Cyprus Women to Join National Guard

NICOSIA, Cyprus —  Women are being recruited to the National Guard on the divided Mediterranean vacation island of Cyprus where at least one man in every five is a trained soldier.

At least 1,000 Greek-Cypriot women are expected to apply for 200 National Guard jobs, ranging from radar operators to signalers, to free men for combat duties.

The island is already creaking under the weight of soldiers’ feet--Turkish Cypriot and Turkish in the north, Greek and Greek Cypriot in the south, separated by U.N. peacekeeping troops.

Most of the 10,800 men in the National Guard are conscripts, but with a Greek-Cypriot population of only 600,000 able-bodied men of call-up age are in short supply.

“We have a serious problem of inadequate numbers serving in the National Guard,” Cypriot Defense Minister Andreas Aloneftis said.

“It (the military situation) makes me nervous,” he said, referring to the strong Turkish military presence north of the U.N. buffer zone dividing Cyprus.

The United Nations estimates that 29,000 Turkish troops, backed by 300 tanks, heavy artillery and fighter jets, are stationed in the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Greek Cypriots put the number at 35,000.

Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 following a short-lived coup in Nicosia engineered by the military junta then ruling in Athens. The self-proclaimed Turkish-Cypriot state embraces 37% of the island.

The Cypriot government recently announced price rises in cigarettes and gasoline and raised to 3% the levy on company profits, dividends and interest to pay for increased defense costs--including the salaries of the women recruits.

Aloneftis has been quoted as saying that recent arms purchases--main battle tanks, anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missiles and Swiss-made Pilatus turbo-prop aircraft--had cost about $220 million.

Greek-Cypriot women have always been in the forefront of militant opposition to the Turkish occupation, and women’s marches have caused major incidents along the so-called Green Line dividing the two communities.

Aloneftis ran afoul of Greek Cypriot women’s rights groups when the government originally announced that only single women would be considered for the National Guard jobs.

“We will be accepting married women now,” he said, following a barrage of protest from angry women.

Sophia Georgallas, president of a women’s rights group, said Greek-Cypriot women in general approved of their recruitment to the National Guard.

“We are in favor . . . as long as we face a question of survival and the (feared) takeover of the whole island,” she added.

Greek-Cypriot officials have dismissed Turkish and Turkish-Cypriot concern about the military build-up in the south, saying they had a right to self-defense.

Historically Cyprus--ruled by Ottoman Turks for 300 years until it came under British control in 1878--has lived in the shadow of Turkey, which can be seen from the island’s northern shores on a clear day.

Military analysts say Turkish Cypriots, bolstered by an estimated 60,000 settlers from mainland Turkey and Ankara’s standing army on the island, could muster a force of 80,000 men.

Greek-Cypriots, who Aloneftis said could mobilize 40,000 men, say Turkey has a 20,000-strong rapid deployment force 100 miles across the Mediterranean at mainland ports from where the 1974 invasion was launched.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that Greece has a force of 4,000 troops in Cyprus.

U.N.-sponsored talks between Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash and Cypriot Pres. George Vassiliou collapsed in March when Denktash insisted on his minority community’s right to self-determination.

The demilitarization of Cyprus--including the withdrawal of all foreign troops--is among Vassiliou’s goals but with little prospect of the island being reunited he is turning to his community’s women for support.

“Greek-Cypriot women have always rallied to their country’s service,” said Georgallas.