EOKA
The EOKA ( Greek Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston , German , National Organization of Cypriot Fighters' ) was a Greek Cypriot military resistance organization that mainly in the second half of the 1950s for independence of the Crown Colony of Cyprus from the UK began.
history
EOKA was founded on the initiative of Georgios Grivas , but his plans met with opposition from President Makarios III. Grivas campaigned for the island to be annexed to Greece ( Enosis ), but the focus of EOKA's activities was on the island's independence from the United Kingdom . Great Britain's Conservative Government decided in the early 1950s to relocate its military bases from the Suez area to Cyprus, creating a strong British military presence there.
On April 1, 1955, the EOKA carried out several bomb attacks against government buildings, police bases, communications links and military facilities of the British in Cyprus. With this, EOKA began a violent campaign aimed at enforcing the unification of Cyprus with Greece through violence. The majority of the population distanced themselves from the methods of the organization, but they shared the goal of shaking off British suzerainty. EOKA infiltrated parts of the Greek staff of the local police established by the British. EOKA also organized demonstrations, mostly of young people, in the hope of escalating the violence.
The Communist Party of Cyprus AKEL , which wanted to give the independence movement a left-wing orientation and wanted to rely on mass strikes and demonstrations, was also in conflict with the EOKA . The Communist Party of Greece unveiled the real name of the EOKA leader Georgios Grivas and spread the message about Eastern European broadcasters. As a result, British authorities claimed that they knew about Georgios Grivas from the start, but that they had not arrested him for his murders of Greek Cypriot communists.
The colonial rulers specifically acquired Turkish-Cypriot “special police officers” in order to use them in tough measures against the Greek Cypriots and against EOKA sympathizers. This measure drove a wedge between the two communities in Cyprus and strengthened the Greek nationalist wing within EOKA. In fact, up to that point there had been no incident between the two communities.
The British administration published reports that led to a conflict between the two ethnic groups and provided radical forces with the names and whereabouts of the supposedly opposing side. Politics followed the tradition of “ divide and rule ”. It deployed over 30,000 British soldiers to combat EOKA, 104 of whom were killed in the conflict. The island was on the verge of civil war in the summer of 1958, when the Turkish Cypriots increasingly turned against the Greek Cypriots. The EOKA fighters directed their attacks against both Greek and Turkish Cypriots who supported the British presence or also revealed the names and hiding places of their members. The Turkish Cypriots were partially constituted in the organization TMT - TAKSIM - Department Cyprus , which in turn took action against the Greek community.
After the Zurich and London agreements had made the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus possible, most supporters and sympathizers saw the goals of the EOKA as achieved. The EOKA was officially dissolved on March 9, 1959.
The radical split: EOKA-B
While the EOKA (1955–59) was reputed by the majority of Greek Cypriots as anti-colonial freedom fighters, the EOKA-B ( Greek ΕΟΚΑ Β ' pronounced: EOKA-Vita) did not find the same overwhelming support. The Greek Cypriot population was attenuated by the strong involvement of the EOKA-B with the unpopular Greek junta skeptical, and after eleven years of independence, the cooled Enosis from feeling, including through the neutral management of the independent Republic of Makarios. The popularity of EOKA-B reached another low point after attacks on Greek Cypriot socialists and independence fighters as well as the murder of government minister Polycarpos Georkatzis and a failed assassination attempt on Makarios himself.
When Grivas died of a heart attack in January 1974, the new leadership of EOKA-B came increasingly under the direct influence of the Athens military junta. On July 15, 1974, EOKA-B - with the consent of the Greek dictator Dimitrios Ioannidis and with the help of the Cypriot National Guard - launched a military coup , overthrew Makarios and made Nikos Sampson President of Cyprus. This action triggered the Turkish military invasion on July 20, which led to the continuous Turkish occupation of over a third of the island area.
Commemoration and reappraisal
For a long time, the political left in Cyprus in particular saw EOKA as a right-wing organization that would have thwarted its own efforts. Today the EOKA (but not the EOKA-B) is seen as a decisive contribution to the independence of the republic, which, however, was also paid for by force.
Numerous hiding places and objects of the EOKA have been preserved to this day and have been refurbished as museums. The most important sites are the Museum of National Struggle (often mistakenly called the EOKA Museum) in Nicosia and the EOKA Museum in Paphos.
literature
- Andreas Varnavas: A brief history of the Liberation Struggle of EOKA, 1955-1959. 2001, ISBN 9963-613-52-7 or ISBN 978-9963-613-52-6 .
- Charles Foley: Legacy of Strife. Cyprus from Rebellion to Civil War. London 1964.
- Niels Kadritzke, Wolf Wagner: In the crosshairs of NATO. Investigations using the example of Cyprus. Berlin 1976, ISBN 3-88022-147-2 (with bibliography).
- Willy Klawe: Cyprus. A political travel book. Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-87975-443-8 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Niels Kadritzke, Wolf Wagner: In the crosshairs of NATO. Investigations using the example of Cyprus. Berlin 1976, pp. 33-44.
- ↑ Martin Shipway: Decolonization and its Impact. A Comparative Approach to the End of the Colonial Empires. Oxford 2008 p. 159.
- ↑ Niels Kadritzke, Wolf Wagner: In the crosshairs of NATO. Investigations using the example of Cyprus. Berlin 1976, pp. 57-98.