Address by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL S.Stefanou at the Cyprus Peace Council’s Peace Award event

 

14 February 2024

Allow me to warmly congratulate the Cyprus Peace Council for its initiative to award tonight in this modest ceremony people and organised groups who have devoted their lives to the cause of peace in Cyprus and around the world.

Tonight’s event takes place in the shadow of the ongoing crime that is taking place right here beside us, in the martyred land of Palestine.

Tonight’s event, in addition to the tribute due to the awardees, is yet another opportunity to demand an end to Israel’s attack on the Palestinian people, an end to the bloody slaughter, to the horrors that the Palestinian people have been suffering for so long, and to the strengthening of international law.

More than anyone else, we here in Cyprus know what war, refugees, blood and grief mean.

Half a century after the twin crimes of the treasonous coup d’état and the Turkish invasion, we are still burying our dead, still searching for our missing persons, still living the drama of being uprooted, still waiting for justice to be delivered.

The common struggle of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to live in peace and friendship in the land that gave birth to them is the only way to heal the wounds, to free our homeland from the vise of division and the destruction of the permanent partition of our homeland.

The organisation “Together We Can”, the late Panagiotis Paschalis and comrade Donis Christofinis have each in their own way made their own substantive and rich contribution to the struggle of Cyprus and Humanity for peace, progress and prosperity of the Cypriot people and the whole world.

The course of “Together We Can”, which counts more than twenty years of action, proves that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots can and must build on the ruins of war to build friendship, to heal the wounds together, to build the future together in a common homeland, in a common bi-communal state.

The life and the rich action of Panagiotis Paschalis, a fighter for solidarity and peace, is another component part of the struggles waged by the Peace Movement. “We will endure as they could not imagine,” he wrote to his family from prison in Israel. And endure he did, setting the pure example of a man faithful to the ideals of the struggle for truth, freedom, justice.

Donis Christofinis needs no special introduction. He is a comrade who, through his actions and his contribution, raised the concept of internationalist solidarity and the struggle for peace to a very high level. Donis served the People’s Movement of the Left from EDON Youth Organisation to the leadership positions of AKEL with dedication, selflessness and militancy.

Trying to portray the personality of comrade Donis, I could say a lot. But let me say the first thing that always comes to mind when I talk about Donis. It is his genuine, spontaneous, authentic smile. The smile of a man who has fulfilled his duty. The smile of those who look back on the life they lived with their conscience at peace. Nazem Hemet’s lyrics, as if they were written for Donis.

“If you worked like a communist,

If you thought like a communist,

If you loved like a communist,

If you fought like a communist,

If you lived like a communist,

You are the happiest man.”

And Donis is the happiest man in the world.

Again, I congratulate the awardees and the Cyprus Peace Council for tonight’s event.