Grivas dies in hiding

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33445, 29 January 1974, Page 17

Grivas dies in hiding

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NICOSIA, January 28.

The guerrilla leader, General George Grivas, who spent most of his life fighting — first against the British and I then against the Government of President Makarios — to unite Cyprus with Greece, has died after a heart attack !at the age of 75.

Supporters of the general, who had not been seen in public for more than two years, have indicated that his body will be brought from his hide-out in Limassol to the Greek Embassy in Nicosia.

The short, bushy-eye-browed General Grivas was obsessed with Enosis (Union with Greece), the dream of which drove him to become the most wanted man in Cyprus in the 1950 s for leading his original Eoka guerrilla movement against British colonial rule.

After independence in 1960, the majority of Greek Cypriots spurned Enosis, and accepted Archbishop Makarios’s view that independence must be maintained I because of Turkish opposition to Greek ties. The archbishop’s warning was underscored by invasion threats from Turkey after inter-communal violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots which began a decade ago and to this day has warranted keeping United Nations troops on Cyprus.

In Athens, the general’s widow, Mrs Vassiliki Grivas, who is 56, is in a state of shock, and is being attended by a doctor, her sister reports.

General Grivas commanded the support of most Greek Cypriots when the struggle against British colonial rule began on April !1, 1955, and throughout the subsequent five years of warfare, in which 700 people died; but his efforts in the last two years to further Enosis served only to divide the Greek Cypriot community and to bring about a civil war.

When General Grivas landed secretly from Athens on the western coast of Cyprus in September, 1971,; he set about reorganising the Eoka movement, now; called Eoka B. Greek Cypriots, however, were aware that any new campaign would arouse the wrath of Turkey, which was, and still is, intent on protecting the interests of the Turkish Cypriot community—onefifth of the island’s total population of 650,000. In addition, the years of independence since 1960 had made Cyprus a prosperous island with a favourable balance of payments and a booming economy which few people wished ”to disturb with renewed civil strife. Nevertheless, the new Grivas organisation went into action a year ago with a series of machine-gun and bomb attacks which devastated about 50 rural police stations. Simultaneously, General Grivas’s supporters raided mines and quarries for dynamite for use against selected targets. Archbishop Makarios issued a warning that violence would be met by violence, and, midway through last year, a new police organisation, the commandostyle Tactical Reserve Unit, counter-attacked Grivas! groups in mountain hideouts. Bombings and revengel killings followed, and the! casualties had mounted to! 'double figures when Generali Grivas died yesterday.

The violence had estranged the man, who had once been a national folk hero, from many Greek Cypriots. Many of his supporters are in custody or on trial as a result of tips from citizenry —a rare occurence when General Grivas was pitted against the British. _____