“We owe it to our heroes to deliver a peaceful and prosperous Cyprus to the future generations”
Funeral eulogy delivered by Andros Kyprianou, General Secretary of AKEL, for the hero Andreas Mihail
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 24th April 2016, Nicosia
“We will not rush to partition the island. We will wait. The opportunity will be given to us on a plate…”
This is what Rauf Denktash (Note: late reactionary nationalist leader of Turkish Cypriot community) declared in 1962. Unfortunately he was eventually fully vindicated in the forecast he had made. The opportunity was given to Turkey with the betrayal committed in the summer of July 1974. Those guilty, both inside and outside of Cyprus, had long begun to prepare the ground for the Turkish invasion.
From the middle of the 1960’s the US and NATO had decided that “the best solution for Cyprus is partition”. By doing so they could use our country as a spy base and launching pad. To fulfill their goal they were elaborating and hatching plans for the partition of Cyprus, one after the other. The statement made by the leading US official Acheson, the instigator of the well-known partition plan which bore his name, that if he had the US 6TH fleet at his disposal he would partition Cyprus the day after, is characteristic.
Neither the US nor NATO, but neither Turkey had ever renounced their objective to partition Cyprus. On the contrary, they were scheming and plotting to gradually implement it. Indeed in many cases they were very close to doing so. In 1972, the US gave the go ahead to the junta and its advocates to proceed with the execution of a coup d’état, as the Finding of the File of Cyprus commissioned by the House of Representatives reveals. Eventually the coup d’état was thwarted after the Soviet ambassador conveyed the relevant information to President Archbishop Makarios. Unfortunately, the great disaster in the end was not prevented. In July 1974, the coupist plans of the foreign circles, Grivas and EOKA B were realized. This was the pretext Turkey had been waiting for to invade Cyprus.
Perhaps this isn’t how developments evolved? Is this just propaganda? Was the tragedy of 1974 perhaps a series of accidental events that occurred because of the “stupidity” of certain people or due to the “persistence” and “spontaneity” of some “fiery young people who were swept away by the vision of Enosis union with Greece”? This is what those who feel uncomfortable when faced with the tragedy insist on saying; those who feel uneasy in view of the tragic epilogue being written today in laboratories where the remains of the missing people are being identified; those who feel uncomfortable because deep down they themselves know too that they sent our children to fight in a battle that was from the very beginning betrayed and lost.
They sent Andreas Mihail of the 216 Infantry Battalion based in the village of Myrtou to fight such a battle.
Andreas went to the Military Training Camp for Young Conscripts of Larnaca in January 1974 to serve his military service in the National Guard, together with his twin brother Michael. The similarity of the two was often the subject of jokes and misunderstandings among their fellow conscripts. After three months of training Andreas was transferred to the 281 Infantry Battalion in Myrtou village for the second round of his military training.
On Monday 15th July 1974 the day of the coup d’état ,he and other soldiers were ordered to head towards Nicosia to strengthen the coup. On Tuesday 16th July 1974, the battalion was ordered to follow the path of Makarios who managed to survive the attack on the Presidential Palace and head towards the Kykkos monastery in the Troodos mountains. However they changed route and headed from Troodos Mountain to the city of Pafos, because of fighting and blasts by resistance fighters in the Pedoulas area. The next day, orders were given to the soldiers to control various posts in Pafos, while other soldiers were transferred to the villages of Panagia and Polis in the district of Pafos.
The question to this day remains unanswered. Why was their battalion transferred from the coast of Kyrenia to Pafos to impose the coup? When the battalion returned from Pafos on 19th July it was transferred to the Military Camp of Athalassa in Nicosia. The first company was ordered to move towards Bogazi in Famagusta to repel a possible invasion of the Turkish army. The rest of the companies, among them the second company where Andreas was also deployed, moved early in the morning of 20th July to the coast of Kyrenia. Unfortunately as it turned out, the invasion was a great betrayal. This can be seen from two key admissions that are recorded in the File of Cyprus. The first is the clear reference that the junta decided to allow Turkey to “put its foot on Kyrenia for reasons of prestige. ” The second is the admission that Bonanos (Note: General Bonanos, the Junta Chief of the armed forces of Greece) knew very early on about the Turkish invasion-landing but did not notify the General Command of the Cypriot National Guard because he had “prioritized other things to do.”
As the infantry battalion moved towards Kyrenia, at the summit of the village of Kontemenou, transport planes dropped hundreds of Turkish paratroopers in the region of Kioneli. Andreas was fatally wounded by airplane fire and was buried in a mass grave in the village of Kontemeno. In vain his parents Panayiotis and Eleni were trying to trying to find some trace of him.. They refused to accept that their child was lost so unfairly. Andreas was registered in the list of 126 persons whose cases were not submitted to the Committee of Missing Persons. Unfortunately the hopes of their parents faded as time passed. Eventually, the remains of Andrea were found in a mass grave in the occupied village of Kontemeno and were identified with the DNA method.
So the life of a brave young man who did not dream about becoming a hero, but just a humble man wrote the poet, was cut short forever; a young man who with his parents, his brother Michael, the smallest member of the family Sotiris and his young sister Maro lived a difficult but happy life, a poor but dignified daily life. Panagiotis and Eleni literally gave everything to their children in order to offer them what they could. Andreas was able to study hotel services in Kyrenia. The plan was to fulfill his military service and then spread his wings to begin his own life. Regretfully he did not fulfill his dream…
Our people were betrayed in the summer of 1974 a thousand times in the five days of the coup d’état of the Greek junta and EOKA B. It was betrayed a thousand times more than at any other time. In just five days Cyprus drowned in tears, pain, the uprooting of our people, in refugees and blood. The cream of our country was sacrificed for the freedom and dignity of Cyprus in an uneven battle. Our debt to this today, more than four decades after the twin crime committed, is to vindicate the sacrifice of Andreas and all the other brave young men.
For us, the solution of the Cyprus problem is our foremost and steadfast goal. We will continue to serve this vision of the Cypriot people with faith, courage and consistency – without of course this meaning that we will agree to any solution.
For us the solution of the Cyprus problem means a solution that will end the occupation and colonization, restore the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity of the Republic of Cyprus; a solution based on the UN resolutions, the High-Level Agreements, International and European Law; a solution that will demilitarize Cyprus and exclude any guarantees and rights of intervention in the internal affairs of our country by foreign forces; a solution that will reunite the territory, the people, the institutions and the economy under a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation with political equality as described in the UN texts. A solution containing precisely such characteristics must be put before the people of Cyprus, given that it will be agreed first at the negotiating table. We will devote all our strength to this cause.
We will categorically not allow the Cyprus problem to be sacrificed for the sake of the elections. We will never stop pointing out how much damage pre-election tricks/games and nationalist rhetoric can do to our people’s cause. Let’s not sacrifice, this time, the Cyprus problem for the sake of election percentages.
Let’s all try to rise to the occasion. The main obstacle to the efforts to solve the Cyprus problem is Turkish intransigence. Its illogical positions and demands do not leave any room for an understanding. Faced with this stand how should we act? Should we harden our position facilitating Turkey to achieve its objective? Definitely no. We remain committed to the agreed framework and consistent to the objective of liberation and reunification. Only then, will Turkish intransigence be exposed and its objectives are rendered unachievable. Only thus, and not with misleading and empty words and pompous rhetoric. Empty rhetoric, slogans, irredentism and illusions have caused enough damage to our country.
Our Cyprus is not a country like any other. It is a small country, which unfortunately has experienced a great tragedy. A small country is bleeding because of a great crime committed. A country where a few decided that some had to disappear, die, never again to see their parents and friends. Andreas and many other heroes did not yield or retreat, not for a moment before death. They didn’t fear the superiority of the Turkish army. They defended their Homeland, even though they knew that the betrayal and treason committed had already condemned them to their death. We therefore owe it to our heroes to vindicate them. We owe it to them to deliver to the future generations a peaceful and prosperous Cyprus. We will continue the struggle so a new day will dawn where a reunited federal Cyprus will be a beacon and an example of harmonious coexistence of two different ethnic communities that will be co-managing their common state for the entire world.
