Activists protest British antenna in Cyprus
Date: 02-Jul-02
Country: CYPRUS
Around 20 people camped close to a British base in southern Cyprus overnight and initially prevented bulldozers from entering an area to break ground.
Their sit in protest was broken up by riot police who dragged activists, including a Cypriot MP, off a road.
Britain wants to create new aerial masts for its global communications close to RAF Akrotiri, a sprawling air base on the southern coast of the former colony.
Similar attempts by the bases to start work on the masts triggered violent protests in the area exactly one year ago.
The designated area for the masts is in a salt marsh which is within British sovereign territory.
Locals and the Cypriot parliament have strong reservations about the health and environmental safety of the giant masts, which Britain says are safe.
"There are health concerns, and an international panel of experts has said this work could cause irrevocable environmental damage," MP George Perdikis of the Greens Party told Reuters.
The bases said there were no arrests.
Britain has two military bases on Cyprus which it has held onto since granting the east Mediterranean island independence in 1960.
Bases spokesman Rob Need said experts were to remove wildlife from the designated new mast site and transfer it to another region in a bid to minimise the impact on the area.
"Work on the masts themselves is not due to start until next year," he said.
