Speech by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou at the mass rally to denounce the fascist coup and Turkish invasion of 1974
18 July 2018, “Skali” Amphitheatre, Aglantzia Municipality, Nicosia
Every year, on such days we again live through those painful moments of July 1974. The shots, the tanks, the bombings, the caravans of fleeing refugees, the lines of people waiting to receive some food from the Red Cross and the refugee tents.
Every year on such days, our hearts are filled with bitterness as we recall the time when we were fleeing our homes with the clothes we wore, but mostly we remember the illusion that we would be returning to our homes in just a few days.
Every year on such days our hearts are filled with pain every time they stop at the crossing points.
We are again the voice denouncing the betrayal; the consciousness reminding the people of the crime committed and asserting vindication; the slogan tearing down the barbed wire of division and echoing everywhere that Cyprus belongs to its people! Forty four years later, we lay wreaths of honor on the tombs of our dead and heroes. We take the vow to vindicate their sacrifice.
Every year on such days, the Right and the ultra-right feel very uneasy and uncomfortable. That’s why they create a smoke screen with their aphorisms in the discussion. “Everyone bears responsibilities for 1974”. “Makarios was also to blame”. “There was violence and anti-violence.” All these claims are nothing but an insult to the memory of the dead and brutally falsify our country’s history.
However, no matter how hard they try, no one forgets, nothing is forgotten.
There is no treachery without traitors, no crime without criminals
Every time the Right wants to cover up its anomalies, ideological obsessions and dogmatism, it argues that “we are all to blame”. It says that the responsibilities are timeless and shared. It insists on seeking to impose its own narrative as the official narrative and version. The truth is somewhere else.
We did not all play the same role in the summer of 1974. We haven’t all played the same role since then.
On the one hand, AKEL together with other parties, as well as the overwhelming majority of the Cypriot people, rallied around the non-aligned policy pursued by Makarios.
On the other hand, there were a handful of EOKA B conscious fascists.
On the one hand we had thousands of honest patriots who shed their blood for democracy and freedom.
On the other, we had those who had sold out to the Greek junta.
Therefore, we didn’t all play the same role.
On the one hand, there was Grivas and EOKA B, who despite the fact that they knew the coup d’état would give Turkey the pretext to invade, designed and consciously executed it as soon as they found the opportunity.
On the other hand, AKEL, which, despite having prevented – as a result of the militant rallying of the people around Makarios – the planned coup in 1972 wasn’t complacent. AKEL was constantly warning about the criminal plans being hatched against Cyprus. AKEL proposed the creation of a People’s Militia that would have operated as the opposing pole to EOKA B, but also the National Guard which was under the control of the Greek Junta. Unfortunately, AKEL was not listened to.
Today, on the one hand there are thousands of Greek Cypriots struggling for the reunification of our country; who are adamant that our people can live in freedom and united, and on the other, there are those forces and circles who want to concede half of Cyprus to Turkey. If only patriotism and logic will prevail this time and not nationalism, intolerance and phobias.
The plans to overthrow Makarios and subjugate Cyprus to US-American interests had begun to be elaborated long before. As it turned out later, Cypriots were also among the protagonists of the conspiracy. According to the testimonies recorded, all the attempts carried out against Makarios were coordinated by the Commander of the Special Commando Forces (LOK) Demetris Papapostolou and Polykarpos Giorkatzis. The latter also had the necessary weapons for the aspiring assassins, Athanasios Poulitsas, Makarios’ adjutant, was also aware of the plans to assasinate Makarios.
In 1972 developments had taken their course. Leading EOKA B member Stavros Stavrou Syros was receiving arms. Other EOKA leaders had made arrangements to receive money from the United States. Grivas was corresponding with Greek junta dictator Ioannides by making arrangements to promote the plans of the coupists. All through the years of EOKA B’s activities, plans to execute murderous operations were being prepared against Makarios: “Apollo”, “Gronthos”, “Hermes”, “Retaliation”, “Victor” and “Thunderbolt”. Some of them bear the very signature of Grivas himself, others of Syros and others of Karoussos.
With the treacherous coup, half of the crime against Cyprus and the Cypriot people was committed. The other half was executed with the subsequent Turkish invasion; when the betrayal of the coup opened the back door to the Turkish army invaders. The Turkish army invaded and continues to occupy more than a third of our country’s territory. It drowned thousands of Cypriots in blood and tears. Refugees, missing persons, enclaved people in the occupied areas, refugees in their own country. The barbed wire of shame still stains the body of our island.
The Cypriot people, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, have been deprived of their rights for 44 years and are living separated by the force of arms. The colonization of the occupied areas directly threatens future of the Cypriot people in the land that gave birth to it, while it coexists permanently with the threat of the presence of approximately 30,000 Turkish soldiers.
“To be victorious we first of all need a clear objective purpose. And there can be nothing else other than one and only goal, ENOSIS (Note: the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus with the union of Cyprus with Greece) and nothing else. Today we are strong, stronger than ever. I promise you one thing only in the name of the Army. That if the enemy dares to make a landing, it will be crushed. It knows it very well and does not talk about a landing, but threatens us with bombing. Again, however, I promise that if it dares bomb the civilian population, our response will be like lightning and immediate and I’m sure it will repent.”
This was said by Grivas in January 1965. A few months earlier he undertook the task of promoting the Acheson Plan[1]. What Spyros Papageorgiou[2] wrote is characteristic who reported that “when Grivas sent for publication in his friendly newspapers the two Acheson plans for the Cyprus problem, he wrote to his collaborators: “we should promote it. That is what we shall base our policy on.” This is the Insanity of the “national-minded” forces of the Right. This is a characteristic feature through the decades to date. On the one hand, they mislead the people with big words and empty rhetoric and on the other they let time do its job. That is, to consolidate the fait accompli of the occupation and bring us to the verge of partition.
The greatest crime against the homeland was committed because the “national-minded” forces of the Right due to their intolerance, fanaticism and dogmatism did not want our people to live together in friendship on the land that gave birth to it; because they wanted to sacrifice the feasible for the sake of the desirable; because while it filled the minds of the people with false empty slogans, it was at the same time acting as the Fifth Column to implement the plans of imperialism against Cyprus. Eventually the landing did take place, and Grivas’ thugs, who during the days of the coup was holding high their Kalashnikovs, celebrating because “Mouskos[3] is dead” ran to hide far behind the battle lines by sending the unarmed and betrayed Cypriot patriots to the front line.
As for the Greek junta forces, who were making fiery and nationalist speeches, they sold out Cyprus in the worst possible way. General Bonanos’[4] testimony is characteristic that on the dawn of 20th July the day of the Turkish invasion, even though he knew about the Turkish landing, he did not communicate with Cyprus, because he had “prioritized other things to do.” The Junta Head of the Cypriot National Guard Georgitsis’ testimony is also very characteristic that Bonanos had given orders to let the Turks “for reasons of honor and prestige land somewhere in the region of Kyrenia”.
The coupists remained unrepentant even after the consequences of their crime were manifested. Others remain unrepentant to this day, without any apologies for all that they have committed. Indeed they are waving their finger at us. They are delivering lessons about patriotism. Unfortunately, this behavior characterizes them even to this day.
Most of them went from the Kalashnikovs to the political party that has ‘housed” them, namely the governing DISY party and from there to positions of power: parliamentary, Ministerial and others. If indeed it happens and somebody asks them uncomfortable questions about 1974, their memory suddenly fails them. They don’t remember anything. They have forgotten everything.
We do not forget!
Who can forget so much blood shed in the struggle against fascism and the invasion?
Can we forget our heroes and martyrs, comrades Costas Mishaoulis, Costakis Evagorou, Nikos Flourentzou, Kyriakos Papalazarou, Andreas Kestas, Pampos Christofi, Tasos Christofi, Pantelis Charalambous, Christakis Kombos and so many other comrades?
From the ranks of the mass organizations the People’s Movement of the Left, sprang brave young lads like Gabriel Theodosiou, Andreas Stylianou, Gerasimos Leontiou, Evelthon Ioannides, Nikos Karasamanis, Achilleas Kourtellis, Georgios Adamou Hadjitefanis, Yiorgos Charalambous, Andreas Theodossiou who was just 14 years old, and so many other comrades.
These are our name, honor and pride.
They are AKEL’s service in blood towards the struggle for democracy and freedom.
Today, forty-four years later, Turkey is asserting its goal with consistency: the partition of Cyprus. The tragic irony of history is that Turkey again finds valuable allies on our side, those who use the same or similar rhetoric to the pre-1974 era, trying to convince us it’s better to leave things as they are
The same can be said for the unrealistic and demagogic approach towards a unitary state and the abandonment of a bizonal, bicommunal federation.
True patriotism is not judged by words, but by actions and deeds.
The true patriots are those who rushed back then to fight on the front line of the war when our homeland’s democracy and freedom was threatened and fought the battle until the last drop of their blood.
The true patriots are those who today continue to struggle to reunite our country, not those who soothe the people with false words and at the same time are comfortable with the occupation.
The true patriots are those who envision a peaceful future, a whole Cyprus and free that belongs to its people.
The price of the memory of our heroes, the future of our children and their children is the debt we have been paying for decades struggling for a reunited Cyprus.
We are proud because we are the ones who, on the ruins of 1974, built the movement for the rapprochement of the two communities.
We are proud because since then we have been the voice that is constantly asserting for all of Cyprus. We are the movement that has a vision for tomorrow’s Cyprus and a political proposal on how this vision can be fulfilled in practice.
We are proud because we have not even for a single moment put narrow-minded approaches, revanchist and petty-party expediencies and considerations over and above the future of our country.
This is patriotism.
Mr. Anastasiades would do well to realize it and stop delivering lessons to us.
We do not permit him to accuse us of supposedly wanting Turkish troops and guarantees in Cyprus. Neither Mr. Anastasiades, nor anybody else will find even half a proposal, or a single reference by AKEL that implies this. The first political leader who raised at the negotiation table the issue of the abolition of the guarantees and created a momentum for pressure to be exerted on Turkey on this issue was Demetris Christofias. The only political leader who actually accepted the guarantees was Mr. Anastasiades himself in 2004. So let’s not insist on fantasies. Let him just reflect on the current situation and take decisions about the future of the country.
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 certain forces and circles may have decided to sacrifice the Cyprus problem for whatever expediency, or because Mr. Anastasiades is employing his supremacy in the media to accuse AKEL of supposedly “adopting Turkish positions”. The Turkish positions are served in the best possible way by those forces and circles who let time go by and the occupation to be consolidated day by day.
Mr. Anastasiades undertook the handling of the Cyprus problem from D. Christofias with joint communiqués that safeguarded the long-standing positions of our 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 safeguarded; with the international community acknowledging that our side was one step ahead as a result of demonstrating its readiness to solve the Cyprus problem.
What did the Mr. Anastasiades himself do and to what stage did he lead the Cyprus problem?
I am sorry to say that the Anastasiades-DISY Government often gives the impression that in their minds they have proceeded to the day after and are simply managing the situation.
How else can one explain the President’s references to two Exclusive Economic Zones?
How else could the outlandish directives on petrol fuel in the occupied areas be justified?
Or the instructions regarding archaeological monuments (in the occupied areas)?
We have said and shall repeat it once again: Cyprus will not be saved by casinos, the bazaar of passports for business and the sacrifice of the people and country for the sake of the business of the Presidential Palace and DISY’s inner circle. Mr. Anastasiades must realize even now the weight of responsibility he has, doing what it takes to not go down in history as the President of partition. So as to anticipate certain forces and circles, let me make it clear that what he must do is not to consent to unacceptable concessions. He must demonstrate determination, undertake initiatives and highlight with consistency our positions and arguments.
Yes, Turkey has a long-standing responsibility for the non-solution of the Cyprus problem. Yes, the other side is putting forth unacceptable positions. We ought to do everything we can to make it very clear to everyone that the Greek Cypriot side is consistently seeking the solution of the problem. Mr. Anastasiades has to take initiatives that nullify Turkey’s position for a two state solution, not to leave the way open for such positions to be brought to the fore.
“What do you really want? If the Cyprus problem is solved Cyprus will be Turkified”, some say. Cyprus will be Turkified if the Cyprus problem is not solved. Cyprus will only be saved if it is reunited. For decades, Turkey has consistently been developing policies that deepen the dependence of the Turkish Cypriot community on Ankara and weaken them.
It promoted the economic integration of the occupied territories through funding in the energy, water, construction and tourism sectors.
It is seeking constant interference in the occupied areas.
It is attempting to cultivate fanaticism in religion as a means of exercising greater control over society.
A section of the Turkish Cypriot community resists assimilation, but such a small community will not be able to hold out indefinitely against powerful Turkey.
If this time the Right in the Greek Cypriot community does not understand this it will cause irreparably damage Cyprus.
The Special Envoy on Cyprus of the Secretary-General of the United Nations Jane Holl Lute will soon begin a round visit on the Cyprus problem. We hope her mission will be successful. This depends mainly on Turkey. But it also depends to a great extent on Mr. Anastasiades’ stand as well. He must reply very clearly and convincingly that he is ready for a resumption of substantive talks with a view to reaching an agreement as soon as possible.
AKEL insists that a resumption of substantive negotiations is demanded. The goal must be the conclusion as soon as possible of an agreed solution.
A solution based on the long-standing decisions of the National Council which will rid us of the occupation and the guarantees.
A solution that will terminate the occupation and colonialization (of the occupied areas) based on the UN Resolutions, 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 federation with political equality as described in the United Nations texts.
A solution that will lead to a united state, the continuation of the Republic of Cyprus with a single sovereignty, a single international personality and a single citizenship.
“On October 15, 1974, after three months in prison, together with sixty others, they took us to our village, Ayios Georgios in Kyrenia, to get some clothes. Everywhere we saw destruction and dead bodies. I have never seen such destruction. Such a curse…We then started to go to my home. I saw foreign curtains on the windows. Will they let me in? They were kind to me. They told me to get the only thing inside that was my own, namely the candles of my wedding. But I did not get them because I had the hope that I would be going back again.”
This was the account of refugee Elli’s chronicle of the modern Cypriot tragedy. The bitterness of destruction and the uprooting of the people and that hope that they would be going back soon.
That hope that has been kept alive for years in the refugee camps and settlements.
That hope that was making the mother’s hands to always put an extra plate on the table and an empty chair for the beloved one she is waiting for.
That hope that was strengthening the hands raising the black-and-white photographs of missing persons.
That hope that raises the glasses at every holiday in the refugee settlements to repeat the wish “may next year see us all in our homes”.
That hope that soothes the mourning in the rooms identifying the remains of our missing persons and above the coffins wrapped in the Cyprus flag.
No one has any right to betray this hope!
We won’t permit its betrayal!
No! We do not sell out homelands!
We haven’t tired!
We do not yield!
We shall continue!
We are adamant!
We are the voice that will not cease asserting the future!
Cyprus can and must be reunited.
Cyprus can and must turn a page in its history.
Let’s write together with our Turkish Cypriot compatriots new chapters of peace, progress and prosperity.
Long live our Cyprus!
Honor and Glory to our heroes!
[1] US President Johnson’s special Cyprus representative who presented a plan for the dissolution of the Republic of Cyprus and partition of Cyprus through “double enosis”, i.e. the division of Cyprus between Greece and Turkey
[2] Ultra-right Greek Cypriot journalist and leading official of the 8 day fascist coup “government”
[3] A common name used as a derogatory term of abuse by the ultra-right and EOKA B against President Makarios.
[4] Leading Greek Junta General, main protagonist of the conspiracy against Cyprus and democracy
