It is dark at last in the Kyrenia Mountains of Cyprus and the British Commando officer has no appetite for the task he must now perform. He assembles his squad for a patrol, but his mind is on another night like this, 14 years ago. Then he was the hunted, a fugitive from the Nazis who had poured into Greece. Three young Greeks sheltered him, then carried him in a tiny caique away from Greece to safety. Now the officer is the hunter, and it is time to hunt down Greeks as brave and as passionate for freedom as those who saved his life. “Things have certainly changed,” the officer sighs. He slaps a clip into his Sten gun and orders his men forward.
It is time for divine services in the small Protestant church in Nicosia. Sir John Harding, a brave soldier and brilliant commander has fought two wars, led whole armies—including thousands of Cypriots who fought in British uniforms. But he dares not worship alone. A squad of British soldiers precedes him and examines the altar, the Bible, the pews and chancel for planted explosives. Harding arrives in a bulletproof sedan. Armored cars bristle outside as Sir John, Governor General of the Crown Colony of Cyprus is at his devotions.
The authorities have at last found the Cypriot whose paintbrush adorned a wall with a slogan offensive to the Governor. Such scenes at police headquarters suggest a boys’ game gone terribly wrong— the young, pink-faced British soldier looks almost as scared as the culprit he drags in, squirming and nauseated with fear. This criminal is a schoolboy of 14; the message he painted was “Harding come down from your helicopter.” The punishment for the boy’s crime: three months in prison.
A handsome British major of 34 is decorated with the coveted George Medal for his bravery in breaking up an ambush of terrorists. But Major Brian Coombe has killed a man and he is not proud. “My driver was killed by one of them and it was my duty to bring to justice the people who murdered him,” he says softly. “As a result, one frightened, pathetic young Cypriot was killed. It is tragic. The Cypriots now are acclaiming the dead man as their hero, and the British press is acclaiming me as theirs. You may think I am talking like a grandmother, but there is far too much hatred here. There is al ready too much death, pain and tears in Cyprus.”
History may place the death, pain and tears as but passing stages in the 20th-century’s long funeral procession of British colonialism. There came Ireland, India, Palestine, Kenya, Malaya, and now Cyprus. But the special tragedy of Cyprus is that it involves friends, and that the suffering should be so simply avoidable. A clear statement from the British government promising the right of self-determination at a definite time in the near future to Cyprus’ 520,000 people could halt overnight a conflict that daily grows more violent and more dangerous. Week by week it becomes more apparent that Britain’s release of control of Cyprus to its inhabitants is not only the just solution, but the inevitable one. “One wonders,” wrote the conservative London Daily Telegraph’s Cyprus correspondent last week, “if we have not arrived at a point of no return.”
Turning Back the Medals. For a century, the partnership of Britain and Greece was one of history’s warmest. By last week, hatred for the British was the chief preoccupation among Greeks. In many cities and villages, streets once named in gratitude for Winston Churchill were being renamed. Scores of Greeks decorated for valor with British forces in the war have recently sent back their medals to the British embassy in Athens.
It was not always thus. Modern Greece was born to the accompaniment of Lord Byron’s odes against the hated Turks. British diplomats gathered gratitude by helping Greece get back the Ionian Islands and Corfu. Gladstone hoped before he died (in 1898) to see Cyprus and Greece joined in enosis (union), and early in the century a political comer named Winston Churchill eloquently reminded Cypriots of their destiny to be joined with Greece. For a time, early in World War I, Britain dangled the promise of Cyprus as an inducement for Greece’s entry on the side of the Allies. Said one of Cyprus’ governors, the late Sir Ronald Storrs: “The Greekness of Cypriots is … indisputable. No sensible person will deny that the Cypriot is Greek-speaking, Greek-thinking, Greek-feeling, Greek.”
Sixteen months ago, Britain’s Minister of State for Colonial Affairs Henry Hopkinson used a word that British diplomats are said never to use. His word for enosis was “Never.” Fortnight ago Hopkinson passed on to his reward: he was promoted to the House of Lords and ceased to be Minister. To the patriotism of Cypriots and the passion of Greeks, his indiscretion was a signal that diplomatic pleading would not be enough. At the front of the Cypriot agitation appeared the youthful face of black-bearded Makarios III, who studied theology at Boston University and at 42 is spiritual and temporal leader—the Archbishop and Ethnarch of Cyprus —to the island’s overwhelmingly (80%) Greek population. A small but dangerous Communist terror group, the E.O.K.A., joined in. Lean and war-wise Sir John Harding found Makarios a tough man to deal with, but he has also found him the man to deal with.
A Twofold Case. The British case for holding on in Cyprus is twofold.
First, it is strategic. Since abandoning the Suez Canal, Britain has made Cyprus its Middle East command post, has begun building a massive base at the bay of Episkopi. It maintains that loss of Cyprus as a base would endanger not only British but NATO defense. The Greeks have publicly promised that in return for self-determination and enosis, the British can get ironclad terms for staying in their Cyprus military installations.
Second, it is concerned for Cyprus’ Turkish minority (about 93,600 people) and for Cyprus’ proximity to Turkey. Any settlement would have to guarantee the Cyprus Turks their rights. The hatred that divided Greeks and Turks during the time of the Ottomans and the terrors of the early 19203 was in recent years subdued by their working partnership in NATO and the Balkan pact. The Cyprus issue has uncovered old scars.
Slowly, too slowly to win any credit for good will, the British have begun beating a retreat. Archbishop Makarios made known that he would be happy to settle for an unconditional British pledge of self-determination and prompt steps toward arranging it; enosis, if that is the will of the people, would come later. After much gulping and shooting of cuffs, Sir Anthony Eden’s government took back Henry Hop-kinson’s never, and three weeks ago accepted Cyprus’ right to self-determination — but still would not say when. The U.S., ally and friend of all three nations involved, thought it expedient not to say in public what the State Department believes in private — that the British must give in on self-determination.
In Athens for a visit, an old soldier with profound experience in that part of the world felt impelled to warn that Britain’s “when” had better come very soon. Retired U.S. General James Van Fleet, who organized the Greeks’ victory over the Communists in 1947-49, was alarmed by U.S. policy of “adhering to antiquated
British-French colonial policies … instead of taking an independent, clear-cut road, consistent with our own statements and principles.” The U.S., said Van Fleet, had hurt itself seriously in Greece by appearing to support Britain and the status quo on Cyprus. Soldier Van Fleet saw no hope for a British policy of rule by force. No military base, no matter how powerful or well guarded, said he, is of much use if it stands “as an island surrounded by a hostile sea.”
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