Speech of Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL, at the mass meeting in memory and honour of comrades Dervis Ali Kavazoglou and Costas Mishaoulis
5th April 2015, Dali village, Nicosia District
We have gathered here again to pay homage to the great martyrs of the friendship of our people; to demonstrate our will to struggle for their ideals and values which are our own too. We all know who assassinated Kavazoglou and Mishaoulis. The question is for everyone to understand why they were murdered.
In one of the darkest turns of Cyprus’ History when chauvinism and bigotry took up arms to divide our people, when partitionist imperialist plans were drawn up and elaborated one after the other, the Peoples Movement of the Left, which was fighting for our country’s independence and the unity of our people, stood up and resisted these plans daily. Kavazoglou and Mishaoulis were devoted to this cause, to the struggle of our Cypriot people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, to remain united; to combat the hatred and fanaticism; to forge a wall of resistance to nationalism and strengthen the common struggle of the two communities for the salvation of their common homeland.
Dervis Ali Kavazoglou, member of the Central Committee of AKEL and Costas Mishaoulis, cadre of our class-based trade union PEO and member of the District Committee of AKEL Nicosia, with their sacrifice became the symbol of this struggle. The terrorist murderers of the fascist TMT organization set up an ambush at a turn on the Nicosia-Larnaca road, killing them in the most barbaric way. Our two comrades were murdered, however they have never died! Their final embrace drowned in blood became the banner of our people’s struggle which to this day is raised high and rallies the people under the slogan “One country-One People!”
Back then, you had to be bold and courageous to be a Kavazoglou. You needed courage to be a Mishaoulis. You needed faith and conviction, an uncompromising ethos and dedication to our people’s struggle. Despite constant warnings, our two comrades defied the dangers and death itself. Their murderers ignored the truth: they murdered them because they feared them. The fascists feared what Cypriots, united, would say and do. Today, though dead, they fear Kavazoglou and Mishaoulis even more because their murder was a sacrifice that inspires our people.
Today, 50 years after the murder of Mishaoulis and Kavazoglou, boldness and courage are still needed when talking about the meaning of their sacrifice and the historical framework of their assassination; about all that preceded and followed their sacrifice; about how we can finally put behind us the dark years of confrontation. Boldness and courage are required when someone talks about the mass graves hidden in our country’s land, mass graves filled with the remains of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, brutally murdered by the extremist forces in both communities. One needs boldness and courage to declare that the culprits in both communities had the same ideological identity. You need to be bold and courageous to have a vision and talk about the past that was filled with crimes committed; about how the future can be built full of hope for the country. One needs courage and conviction to withstand the attacks, the reactions of all those whose interests are different from the need for our people to know the historical truth.
AKEL dared. It dared to talk about the wounds; about the brutal and undisclosed crimes; about the crimes committed and the treachery and betrayal. AKEL dared to build a perspective on the ruins of 1974. It was in the frontline and led the way in the birth and development of the movement of rapprochement of our people. It was slandered, mocked and attacked because of these positions it upheld. However, it did not yield or surrender. On the contrary, it’s voice grew even stronger, as the Party of all Cypriots; the Party of all Cypriot working people; the Party that speaks about two communities politically equal and for a Cyprus as a whole that will belong to its people and not for half of Cyprus to be Greek.
AKEL not only believes in this vision, but struggles for it! It fights for the vision with its long-standing consistent policy on the Cyprus problem. This vision materialized during the Christofias governance with the proposals that were submitted at the negotiation table; proposals that do away with ethnic confrontation, tearing down the barriers that wanted us to live side-by-side and that talk about the Cyprus of the future where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots will live together. Isn’t this the essence of the Christofias-Talat convergences concerning the rotating presidency and the weighted and crossed vote? For entire decades the framework which divided our people was based on the perception that in Cyprus there are two separate entities. The specific proposal submitted wanted to do away with this precise perception by tearing down the walls of separation based on ethnic origin and by transferring the confrontation from an ethnic to a political and class-based level. AKEL dared to promote and support this proposal – and others – that are based on the conviction that the reunified Republic of Cyprus is, and must remain, the common house of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Despite the attacks and all-out war it faced against it. It assumed all the political responsibility and withstood all the political cost because it knew that these proposals as a whole are realistic, workable and unifying.
This is the reason why we continue to call on the President of the Republic for a resumption of the inter-communal talks based on the Christofias-Talat convergences, maintaining the President’s right to negotiate further points which he perhaps sees need to be reviewed. This is one thing however and quite another for all that has been agreed through painstaking work to safeguard that the solution that will be achieved will be just, functional and viable to be ruined.
Talking about a solution, we of course do not mean any kind of solution. For AKEL this isn’t pretence, or a pretext. For AKEL, the solution of the Cyprus problem is its primary and unwavering goal. It is the only way our people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, can live without their existence being threatened in the land of their birth. It is the only way to create the preconditions for growth, prosperity and social progress. These cannot be safeguarded by any type of solution for the sake of a solution, but only by a solution that will end the occupation and colonization; that will restore the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity of the Republic of Cyprus. AKEL is struggling for a solution based on the resolutions of the United Nations, the High-Level Agreements, International and European Law; for a solution that will demilitarize Cyprus and exclude any rights of intervention in the internal affairs of our country by foreign powers; for a solution that will reunite the territory, people, institutions and the economy within the framework of a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality as set out in the UN resolutions; for a solution with such characteristics to be put before the judgment of the Cypriot people, given that an agreement is reached first at the negotiating table.
It is important to stress all this repeatedly in view of the resumption of the talks. It is equally important to ensure that the President of the Republic will not go to the talks either yielding to threats, or backtracking from the sovereign rights of the Republic of Cyprus. The dialogue can resume only under these preconditions. At the same time, it is important that with the resumption of the talks the President’s handling should be based on our long-standing principles and positions, as well as on the decisions of the National Council. If the President of the Republic acts with consistency, a collective approach, determination and seriousness, AKEL will support the procedure and seek to play a decisive role in strengthening the efforts for a solution of the Cyprus problem.
The sacrifice of Kavazoglou and Mishaoulis after so many years has not been vindicated. As time vindicates their sacrifice, so do all those wishing or preferring our country’s partition want to suppress or bury all that unites our people, whether openly of indirectly, whether talking about a two-state solution which they support with relevant theories about “two communities that do not know and understand each other”, or propagating the notion that “40 years we haven’t achieved a federal solution because we cannot achieve it, hence let’s accept things as they are”. Even those however who say “lets search for another solution” in reality do not have any proposal. Therefore, the discussion is led fatally towards a non-solution as the solution of the Cyprus problem itself. This proposal will without doubt lead precisely to the partition of Cyprus. In addition there are also the theories brandished about a “return to a unitary state”, which one may discuss only if one abandons a serious attitude.
Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are both children of the same homeland. Only this truth exists in our common history and common future. This is what we are fighting to attain in practice with the reunification of our country without foreign dependencies, interventions, guardians and “mother countries”.
AKEL is under fierce attack because it criticized the Cyprus government’s stand towards the Greek government in the Eurogroup meeting.
Finance Minister Haris Georgiades today says, because it suits him to do so, that with Greece we simply share common cultural ties. However, it’s not sure how much he believes it when the President of his government and the former President of his party begins his speech to the people as President of the Republic of Cyprus, namely President of all Cypriots, by addressing them as “Fellow Greek men and women”. It’s not sure how much he believes it when the political spectrum that nurtured and developed him covered everything with the veil of a rampant “national-mindedness”, talking about the “national centre”, “metropolitan Hellenism” and “anti-Greek AKEL”. This is the paradox the Cypriot government was called upon to explain: the “national-mindedness” with which it appears in Cyprus in contrast with the position towards Greece it chose to adopt in the Eurogroup meeting.
We say that as Greek Cypriots we are proud of our origin. The Turkish Cypriots have every right to also be equally proud of their origin. However, the two communities are compatriots, citizens of the independent and sovereign Republic of Cyprus and we must be equally proud about this. We support the Greek government because it is asserting for its people. This is what we expect our own side to do as well.
The history of Greece and Cyprus is full of references and examples of Greeks and Cypriots who preferred to side with powerful powers than their own homeland. Wasn’t there perhaps in the period before 1821 rulers and landowners who were collecting taxes and calling “crazy” and “disorderly” all those who wanted to rebel against the Sultan? Wasn’t there perhaps in Cyprus ruling established families of Greek Cypriots who were profiting and becoming rich as a result of their cooperation with the British colonialists and this is the reason why they played a dark role in our people’s struggle for freedom and independence? Was it perhaps coincidental that the then British colonial Governor felt that the communists were the “only opposing force” to the administration it had managed to impose? This is the issue. Back then, there were Greeks who chose to serve the Sultan instead of the liberation of their homeland. Back then, there were Cypriots who chose to remain subordinated to the British colonialists instead of struggling for freedom. Today there are those who prefer to subordinate everything to the wishes and interests of the Troika; these circles and forces who do not want, which is why they do not dare choose another alternative course, or who are fully identified with the positions of the ruling circles of the European Union and who do not in any way want to disturb “order” and “calmness”.
For AKEL, our best allies, comrades, brothers and sisters are all the peoples who are rising up; the peoples who are struggling, fighting and demanding a better future.
For AKEL, the best allies are our compatriots who are struggling for the vindication of our homeland, for reunification and peace; Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who are joining hands over the barbed wires of division because they know that only together and united do they have a future. We share the same aspirations. Together with them we struggle and will continue to struggle together until the final vindication of Cyprus; until the day when we shall reunify our homeland and the photographs from the common class struggles we waged together, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, will again revive and become the path for our common and prosperous future!
Long live Cyprus!
Yaşasın Kıbrıs!
