Protest over Mackenzie properties

Designated users of Turkish Cypriot properties on Mackenzie beach, Larnaca protested outside the interior ministry on Wednesday over plans by the government to sign contracts with people subletting their properties.

The situation has been chaotic, without proper regulations for Greek Cypriots displaced by the Turkish invasion who were using these properties which were then rented out for ludicrously low amounts by the interior ministry.

On Wednesday, the group protesting outside the ministry said that they have been waiting to sign new contracts with the interior ministry since 2017, when the contracts had ended.

At the protest spokesman of the group, Sotiris Papadopoulos, said that there is a “huge injustice” and that “these people have been struggling for seven years”.

He called for “a final solution” to the issue to be reached “as early as tomorrow”, and urged the parliament not to proceed with a debate on the bill being prepared on Turkish Cypriot properties until the Mackenzie issue has cleared up.

Another spokeswoman of the group, Maria Athanasiou said this is a humanitarian issue.

“These people feel targeted,” he said.

She added that they have been expecting contracts to be signed in 2017, and now it seems they will be signed by people who have no right to them as they are not refugees.

Nitsa Loizou, one of the refugee owners, said that they have created an association to promote their demands.

“We have been mocked for seven years, saying that we will be invited to sign new agreements. Instead, we hear that they are signing with tenants [subletters]. They say we are illegal, that we rented it illegally. We have documents from the government, from 1996, that give us the right, if we can’t operate our restaurants, to sell or sublet them,” she said.

She added that the 2014-2017 contract with the Larnaca municipality also explicitly stated that they were entitled to rent or even sell them.

Loizou said that they built the restaurants in the area themselves, with loans which they have repaid. “They are demanding that we get out of our property and become refugees a second time,” she said.

Takis Kallis told his story, saying that after he was displaced from Lapathos, Famagusta at the age of 35, he built a shack on his own in the Mackenzie area, which he managed with his family.

He paid rent for the land and took out a loan with which he then built a small restaurant.

“Now they want to make me a refugee a second time,” he said.

He added that for the past seven years people have been entering his shop and running it without his consent, with the police doing nothing about it. He said that there are two to three restaurants in Mackenzie that are successful with large revenues. Another five to six are family-owned businesses and four of them are shuttered.

Last year it had emerged that some of the refugee tenants, were paying €500 yearly rent, while they were subletting for €4,000 a month.

Since then, the ministry had taken steps to try and correct the measures, with a plan last year to strike deals with the subletters of the properties.