NICOSIA: Two groups of people conditioned to hate each other were mingling in sweaty hordes at a barbed-wire border post, shouting: “We love the people’s revolution.”

On one side were Greek Cypriots, clutching branches of trees on their return from visiting houses they had not seen for 30 years, waving their wedding portraits fished from the tops of wardrobes. On the other were Turkish Cypriots, carrying cartons from McDonald’s Happy Meals back to their isolated state to put on their mantelpieces.

In the past ten days, more than 170,000 Cypriots have been ushered through the bottle-necked checkpoints at the “green line” in Nicosia, Europe’s last divided city. The mess of barbed wire, daubed walls and landmines had isolated both sides since Turkish troops invaded in 1974 in response to a coup engineered by the Greek military junta and backed by the CIA.

Now thousands queue to cross, crouching in metal pens in the wilting noon sunshine, with water rationed from plastic vats by British UN troops.

A thousand protesters made it across and held a march, unfurling a “No war on Iraq” flag and walking behind a bloodstained replica of the Statue of Liberty.

After ten days of crossings, they wanted to demonstrate against any potential American involvement here. They wanted the British military bases closed and no US bases to open. Their motto was “let us govern ourselves”.

Following the euphoria of days of what the Greek Cypriot prime minister called a “wave of fraternisation”, questions are being asked about the role of “colonial and imperialistic” powers in the fall of the wall.

Many Turkish Cypriots feel their leader, Rauf Denktash, has opened the borders only after pressure from Turkey and in the face of mass discontent among electors. Only weeks before, when he scuppered a joint peace plan for the island at the last moment, he was adamant that Greek and Turkish Cypriots could never live together. Would he now be replaced; and at what cost? Had he wanted what he called the “honeymoon season” to descend into violence just to prove a point? Could the border be sealed shut again on a whim? One Turkish Cypriot woman reportedly died of a heart attack when Greek Cypriots visited her house saying it was theirs. They were only there to gather plant cuttings, but she feared she would be made homeless. Two Greek Cypriots are due in court after assaulting a Turkish Cypriot family for knocking on their door for the same reason.

There are torn bedsheets on the Greek side of the border post visa office bearing the message: “We should not need passports to visit our own homes. You can’t solve the problem by treating us as tourists.” But for most people in this jubilant and somewhat confused community, the main topic of conversation this weekend will be money.

Today the first steps begin to open trade between the two sides. Farmers will no longer need to illegally push livestock under the fence at night while border guards are looking the other way, and have their lambs blown to shreds by landmines.

Cyprus’s oldest bookshop, whose dusty stocks are piled up in a tiny shopfront in Nicosia, will no longer receive secret orders from Greek Cypriots, followed by surreptitious visits from British tourists to collect books and smuggle them over.

The Turkish Cypriot economy is ten per cent of the size of the Greek’s. Turkish Cypriots say unemployment is crippling, estimating that it has now reached 60 per cent in the cities, 40 per cent in the countryside.

But Greek Cypriots crossing the border are believed to have poured pounds sterling 1.5 million into the flailing Northern economy in ten days.

More than pounds sterling 100,000 of this was spent on car insurance because Greek Cypriot policies did not give cover in the North. Turkish Cypriot fishermen are leaving their boats to work as waiters to meet the Greek desire to lunch at old harbours. Takings at garish casinos — one of the big industries in the North — are up 30 per cent. In the South, sales at McDonald’s grew by 60 per cent.

Zehra Cengiz, 46, a linguistics teacher, says she will begin applying for jobs in the South. She is the leader of a Turkish Cypriot protest group whose members have refused to pay their mortgages since the crippling devaluation of the Turkish lira. Several are due in court this week.

Greek Cypriots have decided that trading with the North — and joining forces to sell agricultural produce to the rest of the world under one banner — will help to ease the misery of the Turkish Cypriot lifestyle.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.