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compensation arrangements in the north were geared to avoid such problems (the
points system); whether they have worked however, and how effectively is another
matter 97 . Perhaps the economic data included here provides some answers.
It could be argued that the public sector response has always been politically
motivated, though that implies as much the force of circumstances as it does the
existence of foresight. Even so, the response in the citrus industry, at least in the
first few years after defacto division, was highly pragmatic and short term whilst it
offered many politicai complementarities: something for the refugees from the
south, settler votes for dominant politicai forces and some foreign exchange
independence from the Turkish treasury in Ankara. Re-settlement was never going
to be easy and in many ways proved easier than expected, easier than in the south.
Defacto division seemed to create longer term problems of economic sustainability,
both in terms of continued dependence on export agriculture as a leading sector and,
more generally, the sustainability of an independent Turkish Cypriot economy,
north of the UN Buffer Zone.
Recovery in a relocated economy & the continued dominance of public
enterprise
Suddenly the enclaved had secured the long-term politicai objectives of their
leadership, objectives which they had not dared believe would be fulfilled. Within a
year of the "peace operation" the Turkish community had been re-settled in an
almost completely ethnically homogenous region, by some estimates twenty times
the size of the strategie collection of villages and fortified enclaves they had left 98 .
97 Scott 1998. op. cit., pp 158-159.
98 President Makarios acknowledged, in an interview with a corespondent from Eleftheros Kosmos
(Free World), that Turkish Cypriots controlied an area not exceeding 2% of the island. Front page
report, Cyprus Mail, 20/8/69.
282