With a Little Bit of Luck
From MICHAEL LEAPMAN
NICOSIA
SUPPOSE it is impossible for an occasion like I the handing over of a country's government to look anything like as momentous as it really is. Everybody is trying so hard to measure up to the magnitude of the event that it must almost inevitably become a parody of itself. The un- reality of the Cyprus independence ceremony was intensified by the fact that it took place in the middle of the night. This furtiveness was at the insistence of the Cypriots, who wanted to play the whole thing down (it was not independ- ence that they had been fighting for, but self- determination, and they have not achieved that). The British would have preferred to depart in the blaze of a more splendid daylight hour.
But at whatever time of day the ceremony had taken place, it would still have looked like a British comedy film with Peter Sellers playing all the parts. Archbishop Makarios was outrageously dignified and serene. Sir Hugh Foot, with an odd combination of ferocity, nonchalance and pomp, managed to look even more like a colonial governor than he normally does (his nerves only showed through in the constant trouble he had with his blotting-paper). Dr. Kutchuk, the junior partner, was demonstrably nervous and rabbity.
Behind them were the men with the treaties. Chief among them was a tall, thin man with a receding chin, who looked as if he had been doing this all his life. He moved smoothly and silently from one signatory to another, imperiously thrusting the documents in front of them. The treaties were bound in red leather and came in all sizes. Some were small like pocket books, others huge and surrealistic, like pantomime props. Half-hidden behind a screen was a grim security man, bulging with pistol.
The comedy had begun that morning, when the round and jovial Government Information Officer called a press conference to explain the arrange- ments for the ceremony He made two jokes; none of the bored, hot and irritable journalists laughed, and he looked as though he was going to be sick. At the end of his talk he told us to collect our passes from the girl standing by 'the door. Everyone rushed at her in a stampede, as if she were doling out free drinks. She cringed against the wall. The Press Officer leaped to the rescue. Plunging into the mêlée he cried magisterially : 'File through on my left. Anybody who goes on my right won't get a pass.' Chas- tened, we queued obediently.
We need not have bothered with passes, though. Dozens of people gained entrance to the chamber by just walking in the front door, following in the wake of people who had passes. Others strolled in through an unguarded side entrance and rang their friends on the press telephones. Once in, they could wander around the building at will, into the Ministers' council hall and into members' pri- vate rooms. Or, if they didn't mind the boredom, they could watch the ceremony from a balcony.
At midnight the twenty-one-gun salute boomed out, making the building rock; crowds cheered, and, inside, the signing began. It lasted over an hour, in silence; then there was half an hour of speeches. Cameras were flashing all the while, the temperature was rising to the nineties, and the journalists and diplomats were getting ever more fidgety and redder in the face. Diplomatic Corps wives (all played by Sellers too?) fanned them- selves continually with their programmes. Next to .me I overheard two Englishmen : 'A unique experiment . . . a challenge . . . stimulating . . . exciting to see how it all works out.' For all the world as if Britain had thought of it.
Outside the police band were playing 'With a Little Bit of Luck.' Cyprus will need it.
'M rimmilinc ran lick your commune!'
Previous page
