CYPRUS

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27987, 6 June 1956, Page 3

CYPRUS

Sir, —It is a hard fact that the overwhelming majority of Cypriots desire union with Greece. To imagine that the frustration of their desire by force and suppression is in the interests of some greater freedom seems specious reasoning. Such action surely undermines the foundations, the principles on which any greater freedom can be built. By such reasoning, any power is morally justified in taking over any territory it chooses for a case regardless of the wishes of its inhabitants. It is surely debatable whether such violation of the basic principles of freedom can contribute to any greater freedom as you suggest in your editorial on Cyprus.—Yours, etc., J.S. June 5, 1956.

Sir.—During the Second World War dozens of people who collaborated with the Germans in the occupied countries of Western Europe were shot by their own people in open streets because they were considered danger-

ous for the operations of the underground movements. With so many books on war activities on the market, B. H. Collins should know, by now, that the orders and weapons for these killings came from London. The killers and their associates were celebrated and decorated heroes after the war. So, those in Cyprus, Algeria, and East Africa whom B. H. Collins calls “thugs” could be in a similar position as fighters for their freedom against what they call invaders and against collaborators of their own race. The two Cypriots recently hanged are already being acclaimed as national heroes in Greece, where the street in which the British Embassy stands in Athens is named after them.—Yours, etc.,

CONSIDERATION. June 5, 1956.