Dangers in Cyprus

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29002, 17 September 1959, Page 14

Dangers in Cyprus

Next February, if all goes well, Cyprus will become a republic. The Zurich and London agreements that ended four years of bitter dispute could not guarantee the island a completely smooth transition to its new status. During the last six months, however, progress has been reasonably satisfactory. Only recently have tensions reasserted themselves disturbingly. Terrorism had been tco firmly woven into the fabric of Cypriot life to be eliminated overnight; isolated outbreaks since the February agreements might have been dismissed as an inescapable legacy of the past. But the increased frequency of outrages such as the beating-up of monks at the Makheras monastery shows that the future course of Cyprus may be cause for some anxiety, not least in London, Athens, and Ankara. The paradoxes of Cypriot history are exemplified by current reliance on Archbishop Makarios as the most powerful defender of the London agreement, and by the determined efforts of his former ally, General Grivas, to sabotage the constitutional negotiations. The breach with General Grivas became complete after the reported discovery of an assassination plot against Archbishop Makarios and his closest supporters. One of the most satisfactory results of the London agreement has been the concord between Archbishop Makarios, as leader of the Greek Cypriots, and Dr. Kutchuk, leader of the Turkish minority. “A Venize- “ los-Ataturk-style relationship “ between the two Cypriot “ leaders ”, says the Nicosia correspondent of “xhe Times”, “ could be the saving of the “ young republic in its early “ years when, because of the “peculiarities of the Constitution, a great deal will depend

“on the relations between the “ [Greek Cypriot] President and “ the [Turkish Cypriot] Vice- “ President At levels below the summit, harmony is far less apparent; and factional discontents are vented in violence. In general, however, both Archbishop Makarios and Dr. Kutchuk retain the loyalties of the majority of their people. Their strength is being tested especially in determining issues upon which will largely depend the future amity between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. Of particular importance are the veto rights of the Vice-President, the independence of the Turkish municipalities, and the delineation of the military bases retained by Britain. To the other causes of Cypriot disquiet must be added a new threat from the Communists politically proscribed, but active industrially. One consequence of Eoka terrorism was to augment the Communist forces, with which Archbi§hop Makarios is ill equipped to deal. Over Cyprus still falls the ominous shadow of General Grivas, a patriot without an effective cause. Having abandoned his earlier resolve to detach himself from public life, he embarrasses both the Greek Government and Archbishop Makarios by grandiloquent political gestures and an endeavour to revive support for enosis, expanded to include Northeth Epirus (southern Albania) as well as Cyprus. The Archbishop has successfully asserted his superior authority over the former Eoka forces, now organised politically into the Edma party. Against opposition from King Paul and the Greek Government, General Grivas is unlikely to become a Greek de Gaulle; but, although barred from returning to Cyprus, Le will continue to exert a disrupting influence there, and to complicate unnecessarily the republic’s birth.