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(developed and secure property rights, freedom of movement and exchange) the
state may not have had such a key economic rôle to play.
Was it a disaster utilised as a "development opportunity", a triumph of planning and
government intervention, or a sériés of fortuitous events following catastrophe,
which strong extended families, dynamic and versatile firms, assisted by some
pragmatic public policies, were able to exploit?
"...at issue is whether a rétrospective coherence and comprehensiveness
has been attributed to successful policies and actions, which at the time
were essentially pragmatic responses to a highly constrained situation. Was
massive population dislocation perceived and articulated as a development
opportunity? ...the evidence, principally from the Emergency Action
Plans, suggests that action was, by and large, purposive rather than
idiosyncratic. " 78
If this precondition for Zetter's conclusion is correct, then the Government of
Republic of Cyprus was aware of and responded to, the developmental opportunities
that the apparent disaster of war gave rise to, while, it could be argued (see
Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7), the Turkish-Cypriot leadership concentrated on politicai
objectives. Although Zetter understates the politicai dimension and ignores the
Turkish-Cypriot economy, he argues that the Greek-Cypriot Government used the
dispossessed as the engine of economic growth. Forced mobilisation briefly
removed the labour constraint from the Greek-Cypriot economy. Perhaps as
important, by Splitting rural communities in ad hoc mass urbanisation,
78 ibid., p.30.
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