On the Ground in Cyprus, Day 2: As the Dust Settles, Talk of Reciprocity and Whispers of RetributionPatrick Henningsen The tension fueled by the fear of financial loss and hardship was palpable yesterday morning when the banks finally opened up after 15 days, but no major incidents took place in Nicosia. The Cypriots surprised the world again on Friday, re-enforcing their reputation as the most calm, cool and collected member of the European Union. This is probably due to the fact that this particular Mediterranean civilisation, in the words of one old resident, has been occupied for 3,000 years. Thats not diminishing the present-day reality of an island divided by a war with Turkey in 1974, and a capital city which now has its own version of Check Point Charlie dividing Greek Cyprus and Turkish Cyprus. Former President Demetris Christofias has become one such focus of the peoples anger. Lucious Petrou, a retired local farmer says, Imagine the timing of Christofias resigning only five weeks ago, and then our banks closing their doors three weeks later? Our Communist President came into power with a 1 billion euro surplus and left with what will be a 17.5 billion euro debt to the international bankers. Where is he now? Most residents are confident that Christofias will be dragged into the dock during the upcoming judicial inquiry into the banking collapse. Of course, thats the big question on everyones minds: why Cyprus? Why now? Social Democrat and avowed communist Demetris Christofias came to power in 2008 through a coalition government, after campaigning on the populist platform of the reunification of Cyprus, bringing the Greek and Turkish sides together in a bi-zonal federal state. The people liked the idea, but instead they got an economic meltdown. We also discovered that there are also 30,000 plus Chinese who have established a burgeoning European beachhead in nearby Pathos, and one would expect that there were at least a few hundred Chinese millionaires, or billionaires, who took a sizable haircut too this week but you wont find that one in the mainstream media. One other name kept coming up again, and again, as we combed the back streets of the old town in Nicosia. His name is Andreas Vgenopoulos, the Greek tycoon and chairman of the controversial Marfin Investment Group, and the man who inflated the now failed Laiki Banks financial balloon which was doomed to pop three weeks ago, taking the whole of the Cyprus economy down with it. The story behind his inflated success and failure is a bizarre Mnage trois between Dubai, Athens and Nicosia. It appears that Mr Vgenopoulos steered a massive Ponzi scheme which attracted the usual suspect crowd of high-flying financiers, naive and corrupt politicians and overpaid government bureaucrats, who flocked to his over-cooked honey pot of accessible capital backed up the same junk bonds and overvalued paper which brought down Cypruss northern EU neighbor Greece only 2 years earlier. By the time Cypriots knew what was going on, the bottom had already fallen out of their balance sheet forcing Nicosia to go cap in hand to the ECB, and later to the IMF. Vgenopoulos, it seems, was the Troikas agent provocateur in this story he lit the match, left the building with all the loot and watch it burn from across the sea. Whats worse, however, is that the elite Troika (Brussels, Berlin and the IMF) had known about this contagion and also that Cyprus would collapse well in advance of this months bank holiday but they just stood back and watched as the moussaka hit the fan, to swoop in with more crisis loans which has ultimately given them complete financial control over the economic destiny of the island. Its like the heroin dealer trying help a recovering addict by giving them a kilo of smack. What will happen if the European and Cyprus banks re-hypothecate all this new debt-based issued money from the Troika? And what about the bankers using these latest loans to parlay a piece of Cypruss untapped gas and oil reserves? Well find out in a year, until then, its watch and wait. Even worse, imagine the heroin dealer, after giving the recovering addict a final kilo smack, proceeds to steal the addicts furniture, sell-off his house and cut the wages and pensions of everyone living in the house. When the dust settles, it doesnt take a genius to figure out that every Cypriot will know who robbed them, and how it was done. Now, in their deceptive laid-back fashion it seems, the people are deciding how best to even the score. Please visit Patrick Henningsens website 21st Century Wire for his latest reports and videos. 