16 June 1943 – a milestone in AKEL’s history – Speech by the General Secretary of AKEL Andros Kyprianou on the anniversary of the decision of 16 June 1943
Heroes Square, Limassol
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 14 June 2018, Nicosia
On behalf of the C.C. AKEL, permit me to address first and foremost a warm greeting of honor and gratitude to the veterans of the Second World War who are with us here today. We honor their contribution to the anti-fascist struggle. We also honor the contribution of all those who are no longer with us. Their memory and the memory of their struggles will forever be with us. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots fought against Hitler fascism on the battlefields, making their own contribution to the great Anti-fascist Victory.
In the more than nine decades that the Communist Party of Cyprus-AKEL has been active in our country, there are many moments of their history which we are proud of. One of the most glorious pages in our Party’s history is the decision taken on 16 June 1943: the decision of the C.C. of AKEL, calling on the members of the Party to enlist as volunteers in the fight against Hitler-fascism.
The list of 730 volunteers adopted at the Conference held right here in Limassol, in the “Rialto” theatre, also included 11 of the 17 members of the Central Committee of AKEL. Although everyone rushed to respond to our Party’s call, the Conference decided that some comrades should not enlist. This is one of the many moral lessons we can learn from the history of the Mass Organizations of the Left in Cyprus: leadership isn’t gained by issuing orders and making decisions that others will be called upon to execute. Leaders must themselves, by way of their own example, be in the very frontline for the implementation of any decisions approved. This must be remembered first and foremost by all of us who have the honor of being in the leadership of our glorious Party.
The decision of 16 June 1943 was the culmination of the anti-fascist actions that our Party developed since its foundation. In 1943 there was the experience of fighting fascism, with AKEL’s voluntary participation in the anti-fascist front of Spain. Taking the baton from the Communist Party of Cyprus, AKEL identified itself as an anti-Hitler and anti-fascist party. It correctly understood the conditions and the wider context in which the Cypriot people were called upon to wage their own struggle for the freedom of their homeland. Its political action to call on its militants and members to enlist as volunteers, combined the anti-fascist war with the anti-colonial liberation movement which, on AKEL’s initiative, assumed mass dimensions after the Second World War.
The Party immediately began to enlighten the people about what fascism meant and the importance for the peoples to resist its onslaught. This is also a lesson for us on the position we have to take today against the fascist movements of Europe, as well as in Cyprus. Woe if we delude ourselves from the tactics now being applied by the “Golden Dawn” of Cyprus, which is hiding its real face. Their criminal activity in Greece obliges them, for the time being, to keep a low profile. They are simply keeping a low profile. When conditions permit it they will reveal their true face. Besides, their leader Michaloliakos tells them at every opportunity that when they have to they will both attack and dirty their hands. That’s exactly what their ideological father, Hitler, did. Woe if we allow demagogy to mislead the people. The consequences on our people will be tragic.
After the outbreak of the World War, AKEL submitted to the Colonial Government proposals for the Cypriot people’s active contribution in the anti-fascist struggle, underlining the need to end the Palmer colonial rule. It also demanded that the colonialists commit themselves to granting independence to Cyprus after the war. In addition, AKEL organized a campaign with the slogan “A day of work for the defense of Cyprus”. It called on workers to work one day without pay to raise money for the defense of Cyprus, in case Hitler turned against our homeland. Thousands of Cypriots responded enthusiastically to AKEL’s initiative and contributed literally from their savings for the defense of Cyprus.
Let no one think that all this was easy; the people understood easily. The Palmer colonial regime was raising objective obstacles to AKEL’s campaign on the one hand, while on the other many Cypriots weren’t positively inclined to enlisting with the colonialists. The AKEL members literally went all over Cyprus to persuade the people that the principal duty was the antifascist task and that their enlisting created to the British the obligation to discuss Cyprus’ future.
The AKEL volunteers did not just fight Hitler-fascism when they were in the frontline of the war. They also enlightened their fellow compatriots, cultivating among their fellow soldiers an anti-fascist consciousness. They were at the forefront of the efforts to ensure that soldiers would be treated with dignity and respect from their superiors. They organized educational and cultural events and established bridges of communications with the international anti-fascist movement.
They therefore turned the war into a school from where many AKEL militants and supporters graduated from and who subsequently in the years that followed, guided and led the anti-colonial struggle of Cyprus and the great social and class struggles.
Upon the end of the war, the British refused to release from military service the Cypriot volunteers. However, they came up against the dynamic movement for demobilization led by militants and supporters of AKEL. In response, the British colonialists shot and killed comrade Takis Kythreiotis and imprisoned hundreds of our comrades in the concentration camps of Egypt. However, they failed to dampen the determination of the members and cadres of AKEL.
We are proud that our Party has made its own contribution to the great Anti-fascist Victory of the Peoples. We are proud of every historical moment in which AKEL honors its character in practice. The democratic anti-fascist struggles of our people are a sacred heritage and asset that obliges AKEL, but also the wider democratic and progressive forces of the country, to work so as to isolate and neutralize the neo-fascist monster before it raises its head even more. As AKEL we are struggling daily to forge a broad anti-fascist front of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots; a front that will not just confront neo-fascism, but also build the prospect of reuniting the country against nationalism and chauvinism.
The struggles of the Cypriots in our country and throughout the world for freedom and peace will only be vindicated when we manage to reunite our country. Mr. Anastasiades must, even now, realize the extent of his responsibility. Even now, he has to do what is required, so that he won’t go down in history as the President of partition. We certainly do not exempt Turkey from its exclusive and long-standing responsibility for the non-solution of the Cyprus problem. Of course we disagree with the unacceptable positions of the Turkish Cypriot side.
However, we proclaim that we are the side that wants a solution and reunification. It’s not enough to proclaim that you want a solution and reunification. You have to prove it in practice. Unfortunately, there are many questions being raised among a section of the international community concerning our readiness for a solution – not only among those who appease Turkey, but also among friends of Cyprus.
We will not stop repeating the following: the Turkification of Cyprus threatens us not because we are insisting on a federal solution or because of the proposals we have tabled, but only if we attempt to abandon them all. Recent developments with regards Turkey’s demand for a two-state solution unfortunately also vindicates our position.
Instead of Mr. Anastasiades taking initiatives to isolate this position of Turkey and to strengthen our side, he leaves the Greek Cypriot side exposed by his inaction, contradictions and regressions.
Instead of Mr. Anastasiades intensifying his contacts with the international community and with that section of the Turkish Cypriot community that says it wants to work for the solution of the Cyprus problem, he is dealing with everything else. He is spending his time engaging in a communications show on internal governance issues. He is wasting valuable time not on convincing about the Greek Cypriot side’s positions, but instead on accusing AKEL of supposedly adopting Turkish positions.
AKEL’s positions are based on principles and the long-standing positions of the Greek Cypriot side. We are not going to move from them because Mr. Anastasiades may have decided to sacrifice the Cyprus problem for whatever expediencies and considerations or because he is employing his domination in the communications and mass media field to accuse AKEL of supposedly “adopting Turkish positions”.
The Turkish positions are served in the best possible way by those who let time go by, while the occupation is being consolidated day by day.
Mr. Anastasiades blames us for strengthening Turkish intransigence. If he studied the history of the Cyprus problem a little, he would recall that Rauf Denktash was accusing Ozger Ozgur of the same thing. Back then, in 1990, Denktash, who we all know was aiming at partition, was accusing Ozgur of serving the intransigence of the Greek Cypriot side. Why? Because Ozgur reacted to Denktash’s position seeking a separate right of self-determination. Let’s make comparisons with today. We will see who is right.
In an attempt to justify his handlings, Mr. Anastasiades is attacking AKEL, saying that we supposedly want Turkish troops and guarantees in Cyprus. They won’t find either half a proposal or a single reference by AKEL that accepts such a position.
As he is provoking us, we must remind Mr. Anastasiades that the only political leader who accepted the guarantees was he himself in 2004.
We must also remind him that the first political leader who raised at the negotiating table the abolition of guarantees and who created a momentum for pressure to be exerted on Turkey on the issue was Demetris Christofias.
So let’s not look elsewhere for those responsible for the current situation. We do not blame Mr. Anastasiades for his handlings because one day we decided to do so. AKEL judges developments and policies by their results. When Mr. Anastasiades took office, he inherited from D. Christofias with regards the Cyprus problem joint communiqués that secured longstanding positions of the Greek Cypriot side with many issues agreed and recorded as convergences. With the chapter of energy with a huge prospect and the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus secured. With the international community recognizing that the Greek Cypriot side was one step ahead in its readiness to solve the problem. How much of all these apply today, after Mr. Anastasiades’ handlings?
It is to say the least unfair and provocative when confronted with this situation, instead of Mr. Anastasiades and DISY making their self-criticism, to be rebuking AKEL. Cyprus will not be saved by the casinos being built, nor by the mass sale of passports and the sacrifice of the people and the country for the sake of the business affairs of the entourage of the Presidential Palace. Cyprus will be saved only if it is reunited.
For decades, Turkey has been promoting policies that deepen the dependence of the Turkish Cypriot community on Ankara and are weakening it. It promoted the economic integration of the occupied territories by financing in the construction and tourism sector and beyond. It seeks a constant interference in the occupied areas. It seeks to cultivate religion as a means of exercising greater control over society. A section of the Turkish Cypriot community is resisting all of this. But a small community will not always endure and withstand to confront and resist powerful Turkey.
If the Right-wing in the Greek Cypriot community does not understand this promptly, this time it will cause irreparable damage to Cyprus.
We will continue to fight for the solution of the Cyprus problem; a solution that will terminate the occupation and colonialization; a solution based on the UN Resolutions, the High-Level Agreements, International and European Law; a solution that will demilitarize Cyprus and exclude interventions and guarantees from foreign powers; a solution that will reunite the land, the people, the institutions and the economy; a bi-communal, bizonal federal solution with political equality as described in United Nations texts; a solution that will lead to a united state as the continuation of the Republic of Cyprus with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship.
As militants and members of AKEL and as Cypriots we are proud of our contribution to the anti-fascist victory. We are proud of our humble contribution to the victory of humanity against the ideology of hatred, in favor of the freedom and dignity of humanity. This pride generates the heavy obligation to continue the struggle for peace and social justice in Cyprus and the world.
Honour and Glory to our Veterans!
Honour and Glory to our heroes!
