Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

It seems like the coup wasn't pre-planned... the coupist just wanted to one way or other get rid of Makarios and move to the next step according to the developments... they played for win or lose... it was %100 certain that they would lose... but if they succeeded to kill Makarios, maybe the political condition would have been suitable for Klerides to accept being the new president... and most probably this situation would suit the interests of USA and Turkey but not suit the interests of left wingers, pro-Makarios GCs and Soviets.... It is known that Soviets were preparing to militarily interfere... Let's asume the soviets moved for a military intervention towards Cyprus; US, Turkey and Greece and most probably all NATO armies would have joined their forces to stop the soviets... and most probably they would have succeeded to stop them...

What would have happened then? Overwhelming majority of GC left would have escaped from Cyprus... the negotiations to resolve the Cyprus problem would have continued but i don't think the problem would have been solved... While the junta supposedly negotiating the problem; would have got rid of the internal obstacles in front of Enosis and strengthen it's position on the island... and under such circumstances, Turkey would never dare to a military operation... or she would? Together with Britain and US...

[Nikitas]

You are missing one simple and vital key, the rabid anticommunism of the Greek Junta officers.

These were people who fought in the Greek civil war, had lost family and friends and retalliated in kind. Half a million people died in the Greek civil war, a huge proportion of the population and it happened in 1946-49, within the career span of these officers. Almost to a man the Greek army people who served in Cyprus were veterans of this conflict.

Their primary goal was to secure the island from what they perceived as the "red threat". Everything else was secondary and not relevant to their plan. The Junta had no other policy, no plan, no conception of a national plan. They could not fathom that the Cypriots, not having had the experience of the Civil War, and with a legal communist party, were a different case, one that was not analogous to Greece.

The Turks played them, stringing them along for years pretending they had the same preoccupation.