Donors and De Facto States: A Case Study of Un Peacebuilding in the Self-Declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

De facto states are secessionist entities claiming legitimacy due to their reception of popular support, but which are denied this legitimacy as they control a fixed territory that they claimed from a recognised, parent state from which they seceded, causing significant conflicts (Pegg 1998, 4). However, donor-sup- ported peacebuilding efforts in cases involving such states, focusing mainly on Track I and multitrack diplomacy approaches, have proven fruitless thus far (Ker-Lindsay 2014, 209; Kanol & Kanol 2013). This is despite the case that some authors, such as Hadjipavlou and Kanol (2008), and Kanol and Kanol (2013), have made that grassroots peacebuilding has been successful at micro (capacity-building; changing personal perspectives) and meso (relationship-building; networking) levels.

To begin, there is academic optimism regarding citizen-peacebuilding in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) despite a lack of evidence. According to Hadjipavlou and Kanol (2008), citizen-peacebuilders have reported successes in challenging existing stereotypes and promoting cross-cutting bonds and cooperation between the two Cypriot communities. Nevertheless, stereotypes are reverted to as soon as macro-level (structural; institutional; high-level) negotiations fail. Moreover, there is no evidence that networks remain active post-programme. Lastly, there is evidence that Turkish Cypriots (TCs) — much as they did in the 1980s — still prefer independence or a loose federation over reintegration or a strong unitary government, proving that while some individual stereotypes have been challenged, many TCs still do not trust the ‘other’ — the Greek Cypriots. These findings suggest that such peacebuilding efforts’ success has been considerably limited, lacks sustainability, and has no demonstrated effect on the ongoing Track I peacebuilding (see Hadjipavlou & Kanol 2008; Kanol & Kanol 2013). 

There are significant reasons for studying peacebuilding in de facto states. Internally, they tend to become authoritarian and perpetrate human rights abuses (Harvey & Stansfield 2011), such as torture (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor 2011). Externally, de facto states become conduits of transnational criminal activities such as human trafficking. Subsequently, de facto governments, which participate in these illicit activities become corrupt and cause regional instability (Ulas 2015b; Zbigniew 2010). Lastly, these states are produced through inter-communal violence and embody larger conflicts, such as with the case of Russia in the Caucasus (Cohen & Gabel 2015; Ulas 2015a). Therefore, producing more knowledge on peacebuilding in such settings has become essential. This holds true for resolving the main conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean region: the Cypriot conflict. 

The de facto Turkish Cypriot (TC)-con- trolled TRNC unilaterally declared independence from the de facto Greek Cypriot (GC)-controlled Republic of Cyprus (RoC) in 1974, but it has been ostracised by the international community through UN Security Council Resolutions and is only recognised as a legitimate state by Turkey. Subsequently, Turkey has become the financial patron of the TRNC, which would be insolvent without aid from the former (Isachenko 2012, 101–110). This, in turn, allowed Turkey to exert such influence in the TRNC that the European Court of Human Rights has found Turkey to be directly responsible for the human rights problems caused by the TRNC (European Court of Human Rights 2001). Turkish assistance has allowed TRNC to resist pressures towards a resolution of the conflict.
The UN and the EU have recognised the importance of peacebuilding in this case for the purposes of building trust, stability, and cooperation in the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe — especially between the NATO allies Greece and Turkey. For this purpose, the UN donated $50 million worth of manpower in 2014/15 (United Nations 2015), and the EU has donated millions of Euros over the last 25 years to this de facto state (EUROPE- AID 2013). However, these efforts have failed because they have disregarded the local context and assumed that the hybrid peacebuilding model, which aims to cultivate grassroots efforts to complement negotiations, can work in the context of de facto states without adjustments. This brie ng will aim to demonstrate the shortcomings of hybrid peacebuilding in the TRNC and suggest remedies. 

This briefing uses secondary data, including interviews and surveys collected by NGOs working in the TRNC, to investigate why highly active internal peace- building efforts in the TRNC have not been commensurately successful. I have triangulated the data where possible by comparing across studies and complemented it with literature on the Cypriot conflict, peacebuilding, and the role of the civil society as pertaining to both the previous two topics.