193
PP RUEHDBU RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHNC #0074/01 0251343
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 251343Z JAN 07
FM AMEMBASSY NICOSIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7459
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 0756

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NICOSIA 000074 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/24/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM UNFICYP TU CY
SUBJECT: MISSING PERSONS COMMITTEE OPTIMISTIC ON RETURN OF 
REMAINS, BUT JITTERY ABOUT POSSIBLE BACKLASH 
 
REF: 06 NICOSIA 1794 AND PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Ronald L. Schlicher, reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY.  The Tripartite Committee on Missing Persons 
(CMP) is making steady progress exhuming and identifying 
Greek and Turkish Cypriots missing since 1963-1974.  Pledges 
from the USG and other donors have ensured sufficient funding 
for operations to continue well into 2008, and CMP members 
expect to begin returning remains to families seeking 
"closure" in the first quarter of 2007.  The CMP is the most 
successful bicommunal venture on Cyprus, and has been able to 
function thanks to political buy-in from both community 
leaders.  This commitment appears to be holding.  While the 
CMP's mandate explicitly forbids it from considering 
questions of criminal guilt, Committee members are aware that 
the return of victims' remains may stir up political acrimony 
and legal disputes -- and are considering strategies to 
minimize the negative effect this may have on their future 
work.  More worrying is a series of anonymous threats against 
the CMP from a shadowy group in the north.  This has raised 
fears of a Turkish Cypriot nationalist backlash against the 
Committee, especially as exhumations begin to focus more 
exclusively on Greek Cypriot graves in the "TRNC."  These 
threats, together with other signs of increased tension in 
the north, may be an early warning of resurgent nationalist 
feeling -- and could portend further difficulties in 
relations between the pro-settlement "President" Talat and 
local representatives of the Turkish "Deep State."  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
CMP: A RARE SUCCESS STORY 
------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) The Tripartite CMP (which consists of a UN, Greek 
Cypriot, and Turkish Cypriot member) continues to make steady 
progress.  Established to determine the fate of Cypriots 
(approximately 1500 G/Cs and 500 T/Cs) missing since the 
decade of conflict in 1963-74, the Committee overcame years 
of political deadlock in 2005/6, thanks in large part to the 
advent of a more conciliatory Turkish Cypriot "government." 
International donations and the appointment of a dynamic, new 
UN Third Member facilitated the start of long-delayed 
investigations and exhumations -- as well as the construction 
of dedicated forensic anthropology and genetic testing 
facilities (reftel). 
 
¶3. (SBU) With its mandate focused only on the identification 
of remains (and not on identifying killers), the CMP has so 
far favorable reviews from both communities as a useful 
humanitarian vehicle for "closure."  According to a December 
2006 report issued by the Third (UN) Member, Christophe 
Girod, over 100 remains have been exhumed so far -- the vast 
majority of which have also been genetically tested.  CMP's 
objective is to begin returning remains to bereaved families 
in the first quarter of 2007.  Construction is reportedly 
moving ahead for a "Family Reception Center" next to the 
CMP's facility in the UN Buffer Zone, where remains would be 
handed over. 
 
¶4. (SBU) In subsequent conversations with us, Girod echoed 
this optimistic assessment of the CMP's progress so far. 
Girod thanked the U.S. for its $150,000 donation (to fund DNA 
identification of remains).  Other donors (including the 
European Commission, Spain, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and 
even Turkey) have joined in, pledging enough for the CMP to 
continue full-pace operations well into 2008.  Cash 
contributions from the GOC -- as well as in-kind 
contributions of vehicles, office equipment, diggers, and 
manpower from the Turkish Cypriot side -- were also important. 
 
¶5. (C) These contributions, Girod added, reflected a 
political decision by the leaders of both communities to 
support the CMP -- both as a means to satisfy those 
constituents eager to learn the fate of their missing loved 
ones, and as a way to bolster their own image as 
humanitarian-minded statesmen.  Some political posturing 
continued, he admitted, including a silly spat over whether 
to use Greek or Turkish place names in CMP public documents 
(resolved when the members agreed to use only English names 
in their paperwork, and to drop by-name geographic references 
altogether when an English name did not exist).  Nonetheless, 
political buy-in from the top had translated into a 
remarkably harmonious and collegial working relationship 
between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot members and their staff. 
 
¶6. (C) In separate meetings with us, the Greek and Turkish 
Cypriot members generally agreed with 
Girod's upbeat assessment of their working relationship, but 
each cast mirror-image aspersions on what they believed to be 
the not-so-hidden political agenda of the other side's 
 
NICOSIA 00000074  002 OF 003 
 
 
political leadership.  Each suspects the other of using the 
CMP for tactical political advantage, rather than viewing it 
as a genuine tool for reconciliation.  But fortunately, this 
mutual suspicion has not evolved into a material obstacle to 
cooperation within the CMP. 
 
DIFFICULT WATERS AHEAD? 
----------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Despite the rosy budget and operational prospects for 
2007-2008, CMP members still express concern that the return 
of remains could reopen old wounds.  All three members 
privately acknowledge that although CMP reports deliberately 
exclude cause-of-death information that might point fingers 
to specific perpetrators, distraught families could use the 
reports they receive from the CMP (or even forensic evidence 
on the remains themselves) to file criminal charges or make 
inflammatory public accusations about the other side.  If 
this were to happen, the pragmatic political cease-fire that 
has allowed the CMP to function successfully could quickly 
fall apart, they suggest. 
 
¶8. (C) Already, said Turkish Cypriot member Gulden Plumer 
Kucuk, one high-profile Turkish Cypriot journalist was 
publishing dramatic investigative articles about the missing. 
 The articles (while "accurate and well researched") served 
to focus public opinion on questions of guilt.  The danger, 
Plumer Kucuk suggested, was that victims' families (as well 
as those with "something to hide" from their past) could be 
"radicalized" by the search for the missing -- even as the 
bicommunal CMP was trying to stress "closure" and 
reconciliation. 
 
¶9. (C) Therefore, Greek Cypriot member Elias Georgiades told 
us, the CMP was taking a careful look at its public relations 
and media strategy before it started handing back remains.  A 
respectful and low-key approach to this delicate task, he 
said, would help bolster the CMP's reputation and moderate 
public expectations.  According to Georgiades, the CMP would 
first give back remains to families who were not "volatile" 
-- and who would therefore set the appropriate tone for other 
relatives to follow.  He felt certain that Greek Cypriot 
political parties and victims' associations would encourage 
moderation among their members and the media, but was far 
from certain the Turkish Cypriots would do the same. 
Predictably, Plumer Kucuk voiced the opposite concern. 
 
DEEP STATE BACKLASH? 
-------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Both Girod and Plumer Kucuk also expressed unease 
over a December incident in the Turkish Cypriot village of 
Serdarli ("Chatos" in Greek).  Anonymous pamphlets attributed 
to the "Turkish Revenge Brigade" warned locals not to 
cooperate with the CMP (which, the pamphlet claimed, "paid 
dollars" to those to give evidence); subsequently, several 
members of Plumer Kucuk's staff have received threatening 
phone calls.  Girod and Plumer Kucuk both felt that the 
"TRNC" police had responded appropriately by investigating 
the threat and offering enhanced protection for CMP staff and 
work sites.  Furthermore, some previously hesitant villagers 
responded to the threats with defiance, coming forward to 
give evidence about the location of Greek Cypriot graves in 
the town.  Nonetheless, the CMP had decided to postpone 
further operations in Serdarli, moving their work to sites 
elsewhere until "tempers in the village cooled." 
 
¶11. (C) Plumer Kucuk was reluctant to assign blame for the 
Serdarli threats -- although she did concede that the 
pamphlets were "well written and professionally done," and 
probably not just the work of idle cranks.  She noted that 
Serdarli was an especially "sensitive" site for Turkish 
Cypriots because of the particularly brutal fighting and 
reprisal killings that had taken place there in 1974.  Plumer 
Kucuk said she could "not dismiss" widespread rumors that 
retired police and military personnel resident in Serdarli 
(allegedly backed by sympathetic elements still active in the 
Turkish security forces) were behind the threats -- which 
were supposedly designed to divert attention from former 
Turkish Cypriot militia fighters, still living in the 
village, with civilian blood on their hands. 
 
¶12. (C) Plumer Kucuk went on to voice her concern that, in 
the coming 1-2 years, the atmosphere in the north would turn 
more hostile to the CMP -- and that threats like this could 
intensify.  With over half of the 500-plus Turkish Cypriot 
missing now "more or less located," the CMP would be unable 
to continue much longer the delicate ethnic balancing act it 
has followed so far (where each dig of Greek Cypriot bones in 
the north has been balanced by a corresponding dig of Turkish 
Cypriot bones in the south).  Soon, only Greek Cypriot bones 
 
NICOSIA 00000074  003 OF 003 
 
 
would remain, and the focus of digging would shift inexorably 
to the north (and, eventually, to sites on land currently 
controlled by the Turkish Army).  This would lead average 
Turkish Cypriots -- to say nothing of nefarious "Deep State" 
types in the security forces -- to view the CMP as an 
increasingly one-sided, "meddling" exercise focused entirely 
on Turkish wrongdoing, she predicted.  Any lawsuits, 
"sensationalist press coverage," or other finger-pointing 
from the south would only aggravate this trend.  Although 
Plumer Kucuk was quick to add that "President" Talat remained 
fully supportive of her work and her independence, she 
wondered whether his ability to back the CMP was sustainable 
in the long term. 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶13. (C) The CMP is an important humanitarian undertaking. 
Whether the political support it enjoys from the two 
community leaders is heartfelt or merely tactical is almost 
beside the point -- as one of the few comparative bright 
spots in bicommunal relations, neither side feels it can 
afford to abandon cooperation with the CMP at this point. 
For this reason, the CMP seems likely to benefit from 
continued international support.  There are medium-term 
reasons to worry, however.  Even if the CMP handles the 
return of remains this spring with the utmost care, the odds 
are still pretty good that, after receiving the bones of 
their loved ones, at least some bereaved Cypriots could upset 
the apple cart with acrimonious litigation and public 
recrimination aimed at the other side. 
 
¶14. (C) Furthermore, as exhumations begin to focus more 
exclusively on the north, the CMP seems set for continued 
friction with former Turkish Cypriot militia fighters and 
their allies in the security forces.  How Talat handles this 
tension will be a key barometer of his political strength. 
Given the current friction between him and the "Deep State" 
(over the Ledra Street bridge, control of law 
enforcement/security, and how to handle the Cyprus problem), 
supporting the CMP through the tougher times ahead may prove 
as difficult as it is essential.  END COMMENT. 
SCHLICHER