failure !!! of 'enosis"
The July 15 coup d'etat in Cyprus was inspired and organized by the military-fascist regime in Greece. That regime's brutality and political stupidity was fully revealed by this undertaking.
The Athens military regime could not have hoped to achieve any economic or financial advantages from its Cyprus operation. Apart from the strictly limited profits extracted from the influx of currency brought on by the annual tourist invasion and the subprofits arising from the several thousand British soldiers stationed on the military bases Britain maintains on the island, Cyprus is a poor country. In the future, perhaps, the island's subsoil could produce some economic gains, but capital for this has not yet flowed in, and Greek financial capital is not up to the task. So the July 15 coup cannot be accounted for by any local "imperialist" objective on the part of the Athens regime.
But the attachment of Cyprus to Greece has always been a central theme of ultranationalist and fascist circles and brotherhoods in Greece. The idea of a Greater Greece always remained on the order of the day for Greek military circles permeated by this fascist-like ideology. Holding the reigns of wer, the Greek military decided to take a step forward in not to attain its objective. But the political consewere touched off soon got out of the junta's conught about the overthrow of the Athens med by th flames it ignited itself. arried out before Athens lost congrams of class collaboration, the necessity of building cadres and constructing the revolutionary party, the key importance of pushing for the emergence of organs of dual power, and the way to combine defense of immediate economic and democratic demands with the struggle for the transitional program, for workers power, and for the socialist united states of Europe. July 25,1974 INPRECOR by G. VERGEAT trol of events, which went through a chain-reaction development, provoking an international escalation of considerable proportions that illustrated the purely strategic military and political function that the island of Cyprus presently fulfills.
Why the coup and why now?
It was the most extreme elements among Greek nationalist circles that came to power in Athens last November by overthrowing the regime of Papadopoulos, who was himself the colonel who orchestrated the 1967 coup that installed the Greek dictatorship. The orientation the Papadopoulos regime had taken during 1973 corresponded to the wishes of pro-Western bourgeois leaders who favored a limited internal liberalization and the restoration of a few formal democratic norms like elections. The hope was that this cosmetic operation could give Greece an appearance of modernization and that the
Common Market would thus open its doors to Athens. The hardliners, opposed to this surface liberalization and panicked by the popular upsurge of November 1973, liquidated Papadopoulos and took over, manifesting their Nazi- and fascistloving origins, which go back to the second world war and the postwar Greek counterrevolution.
The military clique had no social base whatever within the country. Contrary to Papadopoulos, who wanted to introduce a few reforms in order to integrate some bourgeois personalities of the opposition so as to gain some credit for his regime,
the ultranationalist generals who took over in November were totally isolated. Several weeks after the resignation of the minister of foreign affairs, for example, the junta had still not found a civilian candidate willing to replace him. The regime, aided by international inflation, had managed to make the country's economic situation even worse. It was holding itself in power solely by the force of its army. But while it had no social base, the junta did have ideological convictions. It hoped to be able to develop a popular consensus by resorting to the device of xenophobia, especially against the Turks. When the question of oil deposits in the Aegean Sea came up, Athens launched a crude hysterical campaign against Turkey, which naturally intended to exploit the potential resources of the common Greek-Turkish sea. But the Greek people did not line up behind the regime in a patriotic spirit against the "eternal enemy. " Cyprus -like Deroullide's Alsace-Lorraine in the pathologically nationalist France of the pre-1914 period -- was supposed to be an ideal terrain for the realization of pan-Hellenism, even though 20 percent of the island's population is Turkish. But there was no demonstration of popular support when the antiTurkish general mobilization was announced in Greece. Nor did the manner in which the Greek government presented the Cyprus events create a current favoring its undertaking. The fact that all power was officially concentrated in the hands of the military, even though no war broke out between Greece and Turkey, was another illustration of the regime's isolation. Even more recently, it was announced that anyone circulating information about alleged clashes within the regime would be hauled before military courts and subject to the death penalty on charges of national treason. The evocation of Alexander the Great and the 1821 war against the Ottoman empire generated no response among the youth. The stupidity of the Greek military was fully revealed in all these actions. All this nationalist scenery belongs to a bygone era. July 1974 was chosen as the time for the Nicosia coup because the Greek regime believed all the conditions were right. There were a number of factors motivating that belief. First, the junta felt certain of Washington's support and thought that this would leave it a free hand. The recent signature of new agreements guaranteeing Washington an extension of its military implantation in Greece -- land, air, and especially naval bases -- brought the two regimes ever closer together. Second, there was the latent crisis of Turkish-American relations a few weeks ago, after the Turkish government again legalized the growing of opium poppies, which alarmed Washington because of the potential effects on American cities like New York that have been racked by widespread use of heroin. Third, relations between Cyprus and the United States have never been good. This is amply demonstrated by Makarios's arms purchases from the Soviet bloc and by his refusal to place himself under the direct tutelage of Washington. Makarios's "neutralist" posturing, timid as it was, annoyed Washington, especially after Kissinger's opening of the new drive to impose American hegemony in the Arab East. Even though he had allowed the British to maintain bases in Cyprus that were integrated into the NATO system, Makarios did not fit into American strategy in Europe or the Arab East. He therefore stood in the way of Kissinger, whose whole project is to assert U.S. economic and military power in the world. The American plan involved supplanting Great Britain, the old colonial power in Cyprus, and London was supporting Makarios. The realization of this plan was made more urgent by the prospective signature under U.S. auspices of peace accords between Israel and the Arab states. And finally, Makarios's opposition to the
Athens junta made him a threat to the Greek regime, for he could aid and rally the bourgeois opposition to the military dictatorship. Makarios had become a figure of sorts in political life inside Greece. Such were the conditions the Greek junta counted on to make its coup d'etat in Nicosia. While the ideological aspect of the enosis operation (the attachment of Cyprus to Greece) was strongly apparent, its most striking feature was its political weakness. In a grotesque way, the operation was not without parallels to Hitler's annexation of Austria (the Anschluss). The form of the coup Cyprus is composed of two nationalities, Greek and Turkish. The latter accounts for about 20 percent of the island's population (which is less than a million) and does not favor the attachment of Cyprus to Greece. The Greek community, while it is a majority, is also not thrilled by the idea of being integrated into the "fatherland. " The old British colonial regime utilized, and even de liberately stirred up, the permanent and latent conflict between the two national components to justify its presence. This is the basis on which British imperialism maintained its military presence after it granted Cypriot independence in 1959. Conflicts between the two communities had calmed down until the Greek junta's coup. Since no social force on the island among the Greek Cypriots expressed support for enosis, which was in any case opposed by the Turks, the attempted attachment could only be carried out in a "substitutist" manner and by force, thus confirming that the Athens regime also lacked a social base in Cyprus itself. The political personnel Athens placed in power in Nicosia demonstrate the character of the coup even more clearly. They are a bunch of gangsters and cabaret scum, agents of all sorts of corrupt trafficking who lack the slightest social base. They are not even well-heeled bourgeois notables. It was a completely open fact that the head of this mafia clique, Nikos Sampson, was a former killer from the terrorist, fascistic organization EOKA-B, * which emerged out of the most ultranationalist Greek and Greek Cypriot circles headed in Cyprus by the madman General Grivas. As soon as he was in power, Sampson started hunting down supporters of Makarios and militants of the Cypriot Communist party (AKEL), which supported the Makarios regime. The instrument of the coup was the Cypriof National Guard, composed of Greek Cypriots but trained and staffed by several hundred Greek officers sent from Athens and committed to the regime of the Greek junta. After the installation of the second military junta in Greece, interference in Cyprus by Athens was intensified through the medium of this Greek military and political force on the island. Consequently, the officers of the National Guard began acting independently of Makarios's authority. On Friday, July 5, during his monthly interview with the press, Makarios made the following declaration: "It is clear that for some time relations between the Cypriot and Greek governments have not been harmonious. There are two principal reasons for this, which is leading toward a test of strength between Athens and Nicosia. A major cause has been the conduct and attitude of certain officers of the general staff of the National Guard, and particularly their in* The EOKA was a clandestine military-fascist organization formed to fight against the British occupation after 1945. It advocated attachment of Cyprus to Greece. The EOKA-B is only a continuation of the old EOKA.
5
CYPRUS
Sampson, professional killer. • volvement with the 'EOKA-B,' the support that they are given by it in various ways, and their incitement to terrorist actions by this organization whose aim is to abolish the Cypriot state. It is an undeniable fact that the National Guard, which is the criminal organization that supports it, the 'EOKA-B' controlled by Greek officers, has become the mainstay of Another reason is the recruitment of prospective officers of the National Guard to the Polemidhia Officers School, which was never approved by the Council of Ministers, which has the absolute right to approve all such appointments according to the law. The general staff of the National Guard was informed of this in writing. A few days later, after receiving instructions from Athens, the general staff answered that the candidates rejected by the Council of Ministers would remain in the school. In my view, the violation of the law by the National Guard and the ignoring of a decision taken by the Council of Ministers was an undesirable interference in Cyprus by the (Greek) dictatorship and an attempt to deflect the National Guard from its role as a state body toward a role as an internal army of occupation. " (Cyprus Bulletin, issued by the Public Information Office, Republic of Cyprus, Nicosia, July 10, 1974. Vol.XI, No.27.) So there was no surprise for Makarios. He knew the exact details of how the situation was developing. A bit like Allende in Chile. And like Allende, he fully refrained from preparing for the inevitable confrontation by appealing to the masses. Makarios had not learned the lessons of Chile. Makarios is one of the last survivors of the generation of anticolonialist (and most often Bonapartist) leaders who met with such great ideological and political unity in Bandung in 1955. Sukarno, Nkrumah, and Nasser, Makarios's neighbor, were unable to resist the restructuring of imperialist rule under more and more direct U.S. leadership, which the U.S. undertook after the victory of the Cuban revolution and the development of the Indochinese revolution. Nasser's death in 1970 already sounded the demise of Makarios. His regime was never strengthened by social reforms or by important measures dealing with relations between the two national components of the country. His relations with the Turkish community never generated Turkish confidence in his personality. Makarios did not possess sufficient organized power to oppose either the undermining of his regime from Athens or the pressure exerted on him by Kissinger. 6
Even if Makarios were to be returned to his former position by the intervention of foreign powers -- above all Great Britain and secondarily the other Common Market countries -his reconquered power would be vastly weakened and he would more than ever be subject to neocolonial dictates. The old Makarios is finished. Consequences The stupidity of the Greek militarists knows no bounds. To be convinced of this it is enough to examine the answer to a single question: While the Athens junta had reasons for intervening, how could its leaders have ignored the chain reaction that would be touched off by the intervention, thereby overestimating their power to engage in an operation that had a strong possibility of becoming suicidal? Were they so completely divorced from reality that they were unable to grasp the political forces at work in the region? The course of events after the coup provides an answer to this question. The junta's regime was politically and militarily incompetent. Its essential function was to counteract or repress the rise of Greek worker, peasant, and intellectual forces. It was a police regime. Nevertheless, it would be false to believe that the Athens regime was simply a puppet of Washington, as some of the leftist press suggested, and that the Nicosia coup therefore must have originated directly from the U.S. Defense Department, Pentagon, or even the CIA. The Athens regime could not be reduced to this role. It had its own plans and tried to carry them out within the limits set by the general interests of imperialism, even if this might bring them into secondary conflicts with imperialism. It is most likely because of its strictly localist approach to the situation that the Greek government failed so miserably. Both internationally and internally the junta failed to carry the day. In the region of the eastern Mediterranean the junta's plans came to nothing. They fell to pieces even in Cyprus itself. - There was no fusion between the National Guard and the
Greek Cypriot population. Pogroms against the Turkish community throughout the island were touched off and led by the
National Guard in the worst fascist traditions. Ankara was able to justify its intervention by these persecutions, which Makarios, last of 'Bandung' leaders.
in some cases bordered on genocide. The Turkish intervention was even legitimate on the basis of the 1960 Greek-Turkish-
British treaty under which unilateral intervention by any of the signatories is provided for if any of the others break the terms of the treaty. And that was that. The regime of Nikos Sampson was still-born. There is now a Turkish presence on the island and Turkey will not withdraw without a modification of the island's status and the implementation of some guarantees for the minority Turkish community. From the standpoint of both Greece and Turkey, the independent Republic of Cyprus is dead. The preconditions for its existence were the noninterference of the Greek and Turkish states and the peaceful relations between the two communities on the island. The junta was also totally discredited in the eyes of the European bourgeois governments, which are now in position to implement their plans for a Greek government with an appearance of democracy by bringing civilians back to power. Even Kissinger, who originally kept silent about the coup because he thought he could achieve his local objectives in the framework of the fait accompli, publicly cut loose from the Greek junta. (Immediately after the coup, a spokesman of Kissinger's State Department explained that the United States would wait and see who controlled the territory of Cyprus, in other words, that Washington no longer recognized Makarios.) It was a serious defeat for the leaders of the world counterrevolution that they could not prevent their Turkish allies from invading Cyprus and it was a serious matter for NATO and the Atlantic Alliance to see their allies confront each other with identical weapons that had been provided by NATO itself. There was a camouflaged crisis between the United States and Europe (that is, the nine members of the Common Market), the latter supporting with some hypocrisy the position taken by Britain in favor of Makarios and against Athens. This crisis is not at all new, but it found expression on a new field. The policy of U.S. domination came off very badly during the sudden crisis, and U.S. imperialism may have to pay for this, at least in the short run. Cyprus occupies a strategic position in the eastern MediterPORTUGAL Less than two months after the appointment of the first