Refuting colonial talking points
Don't fall for agents of empire and their narrative
The assertion that the SBAs “protect” Cypriot autonomy is a colonial myth that inverts cause and effect. The UK bases exist precisely because Cyprus was denied full sovereignty at independence. The 1960 Treaty of Establishment was not a freely negotiated agreement but a coercive colonial hangover—Britain demanded military enclaves as the price for ending formal colonisation. True autonomy cannot be rooted in treaties drafted by imperial powers to serve their strategic interests, not Cypriot self-determination. This violates current international law, hence the UN ruling on Chagos.
The UK has never acted to defend Cyprus against Turkish aggression. During the 1974 invasion, Britain refused to intervene despite its bases, revealing their purpose as tools of geopolitical opportunism, not Cypriot security. Turkey, a NATO ally, enjoys impunity precisely because the UK prioritises alliance solidarity over Cypriot sovereignty. The SBAs are not a “shield” but a bargaining chip in Anglo-American realpolitik, as seen in their use to support Izrahell’s genocide in Gaza—a violence that further destabilizes the region and Cypriots are at risk yet again because of it. The 40,000 Turkish troops in the north are not countered but tacitly tolerated by a NATO framework the UK upholds.
Employment in the SBAs is not empowerment but a colonial economy of extraction. Cypriots servicing British bases are relegated to a subaltern class, their labor sustaining a foreign military that occupies 3% of the island’s land. The 2022 development deal, framed as “cooperation,” merely deepens dependency on a structure that profits from Cyprus’s fragmentation. Real autonomy requires dismantling this system, not celebrating crumbs from the occupier’s table. Cypriots do not choose to be a part of this horrible system, they simply do not have better ways to remain on the island.
The SBAs’ “biodiversity plans” are performative greenwashing. Akrotiri’s salt lake, a critical habitat, is degraded by military operations, while endemic flora are bulldozed for infrastructure. Bird-trapping crackdowns distract from the RAF’s carbon-intensive operations and munitions testing, which poison soil and water. These token gestures cannot offset the ecological toll of militarisation, nor do they absolve the UK of its role as an environmental occupier. If the UK really cared about our environment, why have they left their open mines to drastically degrade habitats and cause cancer in human populations surrounding Lefke for example?
The SBAs operate as British territory under colonial-era legal carve-outs, imposing jurisdiction that strips Cypriots of recourse to international or Cypriot law. Maronites and refugees living in the bases face statelessness, denied citizenship rights by a system designed to erase indigenous claims. This apartheid-like framework—where British soldiers enjoy impunity for crimes—exposes the lie of “freely living and working” under colonial rule. Especially as the Cypriots in these areas are only offered British Overseas Territory citizenship, which entitles them to nothing.
To claim the UK is a “lesser” occupier than Turkey ignores that both enforce Cyprus’s division. The SBAs normalise foreign military occupation. Britain’s refusal to challenge Ankara’s violations—while arming its military—proves their collusion in maintaining the island’s fracture. Decolonisation cannot cherry-pick occupiers; it demands the removal of all foreign forces.
The notion that Cyprus would be “defenseless” without the SBAs assumes imperialist realism is the only paradigm. True security lies in demilitarisation, regional solidarity, and rejecting the logic that our sovereignty depends on foreign armies. The SBAs are not pragmatic necessities but active obstacles to reunification—a reunification that cannot occur while colonial enclaves balkanize the island and perpetuate dependency.
The SBAs are not relics but living colonialism. Their abolition is not a “risk” to autonomy but its prerequisite. Until Cyprus expels all foreign militaries, its sovereignty remains a legal fiction, negotiated in the shadow of empire.
