Cyprus-Forum.com

[Bananiot]

What more evidence do you need Paphitis? He lead EOKA B for Christ's sake.

[Paphitis]

Paphitis, your political allegiance is of no interest to me. Grivas was not a brilliant milirary stragetist. He was below average with a very low iq.

Can not comment on his IQ either. But it appears that you have some reliable information on which you base your judgement.

I can only comment on what I have read on the 1955-1959 campaign against the British. And during this campaign he had proved a rather remarkable strategist. He was also respected as such by The British.

[Magnus]

EOKA accounted for every Greek Cypriot killed by them. Papadopoulos (the ex president) did this job in the Famagusta district. He wrote in a magazine called "Egertirion Salpizma" under the pseudonym of Defkalion. He "explained" every single murder committed by EOKA and he never suggested that reasons of personal vendettas were to be found behind a single murder.

All murders were political and the families of the murder are stil waiting for justice, that is, the removal of the stigma of traitor attached to their loved ones who paid with their life in the hands of EOKA thugs.

Bananiot, my point was that there were people pretending to be EOKA but in fact had nothing to do with the organisation. The ones that EOKA fighters may have accounted for are different.

I know this to be true as a member of my close family was murdered by people such as these, posing as EOKA fighters. I don't want to give details about this case.

Again, these people had nothing to do with the real EOKA heroes who gave their lives for their people and country.

[Paphitis]

What more evidence do you need Paphitis? He lead EOKA B for Christ's sake.

I have already told you as to my opinion on EOKA B and their actions. As I said, I have no particular allegiance to Grivas or EOKA B.

However, Grivas proved to be a good leader and military strategist during the 1955-1959 campaign. A campaign which you can see I hold dear. He served his purpose and that is all I can say.

[Get Real!]

I encourage everyone to have a look at this link…

http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.ar ... ?PubID=648

From there, you can click on “Read Now” to open the PDF (Acrobat) document.

Page 24 is where the “Case Study Cyprus” begins.

Most of the report is posted here below…

Regards, GR.



CASE STUDY CYPRUS

Overview of the Insurgency in Cyprus, 1955-59.

Cyprus was acquired by Britain from the Ottoman Empire in 1879
and spent the next 70 years as a minor colonial backwater. The small
colony, with total population of just over 500,000 in 1950, assumed
an increased importance for British strategy after Britain pulled out
of its colonies and protectorates in the Mideast after World War II.
The British viewed Cyprus as its vital base for forces in the Mideast
as well as its regional center of influence.56 However, trouble long
had been brewing. The overwhelmingly Greek population of Cyprus
(82 percent) was strongly in favor of ending British rule and uniting
with Greece. In 1931 the desire for union with Greece (called “enosis”
in Greek) led to widespread anti-British riots and the suspension of
local government.

After World War II, a war in which many Greek Cypriots loyally served Britain, the sentiment for enosis increased. A plebiscite sponsored by the Cypriot Church in 1950 resulted in a vote of 95.7 percent of the Greek Cypriots in favor of enosis.57 The
Greek government supported the cause as well, and tried to bring
the issue to international forums.58 However, the British were deaf
to any suggestion of abandoning Cyprus. The British Chiefs of Staff
insisted that the continuance of the colonial regime in Cyprus was
necessary for British defense. Having abandoned Palestine and
Egypt, the idea of losing their last colony in the Mideast region was
unthinkable. There would be no discussion of enosis or compromise
with the Greek Cypriots.

Given the degree of British intransigence, Cypriot political
leaders quietly prepared for an insurgency 3 years before it broke
out. Archbishop Makarios was acknowledged as the political as well
as spiritual leader of the Greek Cypriots, and the military leader was
a retired Greek army colonel, George Grivas, who had been born in
Cyprus. Grivas spent 2 years organizing and training cells of guerrilla
fighters around the island before initiating an insurrection. Through
1954, weapons and explosives were smuggled in from Greece. On
April 1, 1955, the insurgency began with a series of terrorist bombings
directed against government and police installations.

In drawing up his “General Plan for Insurrectionary Action” to
drive the British out of Cyprus, Colonel Grivas intended to institute a
campaign of violence and terror specifically directed at the British, “to
draw the attention of international public opinion, especially among
the allies of Greece . . .”60 There was no intention or expectation to
win militarily. “It should not be supposed that by these means we
should expect to impose a total defeat on the British forces in Cyprus.
Our purpose is to win a moral victory through a process of attrition,
by harassing, confusing, and, finally, exasperating the enemy forces
. . .”61 By demonstrating Cypriot resolve and self-sacrifice, “we are
prepared to continue until international diplomacy exercises through
the United Nations, and the British in particular, are compelled to
examine the Cyprus problem . . .”62

Although the insurgent military force (known by the Greek
acronym EOKA) never amounted to more than 200-300 active
fighters, they were able to mount a spirited campaign of bombings,
small ambushes, and assassinations. Although British losses were
relatively light—several dozen military and police personnel killed
each year—the insurgent campaign won worldwide attention as it
continued. Even though the insurgents put few active fighters into
the battle, they were highly effective because of the wide support
they had from the Greek Cypriot population.

For 3 years, the British struggled against small insurgent bands
with occasional successes, won more through luck than through
good planning or tactics. However, losses among the EOKA bands
were replaced quickly by other nationalists, and the fight continued,
quieting down only occasionally during periods of political negotiation. As a point in the history of counterinsurgency, the British government had the most lopsided ratio of police and military forces to rebel forces ever seen. At the height of the insurgency in 1956-57, the British government deployed 40,000 military and security personnel to Cyprus to control a total population of 400,000 Greek
Cypriots—one British soldier or policemen for every ten Greek
Cypriots. And the total number of active insurgents was never more
than a few hundred. If one views insurgency as a mathematical model
of force application, then the Cypriots did not have a chance. Yet the
Cypriots basically won the conflict. Although they did not get the
hoped-for union with Greece, the British cut a deal with the Cypriots
to grant them independence in 1959, with the government of the
island passing to the Cypriots who had mounted the insurgency.


The State of the Cyprus Police at the Start of the Insurgency.

Despite several years of warnings by Cyprus government officials
of the increased level of Greek Cypriot unrest, the outbreak of the
insurgency in 1955 caught the British government almost completely
unprepared. The Cyprus Police were especially unready for the task
at hand. For decades the Cyprus Police had been, in the words of
the Colonial Office’s chief police advisor, “a Cinderella service in a
Cinderella colony.”63 Cyprus was not a wealthy colony, and, although
it was supposed to be a major strategic asset, the fiscal realities of
Britain before and after World War II required that the colony pay
its own way. This meant that there were few funds to pay, train, or
equip the police.

The British long had tried to police Cyprus on the cheap, and they
got what they paid for. Police in Cyprus always had been poorly
paid, and postwar inflation made things especially bad. In the mid-
1950s, unskilled laborers could earn £25-30 per month, more than the
starting salary for a police constable, £21 per month.64 It was hard
to attract recruits with even a minimum standard of education to a
service in which the police officers earned no more than government
livestock managers or bailiffs. In comparison to other colonies,
pay was also low for the officers who might transfer from Britain
or another colonial police force.65 Simply put, the Cyprus police
did not attract a high caliber of enlisted or officer personnel. The colonial government’s attitude towards police working conditions,
or even basic police equipment, followed the same pattern. Police
stations did not have mess halls, and many were in old, ramshackle
buildings that the government refused to refurbish on the grounds
of economy.66 The quest for budget cutting extended even to a failure
to supply flashlights for the police. Before the insurgency, colonial
officials denied a request for £175 to equip the police with flashlights.67
Indeed, the entire Cyprus Police budget for 1954 amounted to only
£600,000. As one might expect, police morale was low, and the force
had a reputation for incompetence, poor leadership, and corruption.
Policemen stationed in villages had a reputation for avoiding duties
that might require actually confronting criminals, so banditry and
even vendetta killings were said to go unnoticed by policemen
unwilling to risk their lives for a pittance.

On the eve of the insurgency in 1954, the Cyprus Police consisted
of 1,386 men, a disproportionate number (37 percent) drawn from
the Turkish Cypriots (18 percent of the population).68 Police training
consisted of a 6-month basic course conducted in an old castle. Before
the insurgency, there were no higher training or specialist courses
offered for Cyprus Police personnel, which had a tradition of being
more of a gendarmerie than a modern police force. The Cyprus
Police were so backward that a criminal investigation branch was
only created in 1951. A police special branch was formed with three
officers in 1954 after the government became aware that radical Greek
factions were smuggling weapons from Greece. Thus, the police had
little time to study the incipient insurgent organization before the
violence began.69

The insurgent commander, Colonel Grivas, prepared the
insurgency by quietly searching out sympathizers among the Greek
Cypriot policemen. With morale and conditions in the police force
low and desire for enosis high among the Greek population, Grivas
had no trouble recruiting selected policemen from every branch of
the force who would provide the insurgents with detailed intelligence
information. From 1954 to 1958, as many as 20 members of the
Cyprus Police worked as active agents for the insurgents. During the
insurgency, some police officers actually hid wanted EOKA terrorists
on the sound assumption that the last place the British would search
would be the home of a police officer.

One of the first actions of the insurgents was to cripple the police
special branch, killing selected police personnel including two of
the three Greek Cypriot policemen assigned to Special Branch. In
June 1955, EOKA dramatically assassinated a Greek police sergeant
who had just been assigned to the Special Branch. The message to
the police was loud and clear: EOKA had full inside knowledge
of police operations and could target key personnel at will.71 If a
Cypriot policeman wanted to live, his best option would be to do as
little as possible against the insurgents. Thus, in the first 3 months
of the insurgency, the regular police effectively were crippled, and
the military had to take over most of the basic police duties on the
island.

Exacerbating the problem was the colonial government’s policy
of trying to fight an insurgency on the cheap. In protest over their
ludicrously low pay, Greek Cypriot policemen began resigning
from the force at the start of the insurgency. Those remaining were
compelled to work longer hours and perform extra shifts for no
additional pay. It was the last straw for police morale. With morale
already low and the cost of living increasing, the police considered
their working conditions to be intolerable. In June and July 1955,
many Greek policemen refused to draw pay in protest of their work
conditions. In August, many Greek Cypriot policemen submitted
their resignations from the force. The government, already concerned
over the personnel hemorrhage, took disciplinary action against 12
policemen and refused to allow the others to resign.72

Henceforth, no policeman under 55 years of age would be allowed to resign.73
Since Greeks were refusing to join the police, almost all
new recruitment into the regular police came from the Turkish
community. Still more men were needed, so a force of 400 Auxiliary
Police was raised quickly among the Turkish Cypriots. The already
low standards of the police force were lowered even further to
allow the recruitment of Turks, who generally had a much lower
education level than the Greeks, but were considered reliable and
loyal by the colonial government. Many of the Auxiliary Police were
Turkish farmers or laborers who viewed police work as a means of
income during the slack part of the agricultural year. With virtually
no training, the Auxiliary Police were sent into action and generally
employed in guard and security duties.


The British Respond.

With the situation clearly beyond the government’s ability
to control it, the hapless governor was fired in September 1955.
Recently retired Field Marshall Sir John Harding, formerly Chief
of the Imperial General Staff, was appointed Governor General of
Cyprus.75 Harding immediately called for army reinforcements, and
by October 1955 two infantry battalions had been sent, which raised
the army garrison to over 12,000.76 The military force on the island
would continue to grow throughout 1955-57.

Harding wanted to get the police back into the fight to free up the
army for offensive operations against EOKA, so he greatly expanded
the size of the Auxiliary Police. This action was against the advice
of experienced colonial officials who knew that overreliance upon
a Turkish police force would alarm the Greek Cypriot population
and likely lead to open conflict between the island’s ethnic
communities.77 By 1956, the Auxiliary Police had been expanded to
1,417 personnel. Distaining advice from some of the civilian officials
with long experience in Cyprus, Harding preferred to employ the
Turkish Cypriots to suppress the insurgency. In September, a new
police force, the Special Mobile Reserve, was recruited exclusively
from the Turkish community. The Special Mobile Reserve was to
serve as riot police and received considerably more training than the
Auxiliary Police. By 1956, the force had grown to 569 personnel.78
Because so few policemen met the minimal qualifications to serve
as officers or NCOs, the leadership for the new police forces would
be provided by importing police from Britain. British policemen
who came to Cyprus would receive a promotion in rank as well
as double credit towards their pensions. The colonial government
hoped to recruit young, aggressive police NCOs for the campaign,
but what they mostly got were older, lower-ranking policemen
close to retirement. Many saw a tour in Cyprus primarily as an
opportunity to improve their pensions. From 1955-59, a total of 400
UK policemen would serve on Cyprus. They did their best but were
not considered very effective because they arrived knowing nothing
of the language or local conditions and could barely communicate
with their subordinates, if at all.79 The UK Police unit in Cyprus also
developed a reputation for poor discipline. The first commander of
the UK Police Unit expressed dismay at the caliber of police sent
out from Britain and maintained that some of the UK county police
forces dumped their unwanted personnel on Cyprus.80
Harding refused to worry about the long-term effects of recruiting
police from the Turkish community, and failed to ensure that the
police had training or competent leadership. Expert advice from the
outside generally was ignored. General Templer visited the island
just after the start of the insurgency in April 1955 and called for a
thorough overhaul of the police force.81 Little was done that year.

The Cyprus Police Commission, composed of several senior police
chiefs in Britain, visited Cyprus in February and March of 1956 and
came up with a detailed and critical study of the police. Many of the
criticisms concerned the poor conditions and low pay that had pushed
the Greek Cypriots out of the force. The top UK policemen especially
were concerned about the poor quality of the newly raised Auxiliary
Police, who had received “little, if any, training.”82 The Commission
also expressed concern about the low personnel quality and training
of the hundreds of special constables—almost all Turkish—recruited
since the start of the insurgency. The Cyprus Police Commission
recommended that the Auxiliary Police and the special constables
be disbanded as soon as possible.83 Ignoring such advice, Harding
even expanded the Auxiliary Police, a force that reached a peak of
1,594 men in 1958. The Police Mobile Special Reserve also expanded
from 569 to 580 in the next year.84

Many of the Cyprus Police Commission’s specific recommendations
addressed the need for a comprehensive program to train
the police and provide professional indigenous police leadership.
They noted that the Cyprus Police training program was completely
inadequate. There was not only a lack of basic training for the
police enlisted men, but there was also no special branch course or
courses for higher officers. Unlike Malaya, there was no police cadet
program.85 Because of the lack of adequate mid and senior leadership
in the Cyprus Police, the Commission recommended that sergeants
be promoted from the ranks and sent to the UK for 2 years of police
training in order to provide the Cyprus Police with competent
indigenous leadership.

The Commission recommended that a new police school be opened with the capacity to train 240 policemen in a 6-month basic course and the capacity to train 100 officers in advanced and special courses. Plans were proposed to establish a new police school that would open in 2 years.87 In contrast to Young’s
approach in Malaya, there was no sense of urgency in training local
police leaders. The problem of reforming the police, training the
rank-and-file, and developing professional police leadership was
seen essentially as something to be dealt with after the insurgency
was defeated. In the meantime, the Cyprus Police would remain a
poorly trained, poorly led force, which would have a major impact
on the Britain’s failure to suppress the insurgency.
Harding did not see the insurgency as a prolonged war, but
rather as a campaign to be completed victoriously by inflicting a few
sharp blows against EOKA. He was confident that, with his ample
resources, he could finish EOKA quickly. On January 1, 1956, he
announced that EOKA’s days were numbered.88 Despite the recent
example of Malaya with its sophisticated civil/military strategy, on
Cyprus the governor general preferred a heavy-handed approach
to counterinsurgency that would bludgeon the population into
compliance with British rule. His willingness to employ firepower
upset some of the colonial officials and senior officers.

For example, Harding had more than a dozen naval vessels at his disposal to
patrol the island’s shores and interdict arms shipments from Greece.
Immediately upon his arrival, Harding issued orders to shoot on sight
any Greek vessel appearing off the coast of Cyprus, an act that drew
protests from the commander of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean
Fleet, who sensibly pointed out that such actions would cause serious
problems with Britain’s NATO ally.89

With his massively expanded police force—up from 1,397
personnel in 1954 to 5,878 in 1956—Harding succeeded in freeing
up military manpower to conduct large-scale operations in the
mountains and rural districts of Cyprus where many of the rebel
bands were based. Military reinforcements continued to flow into
the island, and by early 1956, more than 20,000 army troops were
on Cyprus. With the thousands of Royal Navy and Royal Air Force
personnel on the island, plus the Cypriot security forces, Harding
had approximately 40,000 military and police personnel under his
32
command to oppose about 200 insurgents. However, lacking an
effective special branch to provide intelligence and employing an
overwhelmingly Turkish police force that was alienated from the
Greek population, British intelligence on the rebels was consistently
poor. It was a war of the blundering elephant versus the gnat. Small
guerrilla bands, supported by the rural population, regularly evaded
the regime of strict controls, district searches, and massive sweeps.

The massive British use of manpower also failed to interdict EOKA’s
arms smuggling or inhibit offensive actions against the British. The
occasional British successes in destroying small EOKA units tended
to come more through chance contacts with patrols than through
any clear intelligence information. Despite Harding’s prediction of
a quick decisive victory, throughout 1956 the program of bombings,
assassinations of police and British officials, and attacks on military
convoys increased.

The Police and the Greek Population.

If Harding carefully had planned to alienate the entire Greek
population of the island and push the moderate Greeks into full
support of EOKA, he could not have done better than by his policy
of unleashing a horde of untrained, poorly-led Turkish police on the
population. Communal violence, rare in Cyprus before the insurgency,
flared up in 1956 and increased throughout the insurgency. When
the Turks rose against the Greeks, usually in response to an EOKA
killing of a Turkish policeman, the all-Turkish Special Mobile Reserve
and Auxiliary Police routinely stood by as Turkish mobs assaulted
Greek civilians and ransacked their property.90 The Cyprus Police
were not merely passive about their duty to protect all Cypriots from
lawbreaking. During a series of searches in Famagusta, the Auxiliary

Police were accused of looting Greek homes. While Harding
dismissed claims of police and military abuse as Greek propaganda,
his own officers saw the issue rather differently. The district police
commissioner of Famagusta noted that many of his policemen had
come from the lowest level of Turkish society and “are known not to
have been beyond criminal activities in the past.” Of the allegations
of police looting, he commented, “I myself have little doubt that
there is substance in a fair proportion of them.”91
33
While it is difficult enough to keep well-trained and welldisciplined
police and intelligence officers from abusing prisoners
and detainees in counterinsurgency campaigns, Harding’s policy of
employing poorly-trained policemen guaranteed a culture of prisoner
abuse during interrogations. Many reports of the insurgency include
British observers’ accounts of abuse of Greek detainees by the Cyprus
Police.92 British journalists on the island nicknamed the Cyprus Police
and intelligence personnel “HMTs” for “Her Majesty’s Torturers.”93

The poor standard of leadership throughout the Cyprus Police
added to the discipline problems. Although Harding ordered his
police to operate according to the law, he did little to ensure proper
behavior of the security forces. In reality, the British administration’s
policy was to deride any criticism of the police automatically and
characterize accusations of misconduct by the security forces as part
of an orchestrated insurgent plan to discredit the security forces.94

Such confrontational tactics did not go over well with the British
journalists, especially those who personally witnessed incidents.
British and international press coverage became increasingly
negative about British policy and behavior throughout the course of
the insurgency.
The abusive behavior of the Cyprus Police was a godsend to the
insurgents, who made the actions of the security forces a central
theme in their international propaganda campaign. Claims of British
police abuse were made by the Greek media and brought to world
attention with the support of the Greek government. There was
enough evidence of police and military brutality to lend credence
to the charges. In 1956 the Greek government brought the issue of
security force abuses in Cyprus before the European Commission,
forcing an international investigation of British police and military
actions.95 Although some of the allegations were refuted later, the
political damage to the British government was severe.

British and international journalists also reported in detail
on the communal riots in Cyprus and described how the Cyprus
Police stood by as Turkish mobs attacked Greeks. Such actions
undermined British legitimacy, and the images of the communal
violence were broadcast around the world in graphic detail. British
newspapers began to criticize the Harding regime—and with good
cause.96 The failure of the British government to respond to credible
allegations haunted the debate over Cyprus policy. In time, criticism
of the Cyprus administration found its way to the House of Lords,
as well as the United Nations (UN) and the European Civil Rights
Commission.97

Field Marshall Harding left Cyprus and retired in November
1957, convinced that his strategy had worked. He was wrong. A year
later the Greek Cypriots and British negotiated a deal to give Cyprus
independence in 1959. Harding’s strong-arm tactics, combined
with a policy of throwing large numbers of poorly-led and poorlytrained
police at the insurgency, had been a spectacular failure.
More than anything else, the end of British rule was brought about
by international political pressure, fuelled by the effective use of the
media by Greek Cypriots and the Greek government. Grivas’ longterm
strategy—to simply stay in the field and harass the British with
small attacks—failed to inflict any serious damage on the British
forces, but was successful in keeping the attention of the international
media focused on Cyprus.

Security force misbehavior played a key role in mobilizing world
opinion against Britain. In the end, the insurgents were grateful for
Harding’s strategy. Colonel Grivas, the insurgent leader whom the
British never caught, declared that the first act of the new government
after Cypriot independence should be to raise a statue to Field
Marshal Harding, “since he had done more than anybody else to
keep alive the spirit of Hellenic resistance in Cyprus.”98


CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A study of the two counterinsurgency campaigns offers some
important practical insights and lessons concerning the best
means of standing up and training effective indigenous police and
military forces. While every insurgency has its unique aspects,
there are also circumstances that often are repeated in other
insurgencies. This conclusion offers a few general insights to help
understand the nature of counterinsurgency operations, as well as
some specific recommendations to change U.S. military doctrine
and policy for training indigenous police and military forces in
counterinsurgency.

[Paphitis]

Welcome back GR!

[Oracle]

The sad killings by EOKA of fellow GCs .. even if accused of treason cannot be justified. They certainly do not have my blessing. There is always a different way.

But they are another evil phenomenon brought to us by the British, for without their rule such acts would not have happened on our soil. They are not the acts of GCs left to their own self-rule.

The invaders, Turks and Brits, have brought nothing but death to the GCs ... The GCs are a people naturally far-removed from a war-mongering mentality otherwise they would not have settled on such a small island but have invaded other lands ... something they have never done in their history.

We were forced to defend ourselves, we were forced to kill invaders and our own people ... all because of the Turks and the Brits.

They are the guilty culprits.

We should learn from history that we need to pull together against these enemies of Cyprus.

[Vuryek]

So educate me please...

Were EOKA a bunch of terrorist thugs..? Or were they heroes that need to be looked up to..?

I have brought this subject up on many occasions over the past 20 years with various GC's. I have been told that the majority of Cypriots disagreed with EOKA and their methods but were afraid to speak out against them for fear of their lives and that of their families.

I quote one as saying...."We did not know who was or who was not a member of EOKA so we had to watch what we said out loud for fear of a bomb being planted in our gardens.."


Quite a few have also said they wish Cyprus was still a British colony.

No doubt your comments will be interesting......

Neither. Deep history. Read Makarios Drushotis, you will find all answers there.

[BirKibrisli]

One aspect of this whole sad saga keeps staring us in the face...
In 1950 there were 400,000 GCs and 100,000TCs give or take a few thousand other minorities....Yet the GCs totally ignored the feelings of the TCs and pushed ahead with their demand for ENOSIS....What did they think the TCs would do against such a terrible possibility (for them!)????

I am yet to read any attempt by any rightthinking member of this Forum addressing this issue...And please don't say "bad luck,majority rules"...
My point is those pushing for ENOSIS knew how the TCs would react...So how did they really hope to overcome the TC resistance??? Come on people,time to show some empathy for your TC compatriots...What would you do if you were in their shoes???? And put your hands on your hearts and tell me,was it not asking for real trouble for GCs to disregard the TC feelings on this...given the past 450 years of Cyprus history????

[denizaksulu]

One aspect of this whole sad saga keeps staring us in the face...
In 1950 there were 400,000 GCs and 100,000TCs give or take a few thousand other minorities....Yet the GCs totally ignored the feelings of the TCs and pushed ahead with their demand for ENOSIS....What did they think the TCs would do against such a terrible possibility (for them!)????

I am yet to read any attempt by any rightthinking member of this Forum addressing this issue...And please don't say "bad luck,majority rules"...
My point is those pushing for ENOSIS knew how the TCs would react...So how did they really hope to overcome the TC resistance??? Come on people,time to show some empathy for your TC compatriots...What would you do if you were in their shoes???? And put your hands on your hearts and tell me,was it not asking for real trouble for GCs to disregard the TC feelings on this...given the past 450 years of Cyprus history????

That question has been asked many times before. I hope you might get an answer. This is where democracy fails the numerically inferior group of people.