You will have the opportunity to delve deeply
into the fields and issues of Peace Studies
and Conflict Resolution through the Washington
Semester at AU. Only here can you gain background
knowledge and realistic view points of the conflicts
in former Yugoslavia, and Northern Ireland.
By the time you complete the Washington Semester
you will have a thorough understanding of the
significance of the Washington experience by
relating the people and places you meet and
visit to the discussion of Peace and Conflict.
The overall program,
with its internship and research project components,
as well as the overseas trip, emphasizes the
importance of integrating theory, research and
practice. You will analyze current events related
to social and political conflicts around the
world with a particular emphasis on conflict
resolution models and peacemaking initiatives
between individuals, larger communities and
nations.
April 9, 2008
We are now winding down the second leg of our trip in Athens. The University of Indianapolis has been very welcoming and helpful to us during our stay. When we arrived, their staff gave us a tour of their facilities here and showed the students the computer lab and library that they are welcome to use. Staff also provided some very important safety tips to keep in mind during our stay. The hotel that they arranged for us, Omiros Hotel, is very conveniently located in the Acropolis (Plaka) area and many museums, shops and restaurants are within walking distance.
The weekend was a busy one with excursions. On Saturday April 5, we took a bus ride out to the ancient archeological site of Sounion, a little over an hour outside of Athens. The students enjoyed exploring and taking pictures of the ruins of the Temple of Poseidon, located on a cliff with spectacular views of the sea and surrounding mountains.
On Sunday, we took the subway down to Piraeus Port and caught a ferry boat to the island of Hydra, which was about an hour and half ride. Hydra is a small, quaint island that has banned all motor traffic. Here the students found many cafes and small shops, a few museums, walking trails, and donkey rides. We spent about four hours on the island before boarding the ferry back to the mainland. This trip was very popular among the students. It was a good opportunity for them to experience Greek island life and culture and to enjoy the scenery, fresh air, and sunshine, particularly following a very rainy Saturday the day before.
On Monday, it was back to a more academic schedule with a talk given in the morning by Dr. Theodore Couloumbis. The students were interested to learn that he had taught at AU’s School of International Service for nearly 20 years. He gave them a briefing on the priorities of Greek foreign policy and he broke this subject down into four areas: the process of Turkey joining the EU, Greek/Turkish relations within the NATO umbrella, the role of Greece in the Balkans, and the controversial issue of the name and recognition of the “Republic of Macedonia” by the U.S. and Greece.
After lunch at a local tavern – where the students have been eating everyday thanks to lunch vouchers arranged by the University of Indianapolis – we had a full afternoon of visiting the Parthenon and the Acropolis, which are visible from our hotel.
On Tuesday, the students had the morning free to explore and shop, and then in the afternoon Professor Michael held an hour-long class discussion to help the students process all of the information they have been absorbing thus far. A guest speaker from the University of Indianapolis followed this discussion. His name was Panayotis Karafotias, chair of the international relations department at the University of Indianapolis and a former UN diplomat. He talked about the role of Greece in the U.S./Russian/Balkans triangle.
Afterward, the students walked to the nearby Ministry of Foreign Affairs near Syntagma Square where Mr. Koumoutsakos, spokesman of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, briefed them on the current foreign policy issues in Greece.
Today (Wednesday), the students again visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and this time heard from Andreas Papadakis, Deputy Director of the Cyprus issue, Lili Grammatika, First Secretary of the Ministry, and Stavros Venizelos, Counselor in the Ministry. They provided very good information on the current and future prospects of the Greek/Turkish relations and disputes on the Aegean Sea and the Cyprus peace process from a Greek perspective. Students then had lunch, followed by another class debriefing with Professor Michael to clear up any outstanding questions they had regarding the discussion topics.
Tomorrow (Thursday) will be a day of transition as students will be given time in the morning to do last minute shopping and packing before checking out and catching our bus to the airport for an evening departure to Istanbul.
Despite some minor colds that have spread among us, we have remained relatively healthy and are in good spirits and excited about visiting Istanbul next.
April 3, 2008
Our last four days here in Nicosia have given true meaning to the term “experiential learning.” The students have walked both sides of the green line and talked with people directly involved with the Cyprus conflict over the last three to four decades. This morning, they were here to witness a historic moment within the conflict – the opening up of the Ledra Street check point in the old city shopping district. We were among the crowd of Cypriots and others from around the world who pushed forth from the Greek Cypriot side to the Turkish Cypriot side, and vise versa, during the first hour of the checkpoint opening. For the first time, the U.N. soldiers stepped aside and, instead of prohibiting photographs, actually snapped a few for celebrants.
Despite the excitement and symbolism, however, the assorted speakers we’ve heard from in recent days have driven home the reality of just how difficult finding a solution to the Cyprus problem still is, and the barriers that remain. On Monday we visited the offices of the United Nations Development Programme and Senior Programme Manager Jaco Cilliers, a graduate of GMU’s ICAR, gave us a power point presentation. He provided interesting statistics and research on the successes and failures of negotiations and Cypriot viewpoints before and after the Annan Plan. He encouraged the students to consider interning with UNDP and handed out his business card. While at UNDP, we also drove out to the terminal and runways of the old Nicosia Airport, abandoned since 1974. The sheer desolation of the place was pretty powerful. While there, A UN soldier from England gave an impromptu explanation of his role in patrolling the green line.
After checking into the hotel and enjoying a meal at a nearby taverna, we boarded the bus again for a visit to the office of George Vassilou, the former Greek Cypriot president who served from 1988-1993. He provided an excellent overview of the ebb and flow of the conflict over the past three decades due to the political stances of the different leaders and his own personal efforts to broker a solution.
That evening, Eleftherios walked the students down by the green line in old Nicosia to show them the buffer zone of crumbling, abandoned buildings that divide the north from the south parts of the city. Our hotel, interestingly enough, is so near the green line that we can hear the church bells of the Greek Orthodox churches on the one side, and the calls to prayer from the mosques on the other.
On Tuesday, we walked across the buffer zone at a nearby checkpoint (which required our passports) and heard from a panel from the Committee on Missing Persons, including a Greek Cypriot, a Turkish Cypriot, and a UN representative. They talked about how over the past two years they have been working to exhume the remains of the Greek Cypriots killed in 1974, and the Turkish Cypriots killed in 1963 to bring long overdue closure to the families. It is also a peacebuilding gesture to recognize the killings on both sides and give proper burial to the deceased.
From there we walked through the Turkish Cypriot side of Nicosia (noticeably different from the south in economics and culture) to a hotel where we heard from former Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, who served as president for the Turkish Cypriots from the 1970s until 2003. The talk was given on the 8th floor, which provided a panoramic view of Nicosia. Denktash talked at length about his involvement from the 1960s onward in the Cyprus conflict and explained Turkey’s and the Turkish Cypriot standpoint on the issue and their demands for equality with Greek Cypriots over the years. We weren’t sure whether he would take questions from students, but he in fact did and they peppered him with knowledgeable and challenging questions.
After Denktash left us to attend another meeting, we remained at the hotel for a group lunch followed by a discussion between the students, Eleftherio, and Umut Ozkaleli, a friend of Eleftherio’s who is a Turkish Cypriot. Umut and Eleftherios met as students at ICAR and Umut has since transferred to Syracuse where she is finishing her PhD in conflict resolution. They were both born in 1974 and grew up in Cyprus on different sides of the divide. Until they met one another, neither Eleftherios nor Umut had had a friend from the other side. They both talked about their experiences growing up in Cyprus, from both the Greek and Turkish perspective, and provided their own personal perspectives on Denktash’s talk that everyone had just heard. Umut stayed with us throughout the day on Tuesday and Wednesday. That evening, we walked through the old city Nicosia again, but this time on the Turkish Cypriot side and viewed the buffer zone from that vantage point.
Wednesday, we crossed over to the north again but this time by bus, traveling to Kyrenia, a scenic port city, and then to Famagusta and the campus of Eastern Mediterranean University. Three Turkish Cypriot professors provided yet another layer to the many perspectives we’ve heard. One of the professors was a particularly interesting guy who has Greek Cypriot, Cherokee Indian and Scottish roots. He produced a documentary several years ago to not only expose the atrocities Turkish Cypriots committed on the Greek Cypriots, but also what Greek Cypriots did to kill Turkish Cypriots in large numbers in the early 1960s (our students viewed the documentary prior to the trip). The film was received well by the Turkish Cypriots but not so well by the Greek Cypriots and he has since moved from the South to the North and now lives permanently in Famagusta, even though he is Greek Cypriot. He provided the perspective of the lone individual who claims no allegiances to political parties or organizations or even a particular ethnicity in his efforts to promote peace, and explained just how challenging and lonely, but necessary, such work can be.
On our way home, we stopped in the old Famagusta city which was abandoned in 1974 and remains guarded by the Turks but is not occupied by the Greek or the Turkish Cypriots. It was once Cyprus’s most vibrant city but as we walked along the beach near the abandoned hotels, we could see that it is now a skeletal ghost town from a very different era and the buildings are just empty shells. A Turkish guard watched us from a tower as we observed the vacant city and we were strictly prohibited from taking pictures.
And now, back to today, this evening we heard from the mayors on both sides of Nicosia about their work that led up to the opening of the Ledra Street checkpoint this morning. After hearing how collaboratively the two men worked to take care of their city together, one of the students very appropriately suggested that they both run for the Cyprus presidency.
March 27, 2008
Upon our arrival in Cyprus, our bus driver was waiting for us and took us directly to Sandy Beach Hotel where the hotel manager provided us with cool drinks and an overview of hotel logistics. After a few hours rest, we treated the students to a buffet dinner in the hotel restaurant. We let the students go to bed early and begin the day today late in the morning so that they would have time to begin adjusting to the time change.
Today we hosted our first guest speaker, Kate Clerides, in the hotel conference room. Ms. Clerides is the daughter of former President Glafcos Clerides, an elected member of the Cyprus parliament and a member of the European Liberal Party in the Euro-parliament. She has been working in the political arena and on bicommunal issues as a community activist for more than 20 years. The discussion lasted about 90 minutes and was primarily Q&A, with the students asking many excellent questions.
Afterwards the students had lunch on their own within the vicinity of the hotel and then were taken by bus to the Hultan Mosque, an ancient and revered Muslim holy site about 20 minutes from the hotel. Eleftherios translated a brief history of the site given by the caretaker onsite. Then we took the bus into the downtown area of Larnaca and visited St. Lazarus Church, a religious site rich in Christian history. The students were briefly able to witness a mass taking place. The visit to both the mosque and the church helped illustrate the bicultural nature of Cyprus and how Greek and Turkish Cypriots once lived integrated within Larnaca.
We concluded the evening with several hours of free time in downtown Larnaca where the students had dinner and shopped on their own. Now we have returned to the hotel where some of us are hitting the bed early to continue recovering from jet lag and to prepare for a very full three days ahead.
We will send another report soon. But for now, things are going well and I am personally having a wonderful time with the students and want to thank you for allowing me to accompany Eleftherios as a chaperone. I have been very impressed with your students. They are truly an interesting, diverse and smart bunch, and Eleftherios and I are enjoying their enthusiasm.
