Britain and the Cyprus Crisis of 1974

Conflict, Colonialism and the Politics of Remembrance in Greek Cypriot Society

John Burke

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781351995412
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: History

This book examines the ideological and socio-political discourses shaping the remembrance and representation of Britain and the Cyprus conflict of 1974 within Greek Cypriot society. By combining the official with the popular and drawing on an extensive range of oral history interviews, this monograph shows that a suspicion born out of Britain's long (neo-)colonial connection to Cyprus has come to frame the image and understanding of British actions associated with the events, and lasting consequences, of 1974. Indeed, with the island of Cyprus still divided, and the requirement to remember a national imperative, this book has a direct contemporary relevance. However, within the existent literature, while much has been written about the political roots of the Cyprus conflict, no study has yet sought to systematically analyse and understand the influences shaping the history and memory of British actions on Cyprus in 1974. One defined by the existence of 'partitionist' conspiracies, collusive accusations and a series of memory distortions which continue to resonate strongly irrespective of the evidence that is now available. As such, by analysing the influences shaping the image of Britain in 1974, one can begin to understand in ever greater detail the Anglo–Greek Cypriot relationship in a modern context.

1Introduction

On 15 July 1974, after a long period of tension between the governments of Athens and Nicosia, a coup d’état against the President of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, signified the beginning of a major international crisis on this small Mediterranean island. While the instigators of the coup attempted to depict this action as a ‘purely internal affair between Greeks and Greeks’, this was from the outset a crisis with an international dimension.¹ The Treaty of Guarantee provided Britain, Greece and Turkey with the purported right to take action in the internal affairs of Cyprus in order to protect the ‘independence, territorial integrity and security’ of this island republic.² Through this treaty, on 20 July 1974, Turkey directly intervened in the conflict by landing an army on the beaches of northern Cyprus.³ Over the course of the next month however, this Turkish invasion force illegally partitioned and subsequently occupied one-third of the island.⁴ In response, the military Junta in Athens collapsed after ordering a full mobilisation, Britain took the controversial decision not to intervene, and a wave of anti-American protests resulted in the death of the US ambassador in Nicosia. By the end of hostilities in August 1974, Cyprus was divided. In the north, an unrecognised and ‘illegal’ Turkish Cypriot state was created, while in the south, the ‘free’ remnants of the still internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus became a Greek Cypriot dominated state.

Although four decades have now passed since Cyprus was partitioned, the events of 1974 continue to resonate strongly irrespective of this passage of time. Indeed, with one-third of the population still displaced from their homes and a further 1,500 still officially declared missing, it is a period which remains deeply felt across Greek Cypriot society.⁵ It is also one which is clearly visible given the existence of cityscape ‘ghost-towns’ like Varosha, in the nature of Europe’s ‘last divided capital’ of Nicosia, and in the physical scar of the UN-controlled buffer zone that continues to cut across the heart of the island.⁶ As a consequence, it is a period that must never be forgotten, as to do so would effectively be tantamount to accepting the fait accompli of the Turkish invasion and continued occupation of northern Cyprus. For that reason, via the collective obligations of Den Xehno, or ‘I Don’t Forget’, the commemorative structures of the state draw on and collate these emotive issues within official discourses, such as educational texts, in order to compel all Greek Cypriots to continually remember the occupied areas.⁷ In turn, annual rituals on the ‘black anniversaries’ of the coup and invasion seek to focus an internal and international attention towards the issue of reunification and return by linking the suffering of the individual to that of the state. Although the ‘Cyprus Problem’ has become known as one of the most intractable issues of the modern world, with negotiations as of 2017 still ongoing, this merely feeds into the collective imperative to never forget that which was lost.⁸ To put it simply therefore, the consequences of 1974 are an ever present reality within the structures of Greek Cypriot society, as for many, its continuing ramifications are still lived with on a daily basis.⁹

Yet within a society so focussed on the collective requirement to ‘never forget’ emerges the secondary issue of what should actually be remembered about the causes of conflict on the island. Indeed, while the state places a strong emphasis on the collective consequences of 1974, a variety of different national and political forces attempt to influence and control a particular form of remembrance associated with its causality. As this period was punctuated by acts of external intervention and outbreaks of internal violence, its representation in a modern context remains heavily contested. This is not only evident in the deeply polarised official discourses of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot authorities, who frame the events of 1974 very differently, but in the many divergent narratives that exist, and effectively compete for representational authority within Greek Cypriot society.¹⁰ This contestation is particularly marked between the left and right, who in drawing on the discourses of Cypriotism and Cypriot-Hellenism, selectively emphasise or marginalise those elements of the past which suit their particular requirements in the present.¹¹ Consequently, as the recent reunification talks have shown, history can be used as a weapon to try and undermine the dialogue, and indeed, the legitimacy of one’s political opponents.¹² As such, it is safe to say that the past is very much alive on Cyprus, as while the wounds of 1974 may have scarred, they have yet to fully heal. However, one figure which looms large in this narrative of conflict, but is curiously marginalised within the existing research on its remembrance and representation is Britain.

With well over a century of direct physical and political involvement on Cyprus marked by colonial occupation, anti-colonial confrontation and an ambiguously orientated Guarantor status, the actions of multiple British governments have left a significant imprint on the history of the island. This is clearly evident in some of the negative phrases, such as ‘Pontius Pilate’ and ‘anti-Cypriot nemesis’, utilised to describe the British connection to the issue of Cypriot division.¹³ Indeed, the legacy of British colonial rule (1878–1960) is still much debated among historians for its impact on the post-colonial state of Cyprus, particularly in relation to the lasting effects of ‘divide and rule’.¹⁴ In turn, the British decision not to act in 1974 beyond diplomatic measures and the defence of Nicosia airport, despite maintaining an army within their Sovereign Base Areas (hereafter SBAs), remains one of the most debated issues associated with the final de facto partition of the island.¹⁵ It has formed the basis for an array of conspiracy theories questioning true British, and by extension, Western motivations on Cyprus.¹⁶ As such, if one were to utilise three words to encapsulate the Anglo–Greek Cypriot relationship in the twentieth century, these would undoubtedly be conflict, colonialism and conspiracies. All of these can be linked directly to the seminal events of 1974. Although the opening of the British and American archives in 2004 has, in theory at least, eroded any form of factual basis for the many conspiracy theories linked to this period, they continue to be widely disseminated across Cyprus.¹⁷ Yet comparatively little research has been undertaken to understand the broader socio-political structures shaping the contemporary memory of British actions in the conflict of 1974.¹⁸

Indeed, while much has been written about the British connection to Cyprus, the attention of historians has tended towards the politics of the British response to conflict rather than the forces shaping its remembrance.¹⁹ In turn, the predominant focus of those publications focussed on the memory of conflict has been to analyse the image of the Turkish Cypriot ‘other’ within Greek Cypriot historical narratives, rather than the equally important, but much more marginalised figure of the British ‘other’.²⁰ This raises a number of fundamental questions, given the significance of Britain’s role in the events of 1974, which have yet to be properly approached or fully answered. For example, what actually sustains the power and appeal of the many conspiracy theories associated with 1974? Why do some Greek Cypriots interviewed for this project remember events which all the available evidence would suggest did not actually occur? And lastly here, why do some official publications directly refer to British actions in 1974 while others, such as school texts, almost completely marginalise the role of Britain within their narratives of the independence period? It is through the process of asking and answering questions such as these that will allow this monograph to analyse, in greater detail than has gone before, a period of such seminal importance in the ongoing relationship between Britain and Cyprus. As such, the central research question guiding this study and the one which will engage with all of the issues set out above is: how is the image of Britain shaped and utilised within the Greek Cypriot historical discourses associated with the conflict of 1974?

By answering this question, this monograph will show that one of the central and defining legacies of British rule on Cyprus, at least in relation to the ‘Cyprus Problem’, is the concept of ‘divide and rule’. It is a policy formula which transcends the colonial period, especially given the British did not leave Cyprus in 1960 but merely changed the nature of their occupation, meaning there is a lingering suspicion that the protection of their neo-colonial SBAs simply followed the same ‘partitionist’ approach. A suspicion which, as Chapters 2 and 3 will show, was not helped by the inherent ambiguities of British policy or by the actions of their NATO allies. What this has allowed is the view to develop that a Cyprus divided is a Cyprus controlled. A view that is embraced across all sides of the political spectrum, as irrespective of their ideological disputes, it is far easier for many organisations and individuals to focus in on the divisive actions of Britain so as to try and forget, or at the very least marginalise, their own role in dividing Cyprus. Indeed, given the many ‘partitionist’ policies brought forth by Britain, America, Greece and Turkey since the 1950s, it is not difficult to see why 1974 could be framed as the effective culmination of a long-term plan for division. As such, a discourse of remembrance has developed which has at its foundations a post-colonial suspicion of British political actions, given the nature of the anti-colonial struggle of the 1950s, which is then developed and framed by the feeling of continued neo-colonial ‘interference’ associated with the protection of their SBAs. This monograph defines this as a discourse of inherent suspicion, as while there is no direct evidence to prove there was an Anglo–American conspiracy in 1974, there is often enough ambiguity of action, or indeed, inaction across this period as a whole to allow for the development and continuation of such views. Indeed, akin to many other ‘myths’ of conflict, insofar as these discourses can reshape the image of an event around one particularly dominant trope, all that is needed is ambiguity, just enough ‘factual’ continuity to sustain them, and a population willing to accept them.²¹ Consequently, ‘divide and rule’ can be used to not only explain the emergence of the ‘Cyprus Problem’, but it can also act as an effective shorthand to help explain and understand why Britain has continued to act as it has over the years. In effect, therefore, this monograph will show that the continued ‘colonial’ connection between Britain and Cyprus across the entirety of the twentieth century, and beyond, can fundamentally impact the way in which their actions in 1974 are interpreted and remembered today. As a final point to make here, although this monograph is focussed on Greek Cypriot perspectives of conflict, one should always bear in mind the potential parallels which can be drawn to the development of Turkish Cypriot perspectives of Britain.²² Ones not given focus here primarily due to language const...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Note on referencing
• 1 Introduction
• 2 ‘One of our problems’The British view of 1974
• 3 Imagining conflict and its causes: Structuring a popular Greek Cypriot response
• 4 Creating official images of the past in Greek Cypriot historical narratives and school texts
• 5 Reconciling the past : Sites of memory and acts of public remembrance
• 6 Framing the ‘Cyprus Problem’
• 7 Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Bibliography
• Index