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THE Annan Plan is a ludicrous crime against humanity, seeking to impose ethnic cleansing and apartheid provisions and is a manic attempt to further weaken Cyprus, according to foreign legal experts taking part in a Nicosia conference.

It was the first time non-Cypriot or Greek views had been publicly aired since the plan was introduced last November.

The conference was jointly organised by the Lobby for Cyprus, a 1992 grouping of several refugee associations based in the UK, and the All-Cyprus Citizens Movement, which has been set up to counter the Annan plan.

Most of the foreign speakers were British, giving more weight to their criticism because of their country's involvement in Cyprus and the plan itself.

William Mallinson, a professor of Diplomatic History at New York College, Athens, and a former member of the British diplomatic corps, said the United Nations scheme for Cyprus was a United Kingdom plan, concerned with the security architecture of the Middle East.

He said this also involved collusion with the US to strengthen NATO and weaken European integration, a strategy underlined by the UK's control of Gibraltar to the west and Cyprus to the east.

Joke
In this context, Mallinson quoted former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger as saying in 1969 that "Britain would be our launching pad for Europe and Cyprus for the Middle East."

According to Mallinson's analysis, the UK brought in the Annan plan in order to safeguard their gains from the 1960 Cyprus Treaties, which a panel of international lawyers had at the time described as a joke.

He noted that half the Treaty of Establishment dealt with the British bases and added: "Now the British say 'these belong to us' and they will allow nothing that would legally affect the status of the bases." 

Mallinson, whose book Cyprus Between NATO and Europe" is soon to be publsihed, drew analogies between present-day British Foreign policy towards Cyprus and that of the past to support the view that the British and the Americans have always worked secretly to keep the Cyprus problem out of the international focus and deal with it in a back stage fashion.

Mallinson said that the most striking thing about the Annan plan, like all previous ones, is that it ignores the population of Cyprus as a people. 

"The Cyprus people do not seem to exist, only as an obstacle or factor in the aims of the powerful poker players." 

He said there was "manic desperation" to push the Annan plan through by February 28 and concluded by advising Cyprus to "keep together with mainstream Europe, keep talking, get into Europe and take it from there."

Absolute rights
Mark Stephens, a UK-based Human Rights lawyer, accused the United Nations of violating, through the Annan plan, its own Charter by depriving Cypriots of their right to return to their homes and to own their properties. 

In a sweeping exposition, he said that the right of people to return to their country of birth was an umbilical link recognised by international law since the time of the League of Nations.

"The rule is an absolute one. You cannot take it away and it is guaranteed by the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and other international human rights documents," he said, adding that the Annan plan was based on ethnic cleansing and therefore constituted a crime against humanity.

Stephens went on to say that the property rights were also absolute. "You can only take compensation if there is a clean, democratic and fair referendum, and we don't have this in the Annan plan."

He urged Cypriots to challenge effectively the referendum contained in the Annan plan by asking national courts to strike it down.

Challenge
He also suggested that Cypriots challenge British Prime Minister Tony Blair to uphold the promise he made for an ethical foreign policy when he assumed power.

Stephens, who is handling cases of Cypriot refugees at the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey, said that the apartheid provisions in the Annan plan seemed calculated to fix the EU issue, but guaranteed long-term instability for Cyprus.

He also noted that, because of the Annan plan, Cyprus would not be able to sign the Schengen Agreement for open borders and warned Cypriots that the plan would steal EU benefits away from them.

Asked by the audience if it would be possible for Cypriots to sue UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on account of his plan, Stephens answered in the negative and said that they should lobby the UN's human rights groups instead.

Costas Frangeskides, partner in a large UK law firm and also involved in refugee ECHR cases, revealed that the Cyprus government had, in 1999, asked eminent international law expert Christopher Greenwood to compile an opinion on whether the forcible exchange of properties was lawful.

Greenwood's reply was a resounding "no" and Frangeskides wondered why the Cyprus Government had accepted the compensation commission contained in the UN plan, since this clearly compelled refugees to accept compensation for their properties.

He said that if the plan was implemented as it stood, it would be the Cyprus government that would be taking away the rights of the refugees. He added that the refugees could sue the government and, if they failed to obtain satisfaction in national courts, they could then have recourse to the European Court of Human Rights.

Frangeskides warned, however, that the ECHR had a right to strike out such cases and there was a tendency to do so when a people had accepted a relative arrangement.

Surprise
Intercollege Rector Van Koufoudakis said that the Annan plan was none other than that presented by US Cyprus envoy Richard Holbrook in May 1998 and which the Cyprus government had rejected.

"People shouldn't be surprised at how we got to where we are today because what Holbrook had then proposed was to legalise Denktash, dissolve momentarily the Cyprus Republic into two independent states and then bring them together," Koufoudakis said.

He explained that, until President Clinton, US policy was against Cyprus's EU accession and more direct US involvement in Cyprus, but Holbrook reversed this policy in 1993 in order to use EU accession to pressurise the Cyprus government into a settlement.

Koufoudakis said this was a "very cheap policy" and described the Annan plan as "ludicrous and disgusting," since it denied Cypriots the protection of European law.

He also criticised the Greek Government over its stance on Cyprus, saying that "one day history will hold Greece equally responsible with Britain and the US." 

Commenting on warnings that if the Annan plan were not accepted, the international community would lose interest in Cyprus, Koufoudakis said: "Thank God!" 

He challenged any supporters of the plan to a public debate on its provisions and urged Cypriots: "Stay united. No signature prior to April 16. The plan of Kofi Annan dies on April 16. Hold out!"

During the Greek session of the conference, Professor Yiannis Drosos of the University of Athens said that certain provisions of the Annan plan were simply not compatible with the European acquis, while others were strained to show compatibility.

"The person who drafted the plan either had no idea about Community law or he knew it very well and therefore he should be treated with the derision that he deserves," he noted.

Temporary
Drosos revealed that, after the plan was presented, he had asked EU officials if the opinion of the Commission had been sought on its content. They told him that an opinion had been sought but the Commission had refrained from giving one.

"I persisted in asking if it was so difficult to give an opinion on the subject and then they told me: 'What if the Commission gives an answer that is not desirable and the whole thing goes sour?"

Drosos also noted that the EU mechanisms were slow but thorough and added that the EU was not used to allowing major derogations from Community principles, except on a temporary basis.

Speaking on the "Legal and Constitutional Perspectives of the Annan Plan", Drosos nevertheless attempted a middle approach to the plan as a whole, saying that he could find elements in the proposed constitution that endowed it with a basis of legality, provided it was accepted by the sides concerned.

His views sparked a vivid discussion during question time which prolonged the duration of the conference for about an hour.

Intercollege professor Andreas Theophanous said the Annan plan sought to establish a "federoconfederal" system in Cyprus, placing it under the suzerainty of the three guarantor powers, primarily of Turkey and Britain, and, to a lesser extent, Greece. 

Christodoulos Yiallourides, an international relations professor at the Pantheo University of Athens, based his arguments on the view that the Annan plan, like the 1960 Constitution, lacked the unifying institutions, such as a common president and parliament, that could help the people of Cyprus take their political fate in their own hands.

"The greatest power in politics lies with the people, with public opinion," he said.

"We have not shouted loud enough yet, and it is the last thing we have left," he added.

Annania
Yiallourides caused mirth in the audience when he observed that Montenegro, in the former Yugoslavia, was mockingly called Solania after former NATO Secretary General Xavier Solana, and he wondered if Cyprus should be called Annania after the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

The conference was held at the International Conferecen Centre under a banner showing the Cyprus and EU flags on the slopes of Pendadaktylos, at the place where the Turkish and pseudostate flags are today."