The stamp of shame will accompany the architects and pawns of treason for ever
AKEL on the 51 years since the fascist coup of 15 July 1974
15 July 2025, AKEL C.C. Press Office, Nicosia
The black anniversary of 15 July 1974 recalls the implementation of the NATO plan that drowned our country and people in blood. The fascist coup against the Makarios government executed by the Greek Junta and the underground armed EOKA B organisation of Grivas was the first part of the general plan for the partition of Cyprus and that’s why it was subsequently followed by Turkey’s brutal invasion.
As such, the coup was a conscious complicit action in the tragedy suffered by our people. It was treason, not some “foolish act” nor was it a “civil war”. Our people certainly do not forget that it was the coupists who opened the back door to the invading Turkish army of Attila when the coupists themselves hid in the rear and engaged in the murder of leftists, supporters of President Makarios and Turkish Cypriot civilians, leaving the children of our people to wage the unequal and betrayed battle with the hordes of invaders. No matter how many years may pass, the stamp of shame will accompany the architects, perpetrators and pawns of treason, but also its current advocates forever.
AKEL pays tribute and expresses its gratitude to the fighters of the Democratic Resistance who took up arms to fight fascism at the Presidential Palace, the Archbishopric, the working-class neighbourhood of Kaimakli, the Eftapato region, the Third Gymnasium of Limassol, Kolossi, the city of Paphos, the working-class neighbourhood of Ayi Yianni in Larnaca and other locations of the Republic. We honour the resistance fighters who wrote history with their courageous stand in the places of martyrdom, in prisons, interrogations and torture chambers. We honour our own people who did not compromise with the coup d’état and the EOKA B terror, but who defended the Republic and the lawful government of Cyprus.
AKEL will not cease to defend the historical truth and democratic memory in our country against the organised falsification of the truth by the Right and the ultra- right.
It is the minimum debt we owe to the true heroes of our country.
It is a shield of democracy combatting the far right which is poisoning a section of Cypriot youth in its attempts to turn modern Cypriot history upside down.
It is, at the same time, an integral part of the anti-occupation struggle for the liberation and reunification of Cyprus. For a solution to the Cyprus problem on the agreed basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality. For a free and independent Cyprus, a common homeland for all Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Maronites, Armenians and Latins.
14.07.2025
