Speech by General Secretary of AKEL St. Stefanos at the plenary session of the House of Representatives to denounce the Black Anniversaries of the coup and invasion

 

15 July 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia

On behalf of AKEL, I would first of all like to pay tribute and express my gratitude to the democratic resistance fighters who stood up and resisted the fascist coup of the Athens junta and EOKA B, but also against the murderous actions of the Organisation of Grivas that preceded the tragedy of 1974 for three whole years.

On behalf of AKEL, I express our honour and gratitude to the thousands of patriots who, despite the treachery of the coup, stood against the hordes of Turkey’s armoured invading army of Attila with meagre means and tried to save our country from destruction.

We owe honor and express our gratitude to the dead heroes of the resistance to the coup and fascist terror, as well as to the dead of the Turkish invasion. On behalf of AKEL, I express our solidarity with the families of the missing persons, the wounded and disabled of the war, the prisoners of war who experienced the horrors of the Turkish dungeons, the enclaved people in the occupied areas, the war-stricken people and the refugees.

All of them are victims of the twin crimes of the coup and the invasion. The coup and invasion were part of the planning finalised at the NATO Foreign Ministers’ Summit Meeting in Lisbon in 1971. The scenario envisaged the overthrow of Makarios which would provide a pretext for Turkey to invade. This would impose the partition of Cyprus that would absolutely suit and serve the interests of the NATO alliance and especially the Anglo-Americans in the wider Middle East region.

This is exactly what happened in July 1974. The National Guard, controlled by the Greek junta, attacked the Presidential Palace and imposed a coup in vital areas. Cypriot coupist members of EOKA B began arresting and “clearing” towns and villages. They imprisoned, tortured, murdered, vandalized the houses of the Left and not only the of the Left. Those who committed all these crimes are known, but they hid behind the olive branch Makarios brought with him which, in the end, with the mock catharsis that took place and the impunity that prevailed, was transformed into a Pool of Siloam.

And all those who had been so engaging in their bravado, holding Kalashnikovs automatic weapons in the coup, when Turkey invaded, hid in the rear, sending all the rest to fight the invader. There were also those coupists who, even during the Turkish invasion, continued to arrest and attack leftist and democratic resistance fighters, many of whom were kept in detention for weeks even when Turkey was advancing. The murder of Doros Loizou is the culmination of the post-coup murderous action of EOKA B.

And while all this was happening there are forces in Cyprus who insist that the coup was supposedly a “civil war” and that “there was violence and counter-violence”.

Really, what kind of counter-violence did Kyriakos Papalazaros, a fourteen year old boy, exert when EOKA B during their illegal activities murdered him by shooting him in the mouth?

What resistance did the four Heroes of Ayi Yianni in Larnaca – including a child and a teenager – exercise when they were murdered by the armed coupists?

What kind of resistance did the four Heroes in Agios Tychonas exercise when they were murdered in cold blood by the coupists?

None of them carried a weapon. Just as Kostas Misiaoulis did not carry a gun but was assassinated by the coupists.

What kind of resistance did the Hero Sotiris Konstantinou, who was murdered in the back for refusing to obey the order given to attack the Presidential Palace?

The cases are too numerous.

A coup cannot be a “civil war”, because one side was the lawful state and the other was those who attempted to overthrow it. The coupists aimed to overthrow democracy and impose a dictatorship while the resistance fighters were defending democracy. The coupists sought the arrest and execution of the elected President of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, and the resistance fighters defended him.

The coup was not an act of foolishness, nor was it an act of recklessness, as the certain circles call it. It was known that Turkey would invade Cyprus if there was a coup. There were a lot of warnings, statements, press reports, specific information. For that reason, no coupist can be credited with any ignorance of the consequences of the coup. The coup is an act of high treason, and those who played a leading role in it committed high treason.

The enormity of the betrayal committed ss revealed by the fact that the coup leaders not only failed to implement the plans for the defence of Cyprus that were in place, not only did they remove from their area of responsibility military units whose mission was to repel the first wave of the invasion, but they even banned any resistance in the first critical hours. The journalist Anna Andreou describes just how crucial these were in her book with testimonies of Turkish officers who participated in the invasion. The Turks were very worried that they would not be able to land in Cyprus if there was even a rudimentary resistance from the start, which the coupists did not allow.

Sophistries about “civil war”, “violence and counter-violence” and the “folly of the coup” blur the criminal political nature of the coup, equate perpetrators and victims, cover up the role of NATO forces in the Cypriot tragedy, avoid a clear condemnation of the betrayal committed and pave the way to a dangerous historical revision. A revision that is immoral, an insult to all those who resisted the coup and to all those who gave their lives to save our people from the fury of Turkey’s invading army – particularly when such sophistry comes from official lips.

History becomes a proper signpost for the way forward when it is not falsified and distorted. Policies sprinkled with a large dose of illusions, nationalism, anti-communism and intolerance have led to disaster. In the name of Enosis (union with Greece), those who called themselves super-patriots and the rest traitors provided the pretext for Turkey to invade. When all these dangerous ideological concepts return to history, and today are being brought back by the far right, which is rearing its head once again, we are in danger of suffering new tragedies, and we must not permit this to happen.

Fifty-one years later, our Cyprus is still living the consequences of the Turkish invasion and occupation. The permanent partition threatens us as never before as the occupying power exploits the passage of time to consolidate the de facto partition both on the ground and in the minds of the people. Time is running out, the longest deadlock ever continues and the Turkish side, Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot leadership, is now officially advocating a two-state solution.

Against such a negative backdrop, if we want and mean to reject partition and are not tacitly comfortable with it, our policy needs to assume specific elements:

1. Stability and consistency in what we have agreed from time to time in the negotiations, whether this concerns the basis for a solution, which is the Bizonal, Bi-communal Federation, or specific chapters and aspects of the Cyprus problem that are included in the convergences. Abandoning either the basis of the solution or the convergences will bring us even closer to permanent partition.
2. Without mincing words and equivocation, we must be in favour of continuing negotiations from the point where they were broken off in Crans-Montana and ready to negotiate the outstanding issues included in the Guterres Framework.
3. Formulating a positive agenda that will help unleash the motivation and momentum to break the deadlock and resume negotiations.
4. Develop policies and implement confidence-building measures on the part of the Republic of Cyprus towards the Turkish Cypriot community in order to strengthen trust and confidence-building relations between the two communities.

By being consistent, firm in our positions and taking concrete initiatives, we can build credibility, become convincing and be steps ahead of Turkey, which is comfortable with the gradual slide towards partition.

In view of the meeting in New York and, regardless of the low expectations that exist, we must go in good will and be ready to negotiate. It may not all depend on us, Turkey is the key, but at least we must at all times exhaust whatever leeway we have in our hands to push things towards a solution and not towards consolidating the status quo. We hope that the outcome of the forthcoming meeting in New York will be one that keeps the prospect of a solution alive. AKEL will continue to have the solution of the Cyprus problem as its principal political priority and will continue to devote all its energies to it.

Fifty-one years after the twin crimes and if for some people “I do not forget and I fight” tends to remain a dusty slogan, for AKEL it is a life commitment, a debt to those who have passed away and a duty to those who will come.

Fifty-one years later we do not forget, we continue to fight for a free, reunited and peaceful Cyprus. Without occupying troops and without any partitionist barbed wire.

For a Cyprus that belongs to its people – Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins. This is our vision, this is what we strive to realize.

Honor and glory to our heroes!