At Last, Cyprus Offers a Table for Its Citizens

By Yeshim Harris* This year, Cyprus took a step that a group of us had been consistently calling for... For decades! The two leaders have jointly mandated a formal, structured civil society body: One intended to feed directly into their own negotiations, rather than running alongside them. As far as I can establish, this is the first of its kind. Yes, I am excited, but cautiously. A Turning Point? What became clear at several polls is the remarkably similar despair both of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, that people want a solution but did not believe one would ever come. This is not difficult to see why: there have been innumerable peace talks for nearly six decades and none came up with an answer. One thing remained constant in all this: that the process was secretive and top-down with political leaders and the UN, treating the public as spectators. There have been some attempts to establish public engagement, for example the technical committees; but they consisted of professionals and not grassroots. A decade ago, I wrote about how consultative bodies at grassroot level would enrich the formal negotiation process. Those of us who worked towards creating platforms to consult citizens, will know the depth of resistance to opening the process to public participation. The reasons often include fear of slowing down negotiations, distrust in non-expert input, and possibly loss of power and control. But recently, the doubts started to lift: In May this year, the two leaders agreed a framework to establish Cyprus's first Consultative Body and in August, a ten-member steering committee has been named. [In a parallel informal track, similar work is currently being trialled by CPDC's C-Up project, which I am proud to be a part of.] Will It Work? Working with the UNDP and local policymakers in Cyprus in early 2010s, I brought politicians, civil society and business leaders from the two communities together. Some of these platforms hosted institutions and individuals who had never taken part in such dialogue before; as their views were too entrenched. I also got involved in similar platforms in Lebanon, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Colombia. In all these, I saw the same pattern: peacebuilding is like the branches of a tree. Conflicts, especially those run deep, need repair of connection at many levels: between and within communities, individuals and generations. If dialogue and trust-building only happen at the top, it stays trapped there too. Cyprus's new Consultative Body is a small-scale copy of what peace itself needs to look like. It will serve to ripple the dialogue at the top downward, into communities, neighbourhoods, groups. And vice versa; so the change can happen at every level. This is the fractality of peacebuilding. Each conflict has its own history and own challenges and therefore its own answers. There are however always experiences of success and failure that provide important lessons for Cyprus when it comes to getting this right. Here are a few: 1. Make it Binding: An example from Northern Ireland The structures for community engagement need to be given proper weight, enough to translate into binding provisions in the final agreement, not just a footnote to the talks. Northern Ireland is a good place to learn from. Even during the height of the violence between the political parties in Northern Ireland, there was interaction between trade unions, churches and other organisations. These acted as bridges that kept dialogue alive during and after the Good Friday Agreement. But one small group, Northern Ireland Women's Coalition, consisting of ordinary citizens, managed to get recommendations enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement itself. It also secured agreement text on victims' restitution, integrated education and reconciliation. Cyprus's Consultative Body should be given the latitude to do the same. 2. Resource It Properly so that it opens to the wider public: An example from South Africa Participation on paper means little without the resources to make it real. South Africa created a multi-level mechanism spanning national, regional and local tiers, with the aim of bringing the communities together to address issues of justice and peace. The initiatives, like CODESA and the Multiparty Negotiating Forum offered citizens public buy-in and accountability, which ultimately strengthened pressure for signing an accord. These were properly resourced through government funding, which included national advertising campaigns and hundreds of community workshops. Due to this investment, South Africa's Constitutional Assembly received nearly 1.75 million public submissions for drafting the post-apartheid constitution. This mass, structured civic participation gave the resulting document a depth of civic ownership never seen before. Cyprus's new body is on a smaller scale, but it could learn from South Africa's example that participation must have teeth, not be decorative. 3. Plan for the Aftermath: An example from Colombia Colombians did not wait for the finalised peace accord to start planning for the aftermath. Many peace agreements collapsed not at the negotiating table, but in the difficult work of implementation (e.g. South Sudan, Libya, Yemen). Investing only in a peace deal is not enough. A signed agreement is when the actual work begins. Two years before the signing, a "Ministry for Post-Conflict Security and Human Rights" was established in Colombia. The aim was solely to respond effectively in the critical early days. Cyprus should start thinking now about how its new Consultative Body's recommendations will actually be resourced and followed through. The Next Steps It is genuinely good to see that some priority is finally given in Cyprus to create a mechanism to give the islanders a voice. The UN proposal in 2004 (a.k.a. the Annan Plan) collapsed at the ballot box because it failed to win public ownership. It was handed to voters at the last minute before the referendum, with no proper process for citizens to understand or shape it first. The result left deep disappointment and mistrust on both sides of the island. This is an experience Cyprus does not want to repeat. For that reason alone, a consultative body isn't a nice-to-have. It's essential. If Cyprus follows this through, the rewards and the healing will be felt by its communities, for generations. *Yeshim Harris is a London-based leadership strategist and conflict reconciliation professional.