Cyprus

A Modern History

William Mallinson

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2005
• ISBN:
  9780857730732
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Comparative Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the troubled island of Cyprus, the national interests and rivalries of Greece and Turkey still collide, the population remains divided between the Greek and Turkish communities and the country is still a cat's paw of outside powers - especially the USA and the now resurgent Russia - as it has been since the acquisition of the island by Britain in 1878. Global rivalry between the great powers and Cyprus's vitally strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean - a 'listening post' in the Cold War and even today - has meant that the populations have never been free to shape their own destinies which have been constantly influenced by great power interests. These are problems that have been brought into sharp focus by Cyprus's entry into the European Union. William Mallinson's book is a fast-moving and incisive narrative history which portrays Cyprus as a continuing source of international tension in the Mediterranean and beyond. It features the latest source material from the recently released National Archive, vivid interviews with key players, even reports which raise awkward and embarrassing questions. His critical eye uncovers the underlying story of American and British involvement in the island's affairs, first as a key territory in Cold War politics with its close proximity to the Middle East and Asia and now as a key asset in the 'war on terror'. Mallinson's new insights and revelations on the period leading up to and following the Turkish invasion in 1974, when Greece and Turkey - both NATO members - were on the brink of war are fascinating and make essential reading. Henry Kissinger is seen to be even more the master puppeteer, pressuring Britain not to give up her bases. Mallinson examines how after the Turkish invasion Kissinger planned the abortive Annan Plan to divide the island and how he regarded the retention of Cyprus as vital for a future solution of the Arab-Israeli problem. For Kissinger Cyprus was the important square on the 'world chequer-board' while British influence continued to decline and her independence in foreign policy was virtually non-existent. Mallinson also explores how Turkey's drive to join the EU will affect not only stability in Cyprus but also the whole region, as Russia's influence in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean expands. So, in William Mallinson's words, 'Cyprus lies [still] at the epicentre of this whole geopolitical merry-go-round'.

PART I

The Poker Table

INTRODUCTION

Part I covers the history of Cyprus, using mainly diplomatic papers, to enable you to get a ‘first-hand view’ of the story. It goes without saying that one cannot properly comprehend the power of the forces at work around Cyprus without sufficient insight into the backstage diplomacy of the story. It follows that one needs this historical perspective to attempt an analysis and evaluation of the international relations aspects of the conundrum, with which we deal later in the book.

1	British Property and the Russian Factor

A truly independent Greece is an absurdity. Greece can either be English or Russian, and since she must not be Russian, it is necessary that she be English.¹

INTRODUCTION

The precise ethnic mix of those who lived in Cyprus in 7000 BC is a bit of a moot point, although they were certainly mainly neolithic farmers. The Ottoman Turks were not to put in an appearance there for another 8,570 years. The island was settled by Greeks in the second millennium BC. Since then, whatever political arrangements were in force, the population has remained intrinsically Greek, while controlled successively by Mycenaeans, Phoenicians, Assyrians, Egyptians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Byzantines, Franco–English (Richard the Lionheart), Franks, Venetians, Turks, British and, since 1960, also by its own people, albeit with severe constraints on its sovereignty. At independence in 1960, some eighteen per cent of the population was described as Turkish Cypriot, while today this figure is about double, owing to the import of Turkish settlers since the Turkish invasion, a far cry from Ataturk’s policy of the 1920s, to encourage Turkish-speaking Cypriots to return home, to encourage national homogeneity. Interestingly, the ratio of Turkish Cypriots and illegal settlers to Greek Cypriots now corresponds more closely to the percentage of territory taken and occupied by the Turkish armed forces, of which there are some 40,000 soldiers.

This chapter will consider the British interest in Cyprus as well as why, unlike India and other British possessions, Cyprus was unable to buck the trend of the post-war decolonisation process sponsored by the USA – and USSR – and achieve independence or enosis, despite the anti-colonial uprising of Colonel (later General) Grivas which broke out on 1 April 1955. Whether the date of April Fool’s Day was fortuitous or reflected dark humour is a moot point.

THE RUSSIAN OBSESSION AND 1878

It is no exaggeration to say that, during almost the whole of the nineteenth century, one of the British Empire’s most obsessive preoccupations was with Russia, and particularly with the latter’s usually hostile attitude towards the Ottoman Empire. This reached its fulfilment in the case of Greece when the British and their French junior partners occupied Piraeus during the Crimean War, to force Greece not to cooperate with Russia.² The British motive for waging the Crimean War against Russia was essentially to help preserve British hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean, by combating Russia’s desire to weaken Turkey.³ The conclusion of the war did not, however, stop future Russian territorial pressure on Ottoman possessions: Russia defeated the Ottomans in 1877, and reached the gates of Constantinople. The terms of the Treaty of San Stefano concluded between the Russians and the Ottomans were so advantageous to the former, including, for example, the establishment of a large and independent pro-Russian Bulgaria, that the British intervened diplomatically (and by moving more naval vessels into the Mediterranean), actions which led to the ‘Great Eastern Crisis’, and the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Although the main aim of the Congress was to establish peace in the Balkans, in the face of Russian power and a crumbling Ottoman Empire, Britain realised that the Ottoman Empire was no longer a ‘genuine reliable power’,⁴ and that she would need not only to combat Russia, but also to watch over Anatolia. Britain therefore leased Cyprus from the Ottomans as a ‘place d’armes’ in a convention approved by the Congress of Berlin, to guarantee Asiatic Turkey against Russian attack. The main objective was to keep the Russians at bay and to ‘prop up some sort of Turkish state, in Asia Minor – much the arrangement, in fact, which still existed in the middle half of the twentieth century’,⁵ and, at least in (IMF) financial and US-sponsored military terms, today. By 1878, Britain enjoyed naval strategic supremacy in the Mediterranean, controlling Gibraltar, Malta and Cyprus, after the latter pawn had changed hands.

ENOSIS

Although the campaign for union with Greece was not to become a serious problem for its colonial masters until the EOKA campaign of the 1950s, its roots had been put down much earlier, arguably with the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, when the archbishop of Cyprus, his archdeacon and three bishops were beheaded, and other atrocities occurred. In 1828, modern Greece’s first president, Count Kapodistria, called for the union of Cyprus with Greece, and various minor uprisings took place.⁶ When General Wolsely stepped ashore in Cyprus in 1878 formally to establish British control, he was welcomed by the archbishop of Kition with a request that Britain hand Cyprus over to Greece.⁷ At all events, the enosis movement remained ‘patchy and incidental in its extent, but nevertheless retained a high degree of continuity and fixity of purpose, essentially because of the existence of high Greek culture within the milieu of the powerful and respected Greek Christian Orthodox Church’.⁸ Enosis was always in the background, and expectation in Greece and Cyprus rose and came into the open during the Graeco–Turkish War of 1897 and with Crete’s subsequent de facto independence and final incorporation into Greece in 1912. When Turkey joined Germany in the First World War, Britain formally annexed the island, although it had discussed ceding it to Greece at the end of 1912, in return for a base in the Ionian Islands.⁹ In 1915, Britain actually offered to cede Cyprus, if Greece were to join her in the war,¹⁰ but as Greece did not join until 1917, Britain did not grant Greece’s request, made at the Versailles negotiations in 1919, to give up the island. Expectations for enosis had nevertheless been raised. Under the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Turkey formally ceded Cyprus to Britain, which declared it a Crown Colony in 1925. In the Treaty (Article 16), Turkey agreed to renounce all claims of any kind to territories under its former jurisdiction. Britain was to change that, effectively bringing to an end all the good achieved in the Friendship Treaties of 1930 between Greece and Turkey.¹¹

The enosis campaign grew in strength. When, in 1931, the Colonial Administration proposed a temporary levy of five per cent on official salaries of over £100 a year, the Legislative Council voted thirteen to twelve to reject it. The twelve Greek Cypriots who voted against the measure were joined by a Turkish Cypriot – who became known as the ‘Thirteenth Greek’.¹² The measure was nevertheless imposed by an Order in Council, and agitation began. The Bishop of Kition even declared the union of Cyprus with Greece, and on 21 October there were major riots in which Government House was burned down. This led to the suspension by Britain of the Colonial Constitution, and the introduction of various repressive measures, including the deportation of two bishops and two Communist Party leaders.¹³ The Communists, feared as much as the Church by the British administration for having helped to foment the riots, had not yet been openly pushing for enosis, but one major result of the repression was a change in policy, whereby the Communist Party now lined up with the Church on the enosis issue. In 1933, the British therefore banned it.¹⁴ The years up to the end of the Second World War in Greece were quieter, with the British and Greeks in Cyprus retreating into their respective social and mental compartments.¹⁵ After Britain declared war on Germany, some 37,000 Cypriots volunteered for the British Armed Forces (including a later president, Glafcos Clerides, who became a fighter pilot), of whom one third were Turkish. Proportionately, then, twice as many Turkish as Greek Cypriots volunteered. Interestingly, the British authorities even used the slogan ‘For Greece and Freedom’ in their recruiting.¹⁶ Whether this was faintly cynical or simply desperately realistic is debatable. The fact that one third of the recruits were Turkish Cypriots is more intriguing, particularly when faced with such a slogan, although economic factors may have played some role. At all events, the end of the Second World War brought renewed and more widespread demands for enosis, in Greece, Cyprus, in certain influential quarters of the USA and even, as we shall see, in the upper echelons of the Foreign Office; but again, the Russian spectre was going to be wheeled out, this time in the cloak of Communism, as a reason, some would say an excuse, for preventing independence as well as enosis. There were, as we shall see, arguments both in favour of and against giving up Cyprus. Paradoxically, proponents of both arguments used the Communist threat as a main pillar of their reasoning.

THE RUSSIAN OBSESSION

Even before the end of the Second World War, left-wing demonstrations and strikes had begun in countries freed from the Germans. Cyprus, although not occupied by the Germans, also experienced a renewed wave of agitation for enosis. Along with the left-right polarisation of politics,¹⁷ the question began to loom ever larger. During the war, the question had been in the minds of the Greek government in exile; one month before the invasion of Greece in 1941, the Greek prime minister had asked his British counterpart whether, in return for Greece’s war effort, Britain would consider ceding Cyprus as a reward, but was politely rebuffed.¹⁸

It is fair to say that before the end of the war, the stage was set for a future concerted effort by Cyprus and Greece to push for enosis. The British were clearly well aware of the strength of feeling on the issue. In August 1944, the Governor, Charles Woolley, wrote in a secret telegram:

Several factors have since combined to bring the issue of the union with Gruce [sic] to the fore. Following the announcement of proposed visit [by Cosmo Parkinson, Under Secretary of State for the Colonies], Akel [Left-wing] and National [Right-wing] parties have vied with each other in public support of enosis. Moreover, recent rapid progress of Allied arms has led Cypriots to believe that decision on their claims is imminent, following an early end to the war.

Result is that it is now certain that in petitions to Parkinson, enosis will be in the forefront of all the demands of all the parties. Some local politicians are even pressing that no other request should be submitted [...].¹⁹

The main factors in favour of enosis were: the Atlantic Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, often quoted by Greek Cypriots; impending decolonisation, for example in Transjordan, India, Burma and Ceylon; the handing to Greece of the Dodecanese Islands by Italy, via the British Military Administration (Peace Treaty with Italy 1947); and the natural feeling of Greek Cypriots that they were, in fact, Greek, just as Greek Cretans had felt Greek.

Before discussing what got in the way of pro-enosis recommendations by British politicians and senior Foreign Office officials, we need to look at their arguments. Immediately following the end of the war, a British member of Parliament, Noel Baker, wrote to the foreign secretary, Bevin, to propose a ‘new policy in Greece’, which included the cession of Cyprus. The first stage of the Greek civil war had already passed, with a tenuous and ill-fated agreement at Varkiza, and there was considerable resentment among many Greeks, particularly the left wing, towards Britain’s role in fighting the Greek wartime resistance movement, EAM-ELAS. This resentment stemmed from the fact that the British Operations Executive had assisted the Greek resistance (of which ELAS was the largest part) in fighting the occupiers, but that the British army had subsequently turned against them (see pages 15–19). Baker advocated various measures, including the return of Cyprus to Greece, writing: ‘There is no doubt that the people of Cyprus ardently desire to rejoin Greece, and that feeling is beginning to run high.’ He added that adoption of such a policy would kill Communist hopes of attaining power by civil war, and would greatly strengthen the foreign secretary’s hand in his efforts to check ‘Russian imperialist plans in the border countries’.²⁰ Althou...