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Comment - We are being forced to live with the myths
By Loucas Charalambous
(archive article - Sunday, June 5, 2005)
IN HIS BOOK The First Partition, Makarios Droushiotis reveals, among other
things, that the bomb explosion at the Marcos Drakos statue at Paphos Gate in
Nicosia on December 3, 1963, was the work of the Akritas organisation. Akritas
was the paramilitary group set up by the late Archbishop Makarios, which had
as its leader Polycarpos Yiorkadjis and as its deputy leader Tassos
Papadopoulos.
This was admitted by members of the organisation, and confirmed by an officer
of the Cyprus army, Chrysafis Chrysafi, who said he had heard Yiorkadjis
giving the relevant orders. I had also been told about this, some 16 years
ago, by people who were involved in the case. During the presentation of the
above-mentioned book in Nicosia, which was attended by the former foreign
minister of Greece, Theodoros Pangalos, a member of the audience stood up and
offered his testimony, as regards another event that took place during that
period.
He had recently met up with some old friends, with whom he had been at the
Ayios Kasianos school (an area adjacent to the Turkish Cypriot quarter of old
Nicosia) during the period in question. At this meeting, he said, one of his
old school-mates confessed that he had started the fire at their school in
1963. However, at the time, the police had tried to blame the fire on the
Turkish Cypriots by saying they had found in the schoolyard two butts of
Turkish cigarettes.
For the first time, there is testimony that these criminal acts (not to
mention the bombing of the Bayraktari an Omeriye mosques in 1962) were the
work of the Akritas organisation. These acts were blamed on the Turkish
Cypriots so that the attack against them could be justified, as could the
dissolution of the Cyprus Republic which had been in existence since August
1960. This happened 18 days after the bombing, sparking years of ethnic
conflict during which thousands of people from both sides lost their lives. If
there is a hell after life I think that the leaders of the Akritas group will
have places reserved for them.
Could you imagine, dear readers, what would have happened if we were living in
any other country? These revelations would have been the main story in all the
news media. The president would have been under pressure to step down, and if
he did, the first act of his successor would have been to apologise to the
Turkish Cypriots on behalf of all decent Greeks of Cyprus for the crime
committed against them in 1963. This would have been a courageous political
act.
We are, however, in Cyprus, in which a conspiracy of silence reigns supreme.
Papadopoulos feels no obligation to make any comment about the revelations or
to give some explanation. Neither does Demetris Christofias. He does not feel
the need to offer an explanation, either to the Turkish Cypriots or to the
AKEL supporters, about the logic that led him to make president the deputy
leader of a paramilitary group. The same applies to most news media, which are
all part of a totalitarian conspiracy of silence that a Stalinist regime would
have envied.
All the television stations have sold their souls to the executive power,
which is currently represented by Papadopoulos. I have no doubt that in July’s
‘anniversary documentaries’, the CyBC will once again have as guest Dr
Lyssarides – another chieftain of a paramilitary group which attacked Turkish
Cypriots – so he could continue to peddle the myth about the "Turkish Cypriot
mutiny".
Neither Droushiotis nor any other researcher has to right to appear in such
documentaries. Only those who shamelessly distort history and uphold the
official myths are allowed to express views on the broadcast media, because
the public must continue to live with the myths. Otherwise, how would the
deputy leader of Akritas and his partner in arms Christofias be able to govern
us? |
