Cyprus: The Divided Island

By Dr. Niki Karavasilis

Cyprus, The Divided Island

By: Dr. Niki Karavasilis

Cyprus, The Divided Island, is a concise book of the most complex, intricate, and unjust history in the world narrated by people who lived and still live in Cyprus. The read

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dr. Niki Karavasilis
• Release date: Mar 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890216311

Dr. Niki Karavasilis

Dr. Niki Karavasilis, a professor of foreign languages, was born in Greece and educated in the United States. Fluent in many languages, she taught for thirty-five years at college levels in Athens, Greece, and at several universities in New England.She was the founder of the workshops in New Hampshire: In Search of Excellence in Teaching Foreign Languages, the president of IBI (international Business Institute) in New England, Chairman of Foreign Languages, Examiner of Foreign Languages for the State of NH, Director of Cultural Heritage Alliance for European Exchange programs in Europe, and visiting professor at the University of Moscow, Madrid, Athens, and Cairo.A member of numerous honor societies, she was selected for Whos's Who in America, Who's Who in the East, and Marquis Who's Who, for her outstanding achievements in the teaching profession. She was commended for her efforts in promoting the study of foreign languages by the Consul General of Spain in Boston, Andres Drake, and President Ronald Reagan.Upon her retirement, Dr. Karavasilis became an author and a lecturer on Greek politics and Culture. She is the author of Scattered Leaves, The Abducted Greek Children of the Communists: Paidomazoma, Reaching America, The Whispering Voices of Smyrna, Οι Σιωπηλές Κραυγές της Σμύρνης, The Journey of Hope, Shattered Lives, The Mental Intruder, The Greek Jewish Boy in Auschwitz, and Cyprus, The Divided Island.

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Cyprus

The Divided Island

Cyprus

The Divided Island

By Niki Karavasilis

AUTHOR OF EXCELLENT HISTORICAL NOVELS

The contents of this work, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of events, people, and places depicted; opinions expressed; permission to use previously published materials included; and any advice given or actions advocated are solely the responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for said work and indemnifies the publisher against any claims stemming from publication of the work.

Cyprus: The Divided Island

©2024 by Dr. Niki Karavasilis All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Published by Dr. Niki Karavasilis

ISBN: 979-8-89021-632-8 Paperback

ISBN: 979-8-89021-633-5 Hardback

ISBN: 979-8-89021-631-1 eBook

Printed in United States of America

This book is printed on acidfree paper.

CONTENTS

The Myth of Our Cat

When I was a small child, I wondered

If she was Greek.

The cat of our Greek neighbor,

One day I asked my mother

If cats are Turkish

And dogs Greek.

Their dogs have snarled at our kittens.

Days later

I saw our cat

Eat the kittens that she gave birth to.

By Mehmet Yassin 1985

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my beloved Greek Cypriots who with a rare exemplar of courage, dignity, and heroism fought to liberate their island

from colonialism.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my immense gratitude to my Greek Cypriot friends, especially to my good friend, Mr. Victor Pitsilidis, for his invaluable help, guidance, advice, and thoughtful suggestions. Without his help, I wouldn’t have been able to understand the island’s intricate and complex history to complete this book: Cyprus, The Divided Island. Mr. Pitsilidis made our discussions clearer when my knowledge of the history of the island became cloudy at times, and the pitfalls of Cypriot events were inconceivable.

I am also grateful to Eleni Themis for her kindness. She opened up her world to teach me the Cypriot history of atrocities, violence, and instability until the island was divided into two sections: the northern section from the south by the buffer zone called the Green Zone. Her special invitation to visit her in Nicosia, Cyprus, to show me her world, touched me to the core. She made the struggles of the Greek Cypriots so real, especially when she described their stamina and courage to liberate Cyprus from the English dominance and the foreign powers. The historical twists and political pitfalls became alive and unbelievable before my eyes, as we visited and talked to her hospitable relatives and friends. Their confessions were surreal and unbelievable, describing the sufferings of the Cypriot people dur-

ing the Cypriot civil war, and when the foreign powers managed to cut off this beautiful island in half, to protect their interests.

Many thanks to my family for their ongoing support over the years; my husband Panos, the rock of my life, my son Taki, for his extensive support, my daughter Loula, who brought excitement and encouragement into my projects, and my beautiful grandchildren.

Lastly, a special thank you goes to the following people for their friendship, love, and guidance:

Antonis Antonopoulos

Alicia Lampros

Henry Lubinski

Soula Lubinski

Theodoros Mitakos

Anna Muller

Effie Papanicolau

Victor Pitsilidis

Andreas Safirakos

Marika Sofianou

Evangelos Spirou

Eleni Themis

Lisa Theotokis

Ronnie Williams

PROLOGUE

When I met Eleni Themis, I didn’t know that Cyprus had so much devastating history and I thought that it would be a simple topic for my tenth book to write, but I slowly discovered that the history of Cyprus was so complicated that at times I wanted to give up, but Eleni kept encouraging me to continue until the end. She told me that the book about Cyprus had to be written by an outsider, and assured me that the book will be of great interest to all. But I must admit that it was one of the hardest books to write due to the twists and turns of the island’s historical events.

Turning the clock back to the beginning of my journey, visiting and writing about Cyprus, I discover that many players participate in the pitfalls, victories, and mistakes to solve the Cypriot Question with the most detrimental results.

Many times, I asked myself, whose fault was that this beautiful island was divided in half? Was it the strategic location of the island, the British control, Makarios III’s extensive rejections of the political decisions, the havoc events or was it the narrow mindless negotiators who had their interests to achieve their own personal benefits?

There are so many questions without any clear and definitive answers. The only thing that we know is that many mistakes were made

for the downfall of Cyprus. Starting with Great Britain, we were faced with the stiff orders of Robert Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, stating many times that he wasn’t given an inch to the Cypriot Government. The ego of this leader to get his way and push the Turkish and Greek Cypriots under his power to accept his terms are obvious. He, among other British government figures, manipulated the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots to fight each other, stringing along with one disaster after another. However, the Cypriots were proud and strong people but frustrated under the oppressive British rule, fought until the end, to gain their freedom and independence under the most horrific circumstances and disappearances of lives.

The political disasters by the players in the Cypriot history are many in the downfall of Cyprus. Archbishop Makarios III, a native of Cyprus with charismatic mannerism, and the president of the island for decades was able to influence and inspire his followers to fight for the island’s independence, but he made many mistakes along the way with his decisions.

Makarios III’s first mistake was when he signed the Zürich-London Agreement, giving the Greek Cypriots the same rights as the Turkish Cypriots, the minority of the island. This agreement allowed both sides to live amicable next to each other without any fights, but, when Makarios, a stubborn Greek Cypriot, heard one of his followers calling him a traitor, was determined to correct his mistake by introducing the 13 points, amendments to the Zürich-London Agreement, giving more rights to the Greek Cypriots, the majority of the island, than the minority, the Turkish Cypriots. Of course, this was against the Turkish Cypriots, which triggered the invasion of the island by Turkey.

Makarios III’s mistakes and rejections were many. He rejected for example the Radcliffe and Harding Plan, a well-known proposal known for its three negatives:

It is not our position that the principle of self-determination can never be applicable to Cyprus. It is our position that it is not now a practical proposition on account of the present situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, that presented a basis of self-determination leading to the freedom for the Cypriot people.

Makarios, who wanted self-determination of the island, indirectly forced Great Britain to play one of the dirtiest games in the political Cypriot arena by instigating Turkish Cypriots to fight against the Greek Cypriots, to hold on to their colony.

George Grivas, another player in the liberation of Cyprus, the leader of EOKA and EOKA B organizations, the freedom fighters of Cyprus, fought against the British to achieve Enosis, uniting the island with Greece. However, George Grivas’ unstoppable involvement in fighting for Enosis added more gasoline into the fire that brought forth chaos, fear, atrocities, violence, and the civil war between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots, with the result to divide Cyprus into two parts by the buffer zone called the Green Line. Today, this Green Line that was supposed to be a temporary solution still exists forty-seven years later.

Grivas was a stubborn leader who believed that he was always right and acted many times on his own without the advice and help from Greece and Makarios III, to achieve his unrealistic dream of Enosis. In the end, after the downfall of Junta in Greece, his dream of Enosis faded and lost its luster, stringing along with failure after failure for the Greek Cypriots.

The mother countries; Greece and Turkey, did add their ingredients of failure by manipulating and forcing Makarios III’s government to reject their demands. Along with the above mother countries, the United States had also the blame for the downfall of the Cypriot liberation, especially when Kissinger, a self-centered and ignorant politician, not understanding what was happening on the island ignored the Turkish invasion. In the end, Kissinger to cover his feeble insights and failures stated that Turkey acted honorable, just, and fair by invading Cyprus. Not only was he ignorant, but was also too busy with Nixon’s Watergate problem, and Cyprus was the least of his worries, especially having extensive hate for Makarios III.

Ioannidis regime, in Greece, after the downfall of the Papadopoulos junta, was another leader who smashed everything for Cyprus, starting with the assassination of Makarios III which he failed miserably. His incompetence of not sending any assistance to Cyprus when the Turkish invasions; Attila I and Attila II took place, left Cyprus all alone to fight the Turks from Ankara. He didn’t have a clear picture of the political arena in Cyprus, believing blindly in Grivas’ dreams of Enosis.

Ecevit, the Turkish leader, was the only one who understood very well the events in Cyprus and Greece, and like a fox waited for the opportune moment to take action; to grab more land, and more rights for the Turkish Cypriots, with the result, to divide the island in two by making the northern part of Cyprus the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus recognized only by Turkey, and the southern part of Cyprus, the Republic of Cyprus recognized by the rest of the world and becoming a member of the European Union.

The mistakes were many that were made by the feeble politicians that in the end, they butchered Cyprus, the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean Sea.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Cyprus, the most beautiful island in the Mediterranean named from the Greek word (kypros) for its lucrative deposits in copper, was cursed to suffer and to be divided due to its magnificent, strategic, and geographic location.

Cyprus, Greek: Κύπρος; Turkish: Kıbrıs, officially called the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country, the third-largest, and the most populous island in the Mediterranean, located south of Turkey; west of Syria and Lebanon; north of Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian region of the Gaza Strip; and southeast of Greece.

The history of the Island of Cyprus is filled with myths and legends. From the 15th century B.C. onwards, Achaeans settled on the island and established deep ties with mainland Greece. The Achaeans were part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece about 1600

B.C. As a strategic location in the Middle East, it was occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Persians from whom the island was seized in 333 B.C by Alexander the Great. Subsequently, it was ruled by the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty, and the Venetians, followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914).

Cyprus has a very complex and intricate past; starting when it was placed under the UK’s administration based on the Cyprus Con in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. Disraeli, a British statement who bought the controlling interest in the Suez Canal, also signed a pact with the Sultan, by which the British were to occupy Cyprus and safeguard the frail Ottoman Empire.

In June 1878 Sir Garnet Wolseley, the first High Commissioner of Great Britain, traveled to the island to meet with Archbishop Sophronius who, in an elegant speech, looked forward to a new life for his people in Cyprus, not realizing that the problems between the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots would be part of the island’s turbulent years.

Although the Turkish Cypriots made up only 18% of the population, the Turkish Cypriot leaders, and Turkey, advocated the annexation of Cyprus to Turkey, believing strongly that Cyprus was considered an extension of Anatolia by them, ignoring the island’s population of just over 500,000, 82% Greek Cypriots.

The Orthodox Church, on the other hand, was pursuing Enosis, a union with Greece. A plebiscite sponsored by the Cypriot Church in 1950, resulted in a vote of 95.7 percent of the Greek Cypriots in favor of becoming part of the Nation of Greece. But, many Turkish Cypriots, however, believed that the referendum was not valid because it was conducted entirely amongst the Greek Cypriots of the Orthodox faith. They also believed that considerable church pressure was extensive on these people to vote for Enosis and if they voted against it or didn’t vote at all, they would have lost their rights to church rituals for marriages, births, and deaths.

All along, the Cypriot Greek Orthodox Church led the movement for Enosis. After World War II, Archbishop Makarios III secretly in

vited Cypriot-born retired Greek Army Colonel Georgios Grivas to form the Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Aghoniston, (EOKA) or National Organization of Cypriot Struggle, a military arm of the Enosis movement. Grivas, with his code name, "Digenis", a half-Arabic, half-Roman warrior in the Byzantine frontier, considered himself as the only hero who was able to defend Cyprus against the British rule and fought aggressively to achieve Enosis. He stated many times that the Greek Cypriots had to free themselves from British control and unite with Greece. Thus, on April 1, 1955, under his leadership, EOKA, the liberation struggle, a small group of 300 guerrillas, started with a series of bomb attacks. Grivas had no intention to tackle the British head-on, but relied on sabotage and small-scale killings, combined with propaganda, and strengthened by the passive resistance of the Greek Cypriot population.

Grivas began the campaign of violence and guerilla war against the British throughout the island with the help of Archbishop Makarios III. This political movement turned out to be brutal; many Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, and British were killed. The British, not understanding the Cypriot mentality, believed that the people of Cyprus made a luxury of discontent. They stated that the Cypriots always pretended that they did not like to be ruled, and yet, they expected to be ruled and preferred it.

On August 20, 1955, Greece submitted a petition to the United Nation requesting the application of the principle of self-determination to the people of Cyprus, but the British rejected it. The British not wanting to grant independence to the Cypriots, and to be in command of the political situations of the island, after losing the Suez Canal, moved their Middle East Headquarters to Cyprus in December 1954, making it clear that they intended to stay on the

island for the immediate future. The main MI6 station for the Middle East now was based in Nicosia and the Middle East High Command in Episcope. Permanent radio signal monitoring stations were placed on Agues Nikolaos, Mount Troodos, Olympus, and Pergamos in Cyprus, which reached its signal as far as Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan.

Seeing that the British were in Cyprus to stay, Grivas increased the violence. On the night of March 31, 1955, 16 bombs exploded in Nicosia and several other main towns on the island. The insurgent organization, EOKA, proclaimed that it was acting to persuade the British to grant Enosis with Greece. Their slogan was,

Cyprus must get rid of the English and we will do so. If anyone loses his courage and attempt to co-operate with this rule, he will be struck implacably.

The British administration by now had shifted the dispute from a colonial dispute to an ethnic dispute between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots. They supported the Turkish Cypriots community for Taksim (partition), as a counterweight to the Greek ideal of Enosis. This was the British only solution to resolve the problem by having two communities with opposing visions for the future of the island, but the Greek Cypriots rejected that idea.

Thus, the violence continued and became so excessive that in 1959 Britain, Turkey, and Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities agreed on a settlement for Cyprus by signing the ZürichLondon Agreement, and Makarios III became the president of the island, forcing Grivas to return to Athens. Makarios III had accepted that Enosis was not to be and that the only outcome which would secure harmony in Cyprus was independence, increasing a good relationship

with Turkey as well as Greece, and becoming a high-profile member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

In 1960 Cyprus became an independent republic, but the Treaty of Guarantee gave Britain, Greece, and Turkey the right to intervene in Cypriot politics. Meanwhile, Britain retained two military bases in Cyprus at Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

In 1963 President Makarios III made 13 points, amendments to the Cypriot Constitution, pushing for more rights for the Greek Cypriots since they were the majority. This sparked the outbreaks of fighting between Greek and Turkish communities; Nicosia was divided, and the border was patrolled by the British troops, creating the buffer zone called the Green Line.

The crisis of 1963–64 brought further inter-communal vio, hit-and-run operations between and . The United Nations immediately sent a peacekeeping force, which displaced more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into and brought the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the republic.

In 1967, in Athens, a military coup took place, and the tension between Makarios III and the Greek regime commenced. For the first time, Makarios III rejected strongly the idea of Enosis, uniting with Greece, under the junta regime. This of course brought forth more interference to Makarios III’s government by the Greek junta under the dictator, Georgios Papadopoulos.

In 1971 Grivas came back to Cyprus from Athens to form EOKA B. He tried again for Enosis, but this time without any help from Makarios III, who was trying very hard to unite the Greek and Turkish Cypriots under his presidency. He wanted nothing to do with the junta government in Athens.

The Turkish Cypriots also rejected the Enosis movement, not wanting to be governed by the Greek junta from Athens which was more demanding and brutal. It was a regime of far-right military colonels who ruled Greece with an iron fist from 1967 to 1974. Things were getting worse in Greece especially when Dimitrios Ioannidis took over, placing Georgios Papadopoulos under house arrest, and at the same time ordering the coup d’état against Makarios III in the summer of 1974, to replace him with Grivas. But the replacement of Makarios III with Grivas never happened because Grivas died of a heart attack in January 1974.

The sporadic inter-communal conflicts continued throughout the island, especially on July 15, 1974, when the coup d’état took place, ordered by the Military junta in Greece, and staged by the Cypriot National Guard in conjunction with EOKA B in Cyprus. It deposed the Greek Cypriot President Makarios III and installed Nikos Sampson as the president. The Turks, fearful of being invaded by the Greeks, and the killings by the EOKA B Greek guerrillas, ordered the Turkish troops from Ankara to invade Cyprus to protect their people, the Turkish Cypriots.

The Turkish invasion, Attila I and Atilla II, of Cyprus, took place on July 20, 1974, after a ceasefire collapsed. The Turkish troops invaded and occupied one-third of the island, alleging that they had come to protect the Turkish Cypriots. Since then, the island has been divided into two parts: the Southern which is controlled by the Cypriot Government, and the north occupied and administered by Turkey. It was at this time that 140,000-200,00 Greek Cypriots were displaced from the north in place of 42,000-65,000 Turkish Cypriots from the South. Turkey occupied the northern third of the island, The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus which is considered a puppet state

under Turkish control. This separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983. It was a move that was widely condemned by the international community, with Turkey alone recognizing the new state. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a sovereign entity, lacks international recognition, and only enjoys full diplomatic relations with Turkey in violation of Resolution 550 that was adopted on May 11, 1984, by the United Nations Security Council. The international community considers the northern part of the island to be the territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. This occupation is viewed as illegal under international law and amounts to the illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Turkey’s application for EU membership has been in the queue for membership since the 1950s without any results.

The Republic of Cyprus has de jure sovereignty over the entire island, including its territorial waters, and exclusive economic zone, except for the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which remain under the UK’s control according to the ZürichLondon Agreements.

The Republic of Cyprus is de facto partitioned into two main parts: the area under the effective control of the Republic, located in the south and west, comprising about 59 percent of the island’s area, and the north, administered by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, covering about 36 percent of the island’s area. Another nearly 4 percent of the island’s area is covered by the UN buffer zone, the Green Zone.

Rauf Denktaşh, the first president of the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was consistent in one purpose,

to destroy forever the concept of a single Cypriot nation-state, common to both Greeks and Turks. He believed it should be replaced by two ethnically cleansed statelets linked only by a very weak confederal authority.

Makarios III, a Cypriot clergyman, and the first president of Cyprus for three terns, before he died, did manage to come into an agreement with Rauf Denktaşh with the formula known as the High-Level Agreement of 1977, accepted by all:

We are seeking an independent, non-aligned, bi-communal Federal Republic.

The territory under the administration of each community should be discussed in light of economic viability or productivity and land ownership.

Questions of principles like freedom of movement, freedom of settlement, the right of property, and other specific matters, are open for the discussion taking into consideration the fundamental basis of a bi-communal federal system and certain practical difficulties which may arise for the Turkish Cypriot community.

The powers and functions of the Central Federal Government will be such as to safeguard the unity of the country, having regard to the bi-communal character of the State.

The Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the Common since 1961 and was a founding member of the until it joined the European Union on May 1, 2004. On January 1, 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the .

The years passed and still, bitterness exists among the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Cyprus is a victim of imperial caprice and cynicism. It is a disgusting situation that was entirely engineered by the

British. The violence and the Greek Cypriot protests continue along the Green Line or Nekri Zoni (dead zone).

Today, Cyprus is called the Republic of Cyprus: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία (Greek) and Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti (Turkish). The capital is Nicosia, the largest city on the island with the official languages: Greek and Turkish with minority languages: Armenian, Cypriot Arabic, and Russian.

CHRONOLOGICAL EVENTS

1878: The British negotiate an alliance with Turkey to assume the administration of Cyprus.

1914: Britain annexes Cyprus when the Ottoman Empire sides with Germany in the First World War.

1925: Cyprus becomes a British Colony.

1955: EOKA begins under the leadership of George Grivas supported by Makarios III. Makarios is abducted by a British Operation called Apollo, a special Branch Officers, and is exiled to Mahe island Seychelles. After one year he is released from exile and forbidden to return to Cyprus and goes to Athens.

1959: Greece, Turkey, and Britain agree on the London Settlement and Makarios III is elected president, defeating his rival lawyer Ioannis Clerides.

1960: Cyprus becomes an independent republic.

1963: President Makarios III introduces the13 points, amendments to the Cypriot Constitution and outbreaks of fighting take place. Nicosia is divided in two and the border is controlled by British troops. Turkish Cypriots withdraw from power-sharing.

1964: Violence continues and the United Nations sends a peace-keeping force. Turkish Cypriots withdraw into enclaves.

1967: A military coup takes place in Athens. Tension builds between President Makarios III and the Greek regime.