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Cyprus Intercommunal Violence
The atmosphere on the island was tense. On December 21,
1963,
serious violence erupted in Nicosia when a Greek Cypriot
police
patrol, ostensibly checking identification documents,
stopped a
Turkish Cypriot couple on the edge of the Turkish quarter.
A
hostile crowd gathered, shots were fired, and two Turkish
Cypriots
were killed. As the news spread, members of the
underground
organizations began firing and taking hostages. North of
Nicosia,
Turkish forces occupied a strong position at St. Hilarion
Castle,
dominating the road to Kyrenia on the northern coast. The
road
became a principal combat area as both sides fought to
control it.
Much intercommunal fighting occurred in Nicosia along the
line
separating the Greek and Turkish quarters of the city
(known later
as the Green Line). Turkish Cypriots were not concentrated
in one
area, but lived throughout the island, making their
position
precarious. Vice-President Küçük and Turkish Cypriot
ministers and
members of the House of Representatives ceased
participating in the
government.
In January 1964, after an inconclusive conference in
London
among representatives of Britain, Greece, Turkey, and the
two
Cypriot communities, UN Secretary General U Thant, at the
request
of the Cyprus government, sent a special representative to
the
island. After receiving a firsthand report in February,
the
Security Council authorized a peace-keeping force under
the
direction of the secretary general. Advance units reached
Cyprus in
March, and by May the United Nations Peace-keeping Force
in Cyprus
(UNFICYP) totaled about 6,500 troops. Originally
authorized for a
three-month period, the force, at decreased strength, was
still in
position in the early 1990s.
Severe intercommunal fighting occurred in March and
April 1964.
When the worst of the fighting was over, Turkish
Cypriots--sometimes of their own volition and at other
times forced
by the TMT--began moving from isolated rural areas and
mixed
villages into enclaves. Before long, a substantial portion
of the
island's Turkish Cypriot population was crowded into the
Turkish
quarter of Nicosia in tents and hastily constructed
shacks. Slum
conditions resulted from the serious overcrowding. All
necessities
as well as utilities had to be brought in through the
Greek Cypriot
lines. Many Turkish Cypriots who had not moved into
Nicosia gave up
their land and houses for the security of other enclaves.
In June 1964, the House of Representatives, functioning
with
only its Greek Cypriot members, passed a bill establishing
the
National Guard, in which all Cypriot males between the
ages of
eighteen and fifty-nine were liable to compulsory service.
The
right of Cypriots to bear arms was then limited to this
National
Guard and to the police. Invited by Makarios, General
Grivas
returned to Cyprus in June to assume command of the
National Guard;
the purpose of the new law was to curb the proliferation
of Greek
Cypriot irregular bands and bring them under control in an
organization commanded by the prestigious Grivas. Turks
and Turkish
Cypriots meanwhile charged that large numbers of Greek
regular
troops were being clandestinely infiltrated into the
island to lend
professionalism to the National Guard. Turkey began
military
preparations for an invasion of the island. A brutally
frank
warning from United States president Lyndon B. Johnson to
Prime
Minister Ismet Inönü caused the Turks to call off the
invasion. In
August, however, Turkish jets attacked Greek Cypriot
forces
besieging Turkish Cypriot villages on the northwestern
coast near
Kokkina.
In July, veteran United States diplomat Dean Acheson
met with
Greek and Turkish representatives in Geneva. From this
meeting
emerged what became known as the Acheson Plan, according
to which
Greek Cypriots would have enosis and Greece was to award
the Aegean
island of Kastelorrizon to Turkey and compensate Turkish
Cypriots
wishing to emigrate. Secure Turkish enclaves and a Turkish
sovereign military base area were to be provided on
Cyprus.
Makarios rejected the plan, because it called for what he
saw as a
modified form of partition.
Throughout 1964 and later, President Makarios and the
Greek
Cypriot leadership adopted the view that the establishment
of
UNFICYP by the UN Security Council had set aside the
rights of
intervention granted to the guarantor powers--Britain,
Greece, and
Turkey--by the Treaty of Guarantee. The Turkish
leadership, on the
other hand, contended that the Security Council action had
reinforced the provisions of the treaty. These
diametrically
opposed views illustrated the basic Greek Cypriot and
Turkish
Cypriot positions; the former holding that the
constitution and the
other provisions of the treaties were flexible and subject
to
change under changing conditions, and the latter, that
they were
fixed agreements, not subject to change.
Grivas and the National Guard reacted to Turkish
pressure by
initiating patrols into the Turkish Cypriot enclaves.
Patrols
surrounded two villages, Ayios Theodhoros and Kophinou,
about
twenty-five kilometers southwest of Larnaca, and began
sending in
heavily armed patrols. Fighting broke out, and by the time
the
Guard withdrew, twenty-six Turkish Cypriots had been
killed. Turkey
issued an ultimatum and threatened to intervene in force
to protect
Turkish Cypriots. To back up their demands, the Turks
massed troops
on the Thracian border separating Greece and Turkey and
began
assembling an amphibious invasion force. The ultimatum's
conditions
included the expulsion of Grivas from Cyprus, removal of
Greek
troops from Cyprus, payment of indemnity for the
casualties at
Ayios Theodhoros and Kophinou, cessation of pressure on
the Turkish
Cypriot community, and the disbanding of the National
Guard.
Grivas resigned as commander of the Greek Cypriot
forces on
November 20, 1967, and left the island, but the Turks did
not
reduce their readiness posture, and the dangerous
situation of two
NATO nations on the threshold of war with each other
continued.
President Johnson dispatched Cyrus R. Vance as his special
envoy to
Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. Vance arrived in Ankara in
late
November and began ten days of negotiations that defused
the
situation. Greece agreed to withdraw its forces on Cyprus
except
for the contingent allowed by the 1960 treaties, provided
that
Turkey did the same and also dismounted its invasion
force. Turkey
agreed, and the crisis passed. During December 1967 and
early
January 1968, about 10,000 Greek troops were withdrawn.
Makarios
did not disband the National Guard, however, something he
came to
regret when it rebelled against him in 1974.
Data as of January 1991
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