Behind the Trouble in Cyprus
PERETZ, DON
Nationalist feeling on the British island in the Mediterranean is being stirred up by an incongruous team of Greek Orthodox clergy and Communists Behind the Trouble in Cyprus By Don Peretz The...
...They include a ban on singing the Greek national anthem and use of portraits of the Greek royal family in Cyprus schools...
...The agricultural population of 180,000 was debt-laden and living in ignorance and poverty...
...The British still refused to consider union now, although they did put forward far-reaching proposals for home rule under British tutelage...
...Because the people are not free to choose their own destiny, he describes his fight against British rule as a struggle for freedom from "enslavement...
...The 37-year-old black-bearded patriarch was elected to his post for life from among the island's Greek priests...
...Government agricultural services have done much to raise productivity through advanced soil conservation and water supply development schemes...
...But by 1946 a census of farm land showed that 84 per cent was farmed by its owners, 10 per cent leased, and only six per cent sharecropped...
...Aside from Israel, Cyprus is the only Middle East country where the Communist party is legally operating above ground...
...The leaders of the Greek community rejected the plan outright...
...Cyprus, largely made up of small holdings, was falling into the hands of great landowners who had collected their estates from bankrupt peasants...
...Actually the island, because of its well equipped communications system and excellent location--60 miles west of Syria and 40 south of Turkey--is expected to serve as a "brain center" rather than a base for the bulk of the redeployed British Middle East forces...
...Only a little over a hundred of the island's 5,000 Government employes are English, but the British right of final determination in all policy matters causes much resentment among the lesser Cypriot officials, most of whom are Greek...
...The British argue that Enosis would lead to the collapse of all that has been done in the past 77 years...
...Memories of the war between Greece and Turkey and of the fate of their compatriots in Greece during the 1920-22 struggle scotch any latent Enosis sympathies among this minority...
...While he acknowledges that this is not slavery in the traditional sense, he claims that there have been many instances of "British repression...
...As evidence, he cites the ban on a Cadillac presented to him by American admirers...
...Malaria, which used to take a high toll of lives, has been wiped out...
...In Greece, the party is banned...
...If a change were to be made, however, they would want it to be in the direction of a return to Turkey...
...The cooperative system was inaugurated after World War I. Before that the island's economy was based on the relationship between peasants and merchant money lenders...
...Don Peretz, Director of Research for Regional Research Analysis, has made a study of the Cyprus problem...
...In the last election of an Ethnarch and Archbishop, the AKEL-backed candidate received nearly half the votes...
...With Britain's departure from Suez, Cyprus has been projected as the headquarters of its Middle East land forces...
...The Greek flag was outlawed, and the old Archbishop and other Greek nationalist leaders were exiled...
...Danger of open insurrection threatens for the first time since 1931...
...According to the Archbishop, the Enosis, or union movement, had no beginning, but has existed since the island came under foreign domination...
...Although the Archbishop and his right-wing nationalist supporters have a foothold in most villages and in Nicosia, the capital, they are hard-pressed by the Communist-front AKEL (Progressive Party of Working People...
...Yet at the war's end they were more than ever determined to have Enosis...
...During World War IT, Cypriots played an active and willing role in the Commonwealth effort against the Axis...
...Indeed, the violence that erupted in Salonika, Istanbul and Izmir shattered the fragile alliance between Greece and Turkey which has so patiently been built up in recent years...
...Of the 215,000 participants, 96 per cent voted for Enosis...
...A network of hard-surfaced highways now makes it possible to reach almost any part of the island within a few hours in all weather...
...The island's 90,000 Turks bitterly oppose Enosis...
...From the long range point of view, even local British officials cannot deny the inevitability of Enosis...
...For days after the incident, Cypriots came to Government offices with apologies for the way "things had got out of hand...
...Thus he can manipulate popular sentiment, as he did in 1950 when the Ethnarchy arranged a plebiscite among the Greek population...
...But the British authorities reacted with strong measures...
...There is some undercurrent of Turkish nationalism, as evidenced by street names in the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, such as Ataturk Avenue and Tanzimat (Turkish Reform) Way...
...The British invited delegations from Greece and Turkey to London last month, but the talks only revived deep animosities...
...In 1918, the Colonial Office attempted to counter the Enosis movement with an offer of a new constitution granting limited home rule...
...The central figure in the agitation is Makarios III...
...Reluctantly, Makarios concedes that improvements have been made in the island's economy, health and educational services under the British...
...It controls the municipalities of the three port towns--Larnica, Famagusta and Limasol--and is the largest single political group on Cyprus...
...Altogether, 10,400 volunteered for the British forces...
...At the conclusion of the London parley the Greeks were as determined as ever to unite Cyprus with the "motherland...
...They also fear evacuation might undermine Mediterranean security...
...until the recent agitation, almost 25 years passed without incidents...
...The question is, when will all the parties concerned agree to the union with Greece...
...Most of the land in the latter category is owned by the Greek Orthodox Church, the largest single land holder on the island...
...Nationalist feeling on the British island in the Mediterranean is being stirred up by an incongruous team of Greek Orthodox clergy and Communists Behind the Trouble in Cyprus By Don Peretz The failure of Great Britain's latest attempt to quiet Greek and Turkish inhabitants on Cyprus leaves the question of the island's allegiance still open...
...Nevertheless, plans call for building a large base near Nicosia, to which a small part of the uprooted Suez garrison will be transferred...
...There is no hatred of the West...
...Although most villagers placidly follow their priests and village headmen, Cypriot nationalism is not of the rabid xenophobic type so prevalent in the Middle East...
...The island is immune from a surprise ground attack, but its strategic value is limited...
...This suppression, according to the Archbishop, is intended to prevent the island's children from acquiring "Greek consciousness.'' Also, since the recent outbreak of nationalist demonstrations, the British are enforcing police emergency regulations outlawing public meetings and imposing press censorship...
...The island's cauldrons of nationalism are being stirred by an incongruous team of Greek Orthodox clergy and Communists...
...Even hamlets in the pine forest at the top of snow-covered Mount Trodos have periodic cooperative meetings...
...Gradually the 1931 restrictions were eased, until in 1943 the Government permitted the formation of political parties and municipal self-government...
...Until that time, the British will have to use increasing force to maintain a modified status quo and administer larger and larger doses of self-government to the islanders...
...They are content to remain British colonial subjects...
...Makarios controls the Cyprus Enosis movement through the influence of the village priests, who are under his direct authority...
...Archbishop and Ethnarch (civil leader) of the 410,000 Cypriot Greeks...
...The last major outbreak occurred in 1931, when Government House was burned more by chance than by premeditation...
...But the British argue that surrender of their civil authority might facilitate Communist sabotage or insurrection...
...When Britain acquired Cyprus from Turkey in 1878, the island was an outpost of a backward, degenerate empire...
...A compromise solution which has been suggested is a form of Enosis under which the British would continue to maintain their military and communication bases...
...The movement was intensified in the postwar era because of a growing awareness of the self-determination principle among the small, educated urban middle class...
...Because farmers could only finance their holdings with loans obtained at usurious rates, they fell deeper and deeper into debt...
...A few of them receive their schooling in England, but more are now sent to Greece, where they acquire "national consciousness...
...Only about half the island's laborers are organized, but most of them belong to AKEL-dominated unions...
...Turkish opposition to the union flared up to greater intensity than ever before...
...Much of the island's area is arid, stone-ridden and uncultivable, but 77 years of British rule have changed Cyprus to one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East...
...They abolished the constitution and restricted the right of assembly and freedom of press...
...There is a free elementary school within reach of every village...
...illiteracy is almost nonexistent among the younger generation...
...He insists, however, that most of these changes were introduced by non-British groups like the Rockefeller Foundation, and even greater progress could have been made under Creek hegemony...
...Every town and village has its own credit cooperative, and many have producers' and marketing coops...
...Under the proposed reforms the Governors veto powers would remain intact, thus eliminating all possibility of union with Greece...
...Although he often speaks to foreign journalists in benign tones, with an almost humorous twinkle in his eyes, he phrases his statements on current affairs in bitter hyperbole...
...Military men estimate that the three tiny Cyprus ports could barely supply 60,000 troops...
...The Archbishop asserts that the island suffers economically because all imports must come from the United Kingdom, even if available cheaper elsewhere...
...Upon return to the island, many enter Government service and their irritation against Colonial Office officials is intensified...
...Since then the population has almost tripled and its living conditions far surpass those of the average village in Greece...
...One paradox of the Cyprus Communists is that they are struggling to be free of a nation which permits their existence in order to join one which would outlaw them...
Vol. 38 • October 1955 • No. 39
