What were EOKA doing during the independence negotiations? Still fighting for "union and only union"?
A TMT leaflet distributed in Larnaca on 6 June 1958 included the following:
O Turkish Youth! The day is near when you will be called upon to sacrifice your life and blood in the PARTITION struggle - to the struggle for freedom. You are a brave Turk. You are faithful to your country and nation and are entrusted with the task of demonstrating Turkish might. Be ready to break the chains of slavery with your determination and will-power and with your love of freedom. All Turkdom, right and justice and God are with you. PARTITION OR DEATH
The TMT, though smaller and less well organized, followed EOKA tactics. Hence, the boycott of British goods, which EOKA had ordered on 6 March 1958, was now applied by the Turks to Greek produce. Turks caught smoking Greek cigarettes or using Greek shops were beaten up by gangs of youths. Any Turk who deviated from the national line that coexistence with the Greeks was impossible was liable to be denounced as a traitor.
In spring 1958 two Turkish Cypriot democrats who belonged to a Greek and pre-dominantly left-wing trade union were murdered by TMT, not primarily for their ideological beliefs but mainly because such membership involved co-operation with the Greeks. EOKA was taking similar action against its “traitors.”
By mid-1958 Turkish Cypriots were sure that soon the tide would turn their way. On 7 June 1958, Turkish Cypriots started fires in Nicosia. In two months of bitter communal strife, 56 Greeks and 53 Turks were killed. Paphos were burnt down. In Nicosia, the Olympiacos club and other places suffered the same fate.
Passions reached a climax on Thursday 12 June 1958, when the Turks massacred eight Greeks during a clash near the Turkish village of Guenyeli. The report by the Commission of Inquiry (Sir Paget Bourne, Chief Justice of Cyprus, was the sole Commissioner) was published in Nicosia on 9 December 1958. The commission sat from 20 June to the 28th. It found that the 35 Greek “prisoners” from Skylloura had been rounded up by the security forces and, surprisingly, released on the same day near Guenyeli, seven miles from where they were arrested and a considerable distance from the nearest Greek villages. This incident has gone down in Cypriot history as the “Guenyeli Massacre,” organized by the British and executed by the Turks.
On 4 August, Grivas issued a cryptic leaflet declaring a five-day cease-fire against the British and Turks, but reserving the right to future action in the event of provocation.
The TMT responded two days later with orders that all armed groups should stop their activities until further notice, that no Greek property should be touched unless Turkish property was touched and that no pressure should be brought to bear on Greeks.
Although communal strife did not break out again the August cease-fire soon broke down because the authorities continued to hunt EOKA men. Grivas, who had by now become more of a legendary figure and was described as Apiastos (the one who cannot be taken), ordered his execution squads back to work.
Rauf Denktash, who was becoming increasingly popular among the Turkish-Cypriot community during that era, said later:
Everyone, including the British services, believed that I was the leader, that I was making all the decisions! But I was not. Army officers in Turkey were in head of TMT.
As the Cypriot Turks entered the conflict EOKA responded by intensifying its activities and with a rigorous propaganda campaign as well. One of its leaflets to the British conquerors and their Turkish collaborators said in part:
We shall not negotiate our right to LIBERTY .
We shall immediately answer the horrible crimes of the Anglo-Turks. That is to say:
For the murder of every Greek by the British, we shall execute Englishmen.
For the murder of every Greek by Turks, we shall execute Turks….
The Greeks finally decided to compromise from their hard line approach of “Union, and Union only.” Both Makarios and the Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis started referring to the possibility of independence, or even autonomy. It might be that some of the Cypriot Greeks were tiring of the war. For instance, we know that in 1958 EOKA published a leaflet in which it named Cypriots who acted as agents of the British.
In October 1957, John Harding submitted his resignation. He was replaced by Hugh Foot. The new governor appeared to be appeasing and conciliatory. In Christmas of 1957, for example, he freed 222 prisoners, including 24 priests.
In spring 1958, EOKA published leaflet, urging “passive resistance.” The main aim of the economic sabotage of firms that cooperated with the British or imported British, was to show to the world that the struggle of the Cypriot people enjoyed wide acceptance, and was not a case of fanatical extremists, as was claimed by British propaganda. The Cypriot people responded to the call of EOKA , causing some damage to the British economy that may have amounted to millions of pounds. The boycott of British goods was probably not successful and was eventually abandoned on the instructions of Archbishop Makarios after some merchants faced bankruptcy.
Grivas gives his own view of passive resistance in Guerrilla Warfare:
This was a powerful weapon which reinforced and supplemented the armed struggle. I know of no other case in which this method was used on such a wide scale and with so effective an organization, except in India under Mahatma Gandhi. My principal object in organizing the boycott was, first, to make a moral impression on the British people and, second, to create difficulties for the Government of Cyprus by reducing its resources. It is a fact that, as the result of our passive resistance, the Cyprus Government became bankrupt. No longer able to meet its expenditure, it was forced to borrow from the Cyprus banks and from public corporations, besides instituting a government lottery.
This is not to imply that EOKA was passive. Quite the contrary. In the latter part of 1958 EOKA shot and killed a British Sergeant named Hammond in Ledra Street in Nicosia. In October they shot two British Army wives, killing one. This caused the Army to lose control and they arrested over a hundred Cypriots, many of whom were beaten so badly that they died. Some British defenders refute that Greek claim and one stated to me that only three Greek Cypriots died, one from natural causes, and none was killed by beating. He adds:
British Forces were furious at EOKA’s tactics to place bombs in prams and throw grenades into family bedrooms. Mrs. Cutliffe, the wife of a sergeant in 29 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, was murdered by Kikis Constantinou. At the end of the 1955-59 conflict, he joined the Greek Army contingent based in Cyprus as an officer and continued to train Greek Cypriot militia irregulars for attacks against Turkish Cypriots in the post-December 1963 “civil war.”
A British soldier is quoted:
There is no disguising the fact that a degree of force was used during the roundup. I have the utmost sympathy for those injured and their families, and will not try to make excuses for the behavior of some of our troops. I will merely state that during my tour of duty in Cyprus, I saw very few acts of gratuitous violence used by British troops. I saw plenty of callous behavior by Greek Cypriots towards their own people and how they walked ignored injured British troops and civilians, some of them mere children. Even after all these years it makes my blood boil thinking about it. The majority of servicemen in Cyprus were 19 & 20 year old men, friendly to a point of naivety.
. I used to have that as my signature.
