The end of Enosis?

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33450, 4 February 1974, Page 16

The end of Enosis?

The death of General Grivas should help to cool the Over-heated political climate of Cyprus. Grivas has been for 20 years a** man with a mission getting rid of the British was not the end, but merely the beginning of his mission. He had no interest in an independent Cyprus, with government shared by the Cypriot and Turkish communities. He saw Cyprus as an integral part of Greece; and union (Enosis) became a creed beyond which reason could not take him. In the periods of sporadic violence since the middle of 1960, when the island became a republic under President Makarios, the Turkish demand for some degree of regional autonomy, although it produced recurring crises, always looked as if an agreed solution could be found in discussion between the parties. The explosive element, containing the seeds of civil war, was the existence of two Cypriot factions — one led by Grivas, seeking union with Greece, the other, headed by Archbishop Makarios as head of the Government, flatly rejecting union in any form. In 1960, an independent status for Cyprus was formally accepted by Britain, Greece and Turkey. There was a period when the attitude of the Greek Government towards union was equivocal, to say the least. Grivas was given command of Greek troops in Cyprus; and it seemed clear that if Athens did not want actual identification with the Enosis movement, it was not opposed to Grivas’s efforts towards that end. Now, even when Greek politics are in a new stage of upheaval, after the overthrow of the Papadopoulos government, the new regime in Athens shows little interest in the troublesome island. Brigadier loannidis would probably welcome a settlement with Turkey confirming the independent status of Cyprus and recognising that the question of the rights of the Turkish minority — about one-fifth of the island's population of 650,000 — is one to be resolved by the two communities. President Makarios may not relish the idea of a new round of Athens-Ankara talks, during which his own status and authority might be called into question. But he has a chance now to make a magnanimous approach towards recognition of the Turkish claim that Turkish Cypriots should at least share in government and have residual control over security in their own areas. If, as appears to be the case, there is no successor to Grivas, the Enosis movement might just fade away. The people of Cyprus, whether Greek or Turkish, want peace, with a chance to enjoy the fruits of economic prosperity, including a boom in tourism. The disappearance of Grivas, the wasp-like champion of union, gives the best chance in two decades of partisan strife for tolerance and reason to prevail.