Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kifeas]

If there is anyone left unconvinced that Loukas Charalambous (LC) is an idiot spouting nonsense, I hope his latest article in Cyprus Mail will clear all and the last of the doubts.

General Grivas behaved like a good soldier at Kofinou

Supercilious Loukas Charalambous, the pro-surrender, rightwing “anti-nationalist” of the GC media, has now …surprise …surprise, turned into an advocate of G. Grivas. In order to sanitize and even justify Grivas’ chauvinist, criminal and outwardly unprofessional from a military officer’s perspective actions in Kofinou in 1967, he cites a punch quotations from some supposedly war “theoreticians,” who more or less make the garbage claims that once in a war, everything is possible and permissible, including the indiscriminate and excessive use of force, even against unarmed civilians. “To Loukoudin” (LC) seems to accept and subscribe to such grotesque and pathetic theories, and he does this in order to unload the blame from Grivas shoulders, and load it on Makarios for authorizing the operation.

Of course, Makarios, rightly or not, authorized an operation to neutralize the surrounding hills and roadblocks on Nicosia /Limassol main road nearby Kofinou Village, from which armed TCs tended to prohibit through indiscriminate shooting the free and save passage of cars and police patrolling. He did not authorize Grivas to enter any of the villages, terrorize and indiscriminately murder civilians, and even allow his officers to threaten burning alive the entire population. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t even a war as such, but a simple operation against a handful of 15-20 armed TCs, occupying the said hills and roadblocks with machineguns and light A/T.

Grivas deliberately carried out the operation to such excessive limits, in order to create a chaotic situation that would have destabilized Makarios, but also to vindicate his own (Grivas) initial warning that the operation would have had uncalculated political consequences. “You see, I have told you so!” Grivas aim was to force Makarios to resign, for his own and his non-Cypriot allies and master’s political and other benefits, something which of course proved later to be a fact, with the establishment of Eoka B in 1970. “To Loukoudin” does not bother to tell us the whole story of what and why Grivas did what he did.

I always regarded this person, LC, an opinionated ignorant /arrogant individual, with no limits in his writings but very limited logic in his argumentation. I hope the above article clears the last doubts also from those few left wanting him to be taken seriously.

[YFred]

Kifeas, why not put the article so people can read it and make their own judgement as to what he says. You obviously can't stand the man an his thoughts and your summary shows that quite well.

General Grivas behaved like a good soldier at Kofinou
By Loucas Charalambous

IN HIS recently published book, Two Attempts And A Murder, Makarios Drousiotis gives an extensive account of the National Guard’s military operation in Kofinou in November 1967.

This was an event of historical significance, as the operation sparked a very strong reaction by Turkey and subsequently led to the withdrawal of the Greek army division from Cyprus.

Every time this event is mentioned, politicians and the media put the blame on General Grivas who was the army chief at the time. To support this position, they cite a statement the late Archbishop Makarios III made in 1973, that Grivas “acted well beyond the boundaries of the authorisation given to him.”

Drousiotis fortunately puts the record straight on this matter in his book. Using evidence from documents, he makes it clear that the man who pushed things to a head was the then Interior Minister Polycarpos Yiorkadjis, who enjoyed Makarios’ backing. I would say that Yiorkadjis was merely following Makarios’ instructions.

The truth is that Grivas was opposed to the operation and had warned both the Greek government and Makarios in writing about its political consequences. At a meeting on October 31, 1967, he told Makarios to take the full political responsibility for the consequences of a military operation. This was substantiated from a message he sent to Athens on the same day.

But my friend Drousiotis accepts the claim that Grivas used excessive force during the presentation of the above-mentioned book – a view supported by former Attorney-general Alecos Markides. I think they are both mistaken. War is not political dialogue in which one can accuse the enemy of overstepping the boundaries or of failing to act politely.

War is a contest for annihilation without boundaries and restrictions. The best definition was provided by the theoretician of the art of war, Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian soldier and military historian. He wrote: “War therefore is an act of violence to compel our opponent to fulfil our will.”

The issue is for war not to break out. Once it starts, there are no limitations. Clausewitz describes this as “the ultimate use of force” and explains that there is no room for philanthropic sentiments. He wrote: “Now philanthropists may easily imagine there is a skilful method of disarming and overcoming an enemy without causing great bloodshed, and that this is the proper tendency of the art of war.

“However plausible this may appear, still it is an error which must be extirpated; for in such dangerous things as a war, the errors which proceed from the spirit of benevolence are just the worst.

“As the use of physical power to the outmost extent by no means excludes the co-operation of the intelligence, it follows that, he who uses force unsparingly, without reference to the quantity of bloodshed, must obtain a superiority, if his adversary does not act likewise.

“By such means the former dictates the law to the latter and both proceed to extremities, to which the only limitations are those imposed by the amount of counteracting force on each side.”

In short Grivas was both politically and militarily correct in Kofinou. The government should never have sent him there. Once he was sent there, he was obliged to act like a soldier.



Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2009

[Kifeas]

Didn't I provide you the link to go and read it?

Is my summary any wrong as to what LC is trying to say?

[YFred]

Didn't I provide you the link to go and read it?

But how many will read it?

[YFred]

Kifeas, he gives the account of what happened in 67 in a factual way, but I don't see any turning. Your first line of attack on him reminds me of what Denktash used to do to his opponents, and I suspect anti settlement GCs also practiced in the south. He did not say he agreed with what Grivas did, he said thats what soldiers do in war.
Have you just found out about what soldiers do in war? LC does not even agree on the attack on Kofinu and you paint him as if he agreed on what Grivas did. If he has turned then he must have supported the attack on Kofinu in the past, is that the case?

If the RoC felt what Grivas did was wrong, why take no action against him or the murderers at Atlilar and Murataga. They are all war crimes and RoC is the legitimate government in Cyprus.

[Kifeas]

Kifeas, he gives the account of what happened in 67 in a factual way, but I don't see any turning. Your first line of attack on him reminds me of what Denktash used to do to his opponents, and I suspect anti settlement GCs also practiced in the south. He did not say he agreed with what Grivas did, he said thats what soldiers do in war.
Have you just found out about what soldiers do in war? LC does not even agree on the attack on Kofinu and you paint him as if he agreed on what Grivas did. If he has turned then he must have supported the attack on Kofinu in the past, is that the case?

If the RoC felt what Grivas did was wrong, why take no action against him or the murderers at Atlilar and Murataga. They are all war crimes and RoC is the legitimate government in Cyprus.

YFred, give me a break! If you cannot comprehend any of the hidden and even not so hidden massages of the above article, then I am sorry but I don’t have time to waste arguing with you.

This is the last line of how LC concludes his article.

"In short Grivas was both politically and militarily correct in Kofinou. The government should never have sent him there. Once he was sent there, he was obliged to act like a soldier."

This by itself should have been enough!

[Nikitas]

Grivas, as a professional soldier was opposed to the action. The mystery to this day is who ordered him to proceed and use excessive force.

As in most such mysteries the answer can be arrived at by deduction, by asking who ultimately benefited from the crisis the Kofinou action caused. The end result was the agreement between the Greek dictators and Turkey to divide the island. Just refer to those old newsreels where dictator Papadopoulos likened Cyprus to a woman with two lovers. Now think back to Major Packard's recounting of George Ball's comment after inspecting pacified Cypriot villages in 1964:

"son, you are not getting it, the name of the game here is partition".

[Kifeas]

Grivas, as a professional soldier was opposed to the action. The mystery to this day is who ordered him to proceed and use excessive force.

As in most such mysteries the answer can be arrived at by deduction, by asking who ultimately benefited from the crisis the Kofinou action caused. The end result was the agreement between the Greek dictators and Turkey to divide the island. Just refer to those old newsreels where dictator Papadopoulos likened Cyprus to a woman with two lovers. Now think back to Major Packard's recounting of George Ball's comment after inspecting pacified Cypriot villages in 1964:

"son, you are not getting it, the name of the game here is partition".

Nikitas, the truth is more simple and basic than it sounds. Grivas never digested the idea that Makarios got all the "glory" and became the uncontested leader. Grivas never stomached coming second, under Makarios shadow and overwhelming acceptance, especially after 1960. All Grivas cared about was how make or get Makarios step aside, and him to take his place as the unquestionable leader. In this moronic ambition of him, he would organize or align with all sorts of movements, people and conspiracies, so as to prove that Makarios was wrong and /or incompetent, and so as for him to surface above Makarios. He didn't care or understood much of what was at stake, or what damage his actions would bring to the country and the Greek Cypriot community. After all, he was impaired of sound judgment himself, when it came down to what was politically reasonable, correct or feasible. Beyond his whatever military capabilities -and even those are questionable, he was basically an ignorant fanatic that if you had heard him speaking, little he deferred from the style and manner Hitler or Mussolini were delivering their speeches. It was basically a delirio of archaic nationalist rhetoric.

Within this framework, I do not exclude the possibility that besides his whatever warnings of the possible political consequences the operation in Kofinou might have had, he deliberately carried the operation in the way he did for the sole purpose of creating a situation that would have destabilized Makarios and prove him wrong and incompetent, while at the same time prove himself right for signaling his initial objections. In this way, he would have taken revenge on Makarios "for not listening to him," but also show to those around Makarios and the people in general that he was a "better” leader. Knowing how unilaterally Grivas acted in Kokkina in August 1964, but also how he acted in 1971, with the establishment of the Eoka B', I am more than certain that this was also his aim in 1967.

[Oracle]

So was Grivas a pawn, a willing participant or an instigator of the conditions which led to the adoption of the idea of partition?

I haven't seen any evidence that Grivas wanted a political career. He didn't even contest Makarios for election as President when he himself had so much support at the end of EOKA's era.

As for Mr Charalambous (nice name, shame about his leanings), I gather he is a partitionist, which explains why he takes the view that Makarios was behaving in this (uncharacteristic) underhanded way.

Some people just seem to want to blame everyone except the Turks for this outcome ....

[cymart]

Whether or not you agree with his version of Kophinou and Grivas,most other articles by him and people like Makarios Droushiotis on the Cyprus problem simply state the truth that some people refuse to see......