Speech of Nikos Ioannou, member of the Political Bureau of AKEL, at the burial of the remains of hero Georgos Pantelis Kolani

9th January 2016, Deryneia village, Famagusta district

AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

“If I were to abandon my position, if you abandon yours as well, then who will remain to defend this wretched homeland?” This is how Georgos replied to his father Pantelis Kolanis, in their final reunion towards the end of July 1974. Reading this passage from the book of Victoras Karagiannis about Kokos Kolanis, the verses of the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet come to mind:

 

“If I don’t burn,

if you don’t burn,

if we don’t burn,

how will the light

vanquish the darkness?”

 

Georgos Panteli Kolani is one of those heroes who by their sacrifice inspired and continue to inspire poets. It is one of those whose homeland quite rightly honours and calls them heroes. He is one of those heroes who deserve monuments being erected in their honour as a worthy example of the youth of the whole of Cyprus.

 

In a period when the Greek junta controlled the Cypriot National Guard through their obedient officers Georgos Kolanis without hiding his Left background and despite the psychological ordeal he suffered as a result, managed to be gain the green Commando beret.

 

Georgos Pantelis Kolani is perhaps one of the very few Left persons who served the in Special Armed Commando Forces (LOK) at the time of the junta’s control over the National Guard. His personal file “betrayed” him as a member of the Local Cultural and Sports Club “Anagennisi” of the Peoples Movement of the Left and a member of EDON (Note: the youth organisation of AKEL) with his involvement in the Youth Organization’s cultural activity.

 

However at the moment of the supreme duty he honoured the green berets which his homeland had entrusted him, while at the same time the nationalists through their misleading and empty patriotic sloganeering and rhetoric retreated behind the war front lines, thus opening the way for Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus.

 

Georgos, a young construction and building worker from the village of Deryneia, raised and educated with the values ​​of democracy and humanity, not only defended our Homeland, but also covered with his own the body the body of his comrade in arms Christos Minas just before he was struck down by the enemy’s bullets.

 

The Green Beret was drained in red with the blood shed by Georgos and Christos.

 

Compatriots,

 

42 years onwards the Cyprus problem is a critical juncture. Developments on the property and territorial issue will indicate whether we are in solution radius.

 

AKEL proved that it puts the country’s interests above anything else. We do not behave in a revanchist and malicious way. We have made well-intentioned criticism where we considered it necessary, but we supported the negotiation procedure under President Anastasiades. We consciously support the prospect of the reunification of our country. We know that the more time passes aimlessly in the end our people will be condemned to experience new sufferings and pain. This does not mean that we give a blank check to the handling being made on the Cyprus problem. It does not mean that any solution is enough. On every opportunity we stress that we will agree to a solution only if it reunites the country and our people and will not legitimize the separate living of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. We will agree to a solution only if the full demilitarization and withdrawal of settlers is ensured; if the country and our people are reunited within the framework of a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality as defined in the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. We will agree to a solution only if it leads to united state with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship; if the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Cypriots, including the right of the refugees to return to their homes and properties, is safeguarded.

 

The epilogue of the 1974 tragedy is not written today with the funeral of Georgos Pantelis Kolani. The epilogue will be written when his sacrifice is vindicated, that is to say when the barbed wire separating Deryneia and Cyprus in general in two is uprooted. Only then will Georgos Pantelis Kolani and all the others who sacrificed their lives be vindicated.

 

This is why the two leaders President Anastasiades and the Turkish Cypriot leader Akinci assuming the responsibility to write their share of the epilogue, must do so in a way that unites our people so that the mothers of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, will not need to lament and mourn again for their children.