Vengeance Killings Reported In Cyprus

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29333, 12 October 1960, Page 17

Vengeance Killings Reported In Cyprus

(Special Correspondent N.Z.PA.)

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON. Oct 11. Cypriots who were once loyal to Britain are being picked out and killed one by one. says a “Daily Express” correspondent in Nicosia. He reports four unsolved murders of men who had one thing in common—they were informers to the British police and Army during the four-year emergency A 54-year-old man had petrol poured over him and was burned alive before the horrified eyes of his bound and gagged wife. A 66-year-old man was shot as he cycled to work. The body of a 30-year-old man was found bullet-ridden and dumped out of a car. and a bus driver was shot in the street. “Once more.’’ says the correspondent. “fear is stalking the streets of this sunny island only six weeks after independence. In barbers' shops and cafes, secret fingers point at the backs of men walking down the middle of the street and the ice cold hand of fear grips their stomachs. "Vengeance killings have started. The Eoka guns are out again. And somewhere in England today, an estimated 200 Greek Cypriots tmder British Government protection and drawing up to £5O a week for ’services rendered’ are having sleepless nights, for even in England they are not safe." The correspondent reports cases of Cypriots returning home from England and being killed, one within an hour. He adds: “Archbishop Makarios is worried and furious at the outbreak of killings, which gives the impression abroad that he can no longer control the gunmen who backed him during the emergency—killing 142 Britons and 203 Greek Cypriots. “The Cyprus police stubbornly claim: *We can find no evidence of an organised plan for vengeance killings.’ This is not the opinion of the Cypriot people I have met, who feel that old habits die hard. Eoka killers, who were considered national heroes for four years, are now out of jobs. If they kill the informers, they know that few people on the island at the bottom of their

hearts will mind for informers and collaborators anywhere are scorned, however noble their motives. “But at the moment, the sole judges and executors of the informers are the thugs who shot British soldiers and their wives in the back,” the correspondent said.