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Ireland and the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Norman MacQueen
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Extract

The necessity for the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) arose from a crisis in relations between the island's Greek and Turkish communities precipitated by an attempt on the part of President Makarios in November 1963 to adjust the 1960 Constitution in such a way as to lessen the influence of the Turkish minority within the state's institutions. An early unsuccessful attempt at mediation by Britain in the first weeks of 1964 (which aimed at a solution within the context of Nato) gave way to Security Council consideration at a series of meetings in February and March which resulted in a motion to dispatch a peacekeeping force.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 1983 , pp. 95 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 1983

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References

1. UN Documents S/PV. 1094 to 1102,7 February to 4 March 1964. The force was established under the terms of a resolution issued as UN Doc. S/5575, 4 September 1964.

2. UN Doc. S/5575, 4 March 1964, operative para 4.

3. The background to Ireland's emerging identity as a UN ‘middle power’ in the late 1950s and 1960s during the term of office of Fianna Fáil. External Affairs Minister Frank Aiken is recalled by Conor Cruise O'Brien, himself a member of the Irish delegation from 1956 until his resignation in 1961, in his book To Katanga and Back (London, 1962), chap. 2. He discusses these years of Ireland's active neutrality further in his later essay ‘Ireland in International Affairs’ included in Owen Dudley Edwards (ed.), Conor Cruise O'Brien Introduces Ireland (London 1969), pp. 129-31. A less personal account is offered by Williams, T. Desmond in ‘Irish Foreign Policy, 1949-69’ in Lee, J. J. (ed.), Ireland 1945-70 (RTE Thomas Davis Lectures) (Dublin 1979), pp. 143–6.Google Scholar

4. UN Doc. A/C.1/SR.853, paras. 46-51, 21 February 1957.

5. UN Doc. A/C.1/SR.931, paras. 42-7, 11 December 1957.

6. UN Doc. A/C.l/L.197, 12 December 1957. Ireland took this position at the cost of finding itself in a voting alliance with the eastern bloc against Britain and Sweden and over an American abstention.

7. UN Doc. A/CA/SR. 1002, para. 26,1 December 1958. In the same speech O'Brien suggested that the UN might compensate Turkish Cypriots wishing to leave the island and resettle on the mainland. As a result, at a later meeting of the Committee, he was forced to defend himself against Turkish claims that he had proposed the expulsion of the minority population— UN Doc. A/C.1/SR.1008, 4 December 1958.

8. Irish Times, 5-7 March 1964.

9. DM Debates Volume 208 (Column 518), 10 March 1964.

10. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 13 March 1964. Text in Bulletin of the Department of External Affairs of Ireland (hereinafter Bulletin), No. 653, 23 March 1964.

11. U Thant to Frank Aiken, 19 March 1964. Text in Bulletin No. 654, 30 March 1964.

12. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 24 March 1964. Ibid.

13. DM Debates 208(1098-9), 7 April 1964.

14. Aide Memoire: UN Doc. S/5653, 11 April 1964. Program of Action: UN Doc. S/5671, 29 April 1964. See also Barston, R. P.‘Problems of International Peacekeeping—the Case of Cyprus’, International Relations, (1971), pp. 936–7.Google Scholar

15. The Times (London), 5 February 1966. James Stegenga quotes a senior British officer on Irish suspicions of British intent in Cyprus: ‘they believed that perfidious Albion was trying to inflict partition…as it had earlier inflicted it on Ireland’. The United Nations Force in Cyprus (Columbus, Ohio, 1968), p. 161.

16. See Heathcote, Nina‘Ireland and the United Nations Operation in the Congo’, International Relations, (1971), pp. 880–902passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17. The 19th Session of the General Assembly in 1964-65 which in the normal course would have considered the Cyprus crisis was deadlocked over the budgetary impasse. All issues likely to involve a vote were consequently avoided to prevent raising the question of voting rights under Article 19 of the Charter.

18. UN Doc. A/C.1/PV.1418, pp. 68-70 (mimeograph), 17 December 1965.

19. DM Debates 208(519), 10 March 1964.

20. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 13 March 1964.

21. Ddil Debates 208(1067-69), 7 April 1964. The Status of Forces Agreement (issued as UN Doc. S/5643,31 March 1964) had indeed been negotiated with the Makarios government but Turkey's agreement to the establishment of the force and to its functions was a guarantee of its acceptability to both communities.

22. DM Debates 208( 1117), 7 April 1964. Concern that the contingent should be adequately supplied and supported was expressed in the accelerated purchase of a fleet of Panhard armoured cars from France, the bulk of which was delivered directly to the contingent in Cyprus. See Comdt. Magennis, A. J.‘Cavalry in the Congo and Cyprus’, An Cosantoir the Irish Defence Journal, XXXVI No. 1 (1976), pp. 30–1.Google Scholar

23. DM Debates 208(1078), 7 April 1964. Ireland was the only force contributor without diplomatic representation on the island. Canada, Sweden and Finland had each made special arrangements in the form of double accreditation or emergency appointments. See the Irish Times, 10 April 1964.

24. DM Debates 231(787-8), 23 November 1967.

25. Sixteen Irish soldiers were killed in action in the four years of the Congo operation. In the nine years up to 1973 nine members of the Cyprus contingent died as a result of accident or illness—compared with ten non-combat deaths in the Congo.

26. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 13 March 1964. The Secretary-General agreed to this condition in his reply of 19 March.

27. Dial Debates 208(1070), 7 April 1964.

28. The states contributing to UNFICYP with Ireland during these first years of the commitment appear as something of a roll-call of the typical UN ‘middle powers’. Aside from Britain, which of course occupied a special position in relation to the problem, they were: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, India, New Zealand and Sweden.

29. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 24 March 1964.

30. Irish Times, 15 April 1964. In fact an Infantry Group, approximately 300 strong, was dispatched in June.

31. The actual Irish contribution, both absolute and in relation to total UNFICYP strength, over the years was as follows:

32. Bail Debates 214(1296), 2 March 1965.

33. Dail Debates 251(400-1), 28 January 1971. See also 244(1694-5), 25 February 1970.

34. Dail Debates 257(2157), 15 December 1971.

35. In May 1974, following car-bomb attacks in the centre of Dublin and in the border town of Monaghan which resulted in considerable loss of life and which were evidently the work of Northern Protestant terrorists, the Irish contingent was withdrawn from UNEFII along with the residual element left with UNFICYP. (The small group of officer observers serving with the UN Truce Supervision Organization [UNTSO] in the middle east continued on service.) Large scale participation in peacekeeping resumed in 1977 and Ireland's identity as a major contributor appeared to have survived the hiatus—an indication of this being the (accepted) invitation to participate in UNIFIL (Lebanon) from 1978. See Patrick Keatinge A Place Among the Nations (Dublin, 1978), pp. 159-60.

36. UN Doc. S/5575, 4 March 1964, oper. para. 6.

37. Dail Debates 208(1114-15), 7 April 1964.

38. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 13 March 1964.

39. Wainhouse, D. W.et al, International Peacekeeping at the Crossroads (Baltimore, 1973), p. 407.Google Scholar

40. UN Doc. A/PV. 1-295, para. 13, 8 December 1964.

41. Dail Debates 208(1082-3), 7 April 1964.

42. Frank Aiken to U Thant, 13 March 1964.

43. Dail Debates 214(201), 11 February 1965, 214(1045), 24 February 1965.

44. Dail Debates 214(238), 11 February 1965, 214(1285), 2 March 1965.

45. Dail Debates 214(1419), 2 March 1965.

46. These troops represented that element of the contingent requested by the Secretary-General in April 1964 in addition to the original battalion. Their withdrawal necessitated a fundamental redeployment of UNFICYP. See Boyd, J. M.‘Cyprus: Episode in Peacekeeping’, International Organization, 20(1966), p. 14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47. Dail Debates 217(1937), 21 July 1965.

48. Irish Times, 13 September 1965.

49. Irish Times, 15 September 1965.

50. Report by the Secretary-General on the Financial Situation in respect of the United Nations Operations in Cyprus—issued as UN Doc. S/6702, 23 September 1965. In a further report two months later the Secretary-General changed the emphasis somewhat; Ireland would be reimbursed ‘for all extra costs incurred after June 1965 and, within the possibilities of voluntary contributions, all extra costs incurred prior to that date’. UN Doc. S/6945, 19 November 1965.

51. Irish Times, 25 September 1965.

52. UN Doc. S/7191, para. 149, 10 March 1966.

53. UN Press Release CYP/374, 12 April 1966.

54. Apart from the considerable military losses in the Congo, the controversial role of Conor Cruise O'Brien as Hammarskjold's representativ e in Katanga (seconded from the Irish diplomatic service) brought the nation face to face with the cold war realities of its new ‘middle power’ role. See O'Brien, To Katanga and Back.