War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges [27]
I walked one morning a few years ago down the deserted asphalt tract that slices through the center of the world’s last divided capital, Nicosia, on the island of Cyprus. At one spot on the asphalt dividing line was a small painted triangle. For fifteen minutes each hour, Turkish troops, who control the northern part of the island, were allowed to move from their border posts and stand inside the white triangular lines. The arrangement was part of a deal laboriously negotiated by the United Nations to give Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots access to several disputed areas along the 110-mile border that separates the north from the south. The triangle was a potent reminder that once the folly of war is over, folly itself is often all that remains.
“It’s really a game of hopscotch,” said Major Richard Nixon-Eckersall, a British peacekeeper who was escorting me. “You see, the Greek sentries, over there, can’t see the lines. Are the Turks inside the lines or not? A lot of rock-throwing and insults are generated over this triangle. Last year the Greeks fired off five rounds at the Turks. This is considered one of the most volatile areas along the Green Line.”
A buffer zone along the Green Line, set up after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 and patrolled by United Nations soldiers, has prevented the resumption of a civil war that began in 1963. The zone—four miles wide in spots, narrowing to just a few yards in others—cuts through farmland, mountain passes, and Nicosia itself. Many of the houses and shops in the no-man’s-land have dusty and decaying furniture and goods still stacked inside. Some doors have signs warning of booby traps. The deserted Nicosia International Airport with its gutted terminals, the seaside resort of Varosha swallowed up in thick vegetation, and the whitewashed Olympus Hotel were crumbling from neglect and inhabited by stray dogs and cats.
The buffer zone was lined with earthworks, barbed wire, trenches, bunkers, and watchtowers manned by troops with automatic weapons. There were about 43,000 Turkish and Greek Cypriot troops, including 30,000 Turkish soldiers sent by Ankara to the island, stationed along it.
On one side is Northern Cyprus, with one-fifth of the island’s 650,000 people and a government recognized only by Turkey. It is a dreary collection of towns and villages that look like working-class districts in Ankara or Istanbul. It suffers from constant shortages and high rates of unemployment. It is propped up by the Ankara government with an estimated $200 million a year.
The south, by contrast, has a per capita income of $12,000 a year, equal to those of Ireland or Spain. Luxury hotels and shops selling designer clothes, bone china, and computer software nestle along tree-lined avenues.
As if the war had ended only a few days ago, the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots denounce each other in repetitive weekly editorials and political rallies. The Ayios Demetrios Church in Nicosia, in one of the stream of Greek exhibitions portraying Turkish perfidy, had just mounted a photo display of the desecration of more than 200 Greek churches in the northern part of the island. The island is hostage to its own hatred.
“For over twenty years our young men have been trained in the art of war,” the Greek Cypriot president, Glafkos Clerides, told me as we chatted in his hilltop palace. “They are trained not to fight an external