Greek Cypriot leftist party remembers 1974 coup on island as ‘act of treason’

Greek Cypriot leftist party remembers 1974 coup on island as ‘act of treason’

AKEL party notes that many Cypriot Greeks were also murdered by EOKA-B terror group founded by Georgios Grivas

By Anadolu Agency Staff

ANKARA (AA) - The Greek Cypriot party AKEL remembered the coup of 1974 on the island by the extreme nationalist EOKA-B terror group formed by Georgios Grivas as an act of treason, local media reported Wednesday.

Laying a wreath at the Democracy and Resistance Monument in Larnaca, Stefanos Stefanou, general secretary of the major leftist party in the Greek Cypriot administration, said the coup on July 15, 1974 was a treacherous act planned by Grivas.

"We are here to honor the dead resistance fighters murdered by Grivas’s EOKA-B, all those who resisted the treacherous coup of the (Greek military) junta and EOKA-B,” Stefanou said.

Also speaking at the event, Tasos Savva, president of the Association of Democratic Resistance, said: “We honor all those who watered with their blood the tree of democracy and resistance against the fascism of the junta and EOKA-B.”

Recently, the Greek Cypriot administration decided to convert Azina House, a hideout that Grivas used, to honor the founder of the ultra-nationalist group that systematically targeted Turkish Cypriots in a series of terrorist attacks.

-EOKA terror group

Founded by Grivas in 1954, EOKA staged its first terrorist attack a year later, though its primary objective was to fight against the British occupiers of the island in the East Mediterranean.

It then directed its attacks against Turkish Cypriots in 1958, in line with its goals of clearing the island of Turks and uniting it with Greece.

Personally commanded by Grivas, EOKA militias attacked the Erenkoy area, today a western exclave of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), on Aug. 6, 1964 and were confronted by Turkish university students and resistance fighters.

Going down in history as part of the Erenkoy resistance, a total of 18 Turkish Cypriots were killed by EOKA terrorists.

Greek and Greek Cypriot troops along with EOKA militias commanded by Grivas also attacked the Gecitkale area, where they committed a mass slaughter. Twenty Turkish Cypriots were killed and buried in mass graves by the perpetrators.

EOKA terrorists commanded by Grivas and the Greek Cypriot National Guard also tortured 27 people to death in the villages of Kofinou and Agios Theodoros, burying their bodies in a mass grave. All of the victims of the EOKA terrorists in these villages were civilians.

While Grivas was in Greece from 1959-1964, EOKA terrorists carried out more attacks, including the infamous “Bloody Christmas” massacre, also called Black Christmas, in which they killed more than 370 Turkish Cypriots and displaced 25,000-30,000 others during the Christmas season of 1963.

During the deadly terror campaign, 109 Turkish villages were forced to evacuate, while over 2,500 Turkish homes were severely damaged or demolished, according to a UN report released on Sept. 10, 1964.

Grivas then in 1971 founded EOKA-B, which followed an ultra-right-wing nationalistic ideology and had the ultimate goal of achieving the enosis (union) of Cyprus island with Greece.

Though Grivas died in January 1974, EOKA-B, encouraged by the Greek military junta and in cooperation with the national guard, staged a military coup on July 15, 1974, which subsequently led to Türkiye’s military intervention as a guarantor power to protect Turkish Cypriots from persecution and violence.

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