by cypezokyli » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:41 pm
i am through a book by alexis irakleidis (prof. at panteios, in the international relations department) called cyprus problem : clash and solution (kypriako : syggrousi kai epilysi). got it from a greek student, as proposed litereture in peireaus uni.
this guy, goes beyond accusing eoka for its murders against gc left and tcs, but also blames eoka (grivas) and makarios, for making things worse even for gcs themselves.
first three known answers of the greek leadership at the time when makarios was asking for military action.
giorge papandreou (vise president of the greek goverment) : greece breethes today with two lungs, an english and an american one, and for this reason it cannot, due to the cyprus problem, to endanger itself of suffercating.
general plastiras (prime minister) look, your Beatitude, if you come in my poor hut and ask me to fight as a soldier for cyprus i would gladly do it. but you come in the office the the pm of greece you ask me to burn greece, without being able to help cyprus.
s. venivelos (pm after plastiras) after makarios threatened to bring to the public the denial of the pm to bring the matter at the UN, venivelos answered : you can do whatever you want, you can accuse me to anyone you want, but you cannot affect the greek foreign policy.
in the end makarios managed to get what he wanted but the greek goverment never stopped being reluctant on the path taken by makarios despite the fact that they helped him with military means.
the big chance lost according to the writer (besides 1948) were the talks between harding and makarios.
harding asked to meet with makarios on the first came he arrived to cyyprus (even though the official english goverment didnt recognise him as the leader of cypriots).
makarios proposed 3 things : not selfdetermination immidiately immidiately, cooperation for the constitution of cyprus in the meantime, and the time specified till enosis.
harding manages to get the british gov to a double denial announcement: it is not the position of the british gov, that the principle of selfdetermination would be never applied in cyprus.
makarios, using "byzantium negotiating" was asking more after every meeting. the three problems were : if that security wouldl stay under the english for that period , the % of gc in the parliament , and general amnesty.
makarios managed to get what he wanted , that is the principle of self determination (which for him meant enosis)but after a certain transition period. karamanlis and the minister of foreign affairs saw that as a great opportunity. they even suggested that the time for the transition period to be 5-10 years.
the final proposal by harding was a transition period of 7 years after which the cyprus people would vote for its future for a referendum. in the meantime the executive power to be given to a gc with some tc ministries. the legislative power would be given to the parliament, based on the proportion of its community (plythismiaki analogia). the governor (english) would have kept during this period matters of foreign policy and security.
and makarios rejected it!!!
the reasons why he rejected it vary :
he hat to face the denial of the extreme position of grivas and the kyrinaion.
he was afraid that such an action would have lead to a civil war.
he thought that he could get sth more in order to convince the extreme nationalists leading to blowing everything in the air.
the greek gov "will support makarios in his struggle but it would help if he can also appriciate what "is possible under the circumstances" .
in the meantime eoka continued bombing around, which lead the british to believe the makarios was hidden behind the bombs trying to increase the pressure on them (while actually grivas was uncontrollable at the time).
after macmillan suggested plan that practically was leading towards double enosis makarios came to his sense and accepted the RoC.
.................
if what this professor here is writing, is as he presents it to be,
then :
so much for the political ability of the eoka leadership. the couldnt see beyond their nose when it came to politics. so much for what simon refers to "denial of the english to what the people of cyprus people wanted" or sth similar.
the going-for-all strategy lead to loosing everything, just because it makes the opposite side more pissed as one asks for more. if we look at our history of every last solution is better than the one to come, then we have a reason to explain it. its not just the "foreign conspiracy"
we should really reconstruct the ovreexxaguration of eokas "achievements" , since even at political level they harmed cyprus (not to mention humanitarian). that doesnt mean that those who died should not be respected (a typical answer of any critisism against eoka)
we should start learning from our mistakes (and i am not even at the 1960s period chapter...)
ofcource it doesnt mean that turkey in those 7 years would sit around watching cyprus being annexed by greece, but it still remains the only chance that cyprus ever got for "self determination", which was rejected by the "highly inttelectual" eoka enosis-wanting leadership.
my god i really dont believe what i ve just read!!! they rejected the possibility of enosis, and proportinal represantation, and some of them then accused makarios of not wanting enosis and accepting the tc veto.
words fail me.
all i can say, if these things hold, is :
etsi kkelle etsi xiourafi thelei.
no wonder we have brought cyprus into this situation. we should really start accepting the idea of BBF, because thats really the most we ll ever get.
