Evriviades the Hell of Good Intentions Cyprus Invasion

7/21/2019 Evriviades the Hell of Good Intentions Cyprus Invasion

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Th e H ell of G ood Intentions

(Review Essay)

by

MARIOS L. EVRIVIADES

0 ATTfAag Taiittst

ikcpov:

tid

xpotitxdv

ouplax.4 do-

6oAti)g sEg

T Y

bileyacAdmov

[Attila Strikes Cyprus: The

Chronicle of the Turkish In-

vasion)

by D ionysios K ardianos.

Athens: Ekdhosis G. Ladhias,

1976. 371 pp. 300 drs.

Maxdcpcog, gtopstst Scci nu* xcd.

ocailpou:

7COLOE ItCti

t-ct

o i x

accy

vex, axotiwaouv TON+ Kiktpco

11p6e6po

[M akarios, B y Fire and

Steel: Who and Why Wanted to

Kill the Cypriot President)

by

Spyros Papayeorgiou. Athens:

Ekdhosis G. Ladhias, 1976.

317

pp.

300 drs.

T he reasons w hy both of these w orks w ere w ritten and published

are just as important as their subject matter. This is due to the w orks an d

deeds of their author, Spyros Papayeorgiou, w ho in

0 Attilas

w rites under

the pen name of D ionysios Kardianos T he pen nam e itself is significant,

and can serve as o ur starting point. Dionysios of K ardia in T hrace (hence

Kardianos) w as a G reek soldier w ho shed his blood for the liberation of

Cypru s from the Persians some

2,500

years ago. A fun erary stele bearing

his name was un covered some time ago in the now T urk ish-occu pied village

of Lys i. It is believed that the soldier w as a member o f the Greek forc es

un der Pausan ias, w hich, in 478 B .C., temporarily liberated Cypru s from

the Persians. W riting un der the pen name o f Kardianos, Papayeorgiou

conn ects, at least in his ow n m ind, his role in the most recent phase of

C ypriot history w ith that of the noble soldier from K ardia.

Spyros Papayeorgiou claims for himself the dubious hon or of being

the theoretician of the C ypriot eno sists. M ore correc tly, one shou ld

say that he w as (together w ith Polykarpos Ioan nides of K yrenia) the

leading ideologue of the

anti-Makariakoi

of C yprus. A journalist by profes-

sion but also an author and a poet, Papayeorgiou had been in the forefront

of the anti-M alrarios forces during the turbulent decade betw een 196 4

and 1974. D uring most of this period he w as the permanent correspon dent

in N icosia of the rightist and veno mou sly anti-M akarios

Estia of Athens

and w as also a frequent con tributor of u ns igned articles to the Greek

financ ed enosist press of N icosia. In this capacity he launched m any a

polemic against the policies and person of President Makarios, and against

those w ho, un like himself and his follow ers, were not nationally minded.

W ithin the various cliques of the anti-Makariakoi

he was a

Grivikos and

the ghost writer of man y of G rivas's an ti-M akarios articles and tirades.

In a similar fashion, he availed his services to the three anti-M akarios


2/6

96

OURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA

bishops du ring their ecclesiastical blackmail of the Archbishop (1 972- 73).

In fact Papayeorgiou p layed an impor tant part in the Gr eco- C ypriot crisis

over the C zech arms w hich immediately preceded the ecclesiastical rift and

for w hich the latter w as on ly a fall-back position. It w as his inflammatory

and spu rious reporting in

Estia,

done un der the instructions and in coor-

dination w ith Greek intelligence, w hich revealed the arms imp ortation ,

and was in turn used by the Papadopoulos regime as a lever in its un-

suc cessful attempt to force M akarios from office.

Papayeorgiou has also been a political symp athizer of the N ation al

Front ( EOvtx6v M6Turrov), the forerunner of EOKA-B, and the first

Greek- inspired subversive organization to operate in Cypru s (1969- 70).

With the clandestine arrival of Grivas to Cyprus in 1971, however, he

became involved w ith EO K A- B. It is believed, nonetheless, that his con -

tribution to that criminal organization d id not take the form o f participa-

tion in its violent misadventu res.

All of Papayeorgiou's activities, we are led to sur mise from his boo ks,

had a justification: to remov e the obstacles to eno sis (w hat

kind

of enosis

we are not told) and thus shorten the time for its realization. What

Papayeorgiou must have regarded as the prelude for this event was the

July 15, 1974,

putsch.

From Athens, w here he happened to be at the time,

he rushedo r w as rushed back to Nicosia, w here he w as placed in charge

of the Public Inform ation O ffice. O nce again he became a pro pagandist,

this t ime for the Sampson regime.

It was n ot until tw o days after the T urk ish invasion , w ith the capture

of Kyrenia on July 22, that the mom ent of tru th finally arrived for Spyros

Papayeorgiou. It w as then that he realized, as he informs u s

(Makarios, p.

22), of the dishono rable game w hich w as played against the ideals that

he and his fellow enosists believed in; that a monu mental betrayal w as in

fact perpetrated against the ideologues of eno sis by the very people w ho

had repeatedly proc laimed themselves as its guardians an d saviors; and

that the ideal of enosis w as exploited and used by the Athens regimes and

foreign intelligence to prepare the way for the Attila invasion. A disil-

lusioned Papayeorgiou resigned from his position an d w ent to the front.

Acting President Klerides and some of the high brass in the National

Gu ard sought him ou t and con vinced him to reassum e the PIO pos ition,

from w hich he finally resigned a few mon ths later . Bitter , disappointed,

and disheartened, he gravitated to Athens. T hrou gh

Estia he began to tell

all he knew , or so w e are told, about the backstage events that presaged

the Greek

putsch

and the Turkish invasion, as well as to chronicle the

progr ess of the fighting in both even ts.

T hese tw o books, then, are the products of a man w ho having con-

sciously followed the path that he did, after the July deluge, out of a

sense of betrayal, vengefulness, and a guilty con science seeking catharsis,

began his exposes. In the process , he inevitably came to ackn ow ledge the

soundness of the Archbishop s basic policy, which he and his kind so

bitterly and bloodily opposed an d su bverted, preparing the w ay in essence

for the cataclysmic events of 1974 . In Makarios (p. 159) he writes:


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The Hell of Good Intentions

7

T he position and policy of Makarios w as correct. Since enosis

was not poss ible the Cypriot state ought to have been strengthened

and not ridiculed and su bverted by the opposition. The existence

of a strong and w ell-or ganized Cypriot state was a means of sus-

taining the struggle [against partition].

In

0 Attilas the author begins by detailing the cruc ial and hitherto

unkn ow n politicking and manipulation w ithin EO KA- B that resulted from

Grivas's death, and then pro ceeds to chronicle the Greek-led coup and the

T urk ish invasion w hich follow ed it. O nly events that had a direct bear-

ing on the

1974 crisis are treated in

0 Attilas.

There is, how ever, a digres-

sion on the 1967 crisis (that was defu sed by the w ithdraw al of the Greek

expeditionary force from Cypru s), w here an attempt is made to absolve

G rivas o f respon sibility for the local fighting that triggered the crisis.

T he other volume,

Makarios,

centers on man y of the conspiracies against

the life of the Cyp riot President starting w ith the March

1970

helicopter

attempt, and en ding w ith the plot in

Au gust 1975. This last conspiracy

w as apparen tly neutralized as a

resu lt of information that Papayeorgiou

transmitted in w riting to the Archbishop.

A comparison of the two books reveals the extent of Papayeorgiou's

tergiversations. Published first,

0 Attilas

is the work of a man w ho has

come to grips w ith the reality of Cyprus's destruction and w ho attempts to

ascertain blame, but w ho is yet unable to accept the instrumental and vile

role played by the enos ists in the process. T his is reflected indirectly in

his reference to Grivas, Makarios, and EO K A- B . The former is referred

to w ith deference as a selfless patriot w ho su ffered immen sely but w ho

fought tenaciou sly for the eno sis goal; M akarios on the other hand is

presented negatively. EO KA- B is portrayed as simply the continuation of

the original EO KA of the anti-colonial years (of w hich Papayeorgiou w as

also a member) and its cadres as fighters w hose idealism w as cleverly ex-

ploited and m anipu lated by the Greek jun ta and foreign intelligence

agencies for their ow n ends.

In

Makarios

the fig leaf is removed almost. Grivas is dem ystified

and po rtrayed for w hat he really w as du ring his last years: a paranoid old

man w ith a pathological hatred for M akarios, constantly organizing co n-

spiracies against the latter's life, and order ing or condoning execu tions of

pro-government supporters. The violence of EO KA- B is condemned as

irrational and pu rposeless, w hile its

de f acto

leader follow ing the death of

Grivas, Lefteris Papadopoulos, is presented as an egotistical and po w er-

hun gry individual. In

0 Attilas

this sam e Papadopou los is praised as a

selfless fighter. As for Makarios, although not praised as an individual, he

is treated as the w orthy national leader that he w as and, as noted earlier,

the correctness of his policies are belatedly acknow ledged. (Parenthetically,

it may be no ted that

0 Attilas w as serialized in the rightist

stia

[March

1975 et seg ]

whereas

Makarios appeared in the leftist

E/eftherotypia

[March

1976

et seg ]. M ak arios w as apparently too mu ch for

Estia s

ow ners, w ho

over the years did more damage to C yprus than any other publishers in


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98


the Greek world.) Irrespective of the above, however, Papayeorgiou refuses

to accept the moral guilt of the enosists for the catastrophe which ensu ed.

They sinned, he argues, but on ly because of an excess o f zeal and an erro r

in judgmen t; they w ere used, but they (himself induded) had good in-

tentions.

Substantively, both w orks co nstitute a gold mine of information, an d

they are indispensable to anyone w ho seeks to understand this most recent

phase of Cypriot history, especially the Greek- spon sored su bversion of the

C ypriot state. Furthermore, it is doubhtful that a more complete accoun t

of the Turkish invasion, as seen from C yprus, w ill ever appear. Written

in journ alistic style, the two bo oks are devo id of scholarly parapher nalia

su ch as footnotes and sou rces. To a con siderable extent, Papayeorgiou

himself is the sour ce, and indirect confirmation for much of w hat he says

is provided by official documents, EO KA-B directives, and pertinent cor-

respon dence that are scattered in both books and in the rich documentary

appendix in

Makarios.

For example, the letter linking EO K A- B directly

to loannides in Athens , and w hich Makarios attached to his historic letter

to General Ghizikis, can be found in

Makarios

(pp. 270-272).

Bo th works su ffer and are at their w eakest, how ever, because of the

author's proclivity to explain away many events, and especially the role of

outside pow ers, in terms of grand conspiracies. The caus es of the 1967

crisis, for example, are attributed to conspiracies among pro-king officers

w ithin the junta w ho w anted a crisis on C yprus in the expectation that

somehow , as a consequence, the king wou ld emerge as top dog in G reece.

Responsibility for the fighting is attributed to others, including Makarios,

but not to Gr ivas, although he w as the commanding officer on the scene.

Papayeorgiou w ould have us believe that Grivas w as the innocen t victim of

an elaborate plot aimed at removing him and the expeditionary Greek force

from C ypru s, restoring the king in G reece, burying enosis forever, and so

on an d so forth. T his view , by the w ay, or a variation of it , is w idely

held in both Greece and C ypru s. Bu t those w ho advocate it have yet to

substantiate it. The m ost that can be said of the 1967 c risis is that Grivas,

follow ing the attack on Ko phinou (w hich can be explained in terms of a

chain of local events), prepared to meet reprisals from T urk ey, but that

the colonels, correctly fearing that a confron tation w ith T urkey w ould

mean their demise, quickly capitulated. As for the frequently heard argu-

ment that with the 1967 G reek forces Cypru s cou ld have been defended

in 1974, on e can on ly speculate. It should be kept in mind, how ever, that

from 1967 to 1974 the Greek army could fun ction efficiently in only one

capacity: as an in ternal watchdog. Regarding Cypru s, it is my view that

in all likelihood a double enosis so lution w ould have been imposed w ith

the help of Greek arms between 1970 an d 1972 either during the M arch

1970 con spiracy, or the summer one of

1971, or the one in February 1972.

As for the role of ou tside pow ers, it is the implicit and often explicit

view of Papayeorgiou that a mon olithic conspiracy gu ided by the invisible

hand of the CIA w as in progress, inexorably manipulating events to the

197 4 climax. N eedless to say, i t is by now a matter of record that the


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The Hell of Good Intentions

9

Anglo-Americans esp oused and advocated as their policy, at one time or

other, the partition of Cyprus; that foreign intelligence agencies, especially

the CIA, held an animus against the Archbishop and, in the March 19 70

conspiracy, CIA spooks w ere intimately conn ected w ith the local con-

spirators; that the N ixon- K issinger admin istration favored the political

neu tralization of M akarios; that non- Greek so urc es in Athens supp lied a

part of the fun ds that fueled subversion in C yprus; and that Ioannides w as

very close to the CIA. But these facts in themselves do not prove that events

in Cypru s and Greece (or even Tu rkey) were manipulated in expert fashion

to bring abou t the July deluge.

T he protagonists of the various cons piracies and of the final catas-

trophe w ere Greeks in G reece and C yprus. In fact, destabilization of the

Cypriot state goes back to the Papandreou years, w hen secret funds w ere

allocated to the anti-M akarios press in N icosia. T he violence, of cou rse,

came w ith the jun ta the National Fron t, the assassinations, the attempts

on Makariosassisted by Grivas, EOK A-B , and Ioannides. Critical develop-

ments that in retrospect can be seen as the curtain raisers for the July days

occu rred because of conscious and deliberate decisions in N icosia and

Athens. Grivas's heir apparent, Major K arouso s, for example, w as ready

to abandon violence and politicize the struggle of EO KA -B

(0 A ttilas,

pp. 20-23) a decision w hich reflected the consensu s of the organization.

Bu t the haw ks w ithin EO K A- B, acting in league w ith the Ioannides

people in N icosia, moved to neutralize him (Karousos w as in fact kid-

napped and delivered to the Athens regime, w hose opponent he w as for

a variety of reasons). A protocol of cooperation betw een EO K A- B and

Athens w as then signed w hich turn ed the former into a blind instrum ent

of the latter

(0 Attilas,

p. 26). The indiscriminate murders in the spring

of 1974 and the defiant attitude of the comman d of the N ational Gu ard

events that forced M akarios's hand w ere consequences of deliberate deci-

sions taken in Athens. W hile Papayeorgiou provides ample evidence in

this con nection, non e of it even su ggests con nections w ith outsiders, let

alone proving their guiding role. This is no t to absolve ou tside pow ers

from respon sibility in the destruction of Cyprus Papayeorgiou s imply does

no t prove an ything against them. And their responsibility, at any rate, is

of a different kind (they w ere, after all, pu rsu ing their ow n interests),

and pales when compared to that of Greeks and Cypriots.

Concerning the attempts against Makarios's life, Papayeorgiou does

attempt to docu ment the role of the CIA

(Makarios, passim).

For this he

relies on the revelations of a retired C IA agen t, identified by the initials

E. H ., that appeared in an American publication called

A strapi

(Lightning).

The date of the issue is not supplied, but it had to be after 1975.

Papayeorgiou quotes extensively, and in graphic detail, from various plans

masterm inded by the CIA. I have don e my best to trace this publication.

Indeed, an un derground n ew spaper called Lightning w as published by

radical students at the University of Co nnecticut between 1972 and 1973 ,

and it appeared irregularly after 197 3 (today it is totally defunc t). I do

not dou bt that Papayeorgiou w as quoting from something, and p robably


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100


the abovem entioned paper. The reliability of new spapers o f this kind (if

indeed such w as the case) is, how ever, notoriously suspect, and I, for

one, w ould not rely on them Bu t even if one w ere to accept, for the sake

of argument, the genuineness of the information u sed by Papayeorgiou, he

still fails to organ ically connect the C IA con spiracies w ith the specific at-

tempts on M akarios 's l ife. H e simply takes it for granted that such w as

the case.

T he above criticisms n otw ithstanding, the books co ntain the kind

of information that places them in the category of primary sources.

Papayeorgiou the author mu st be congratulated for both contributions.

Papayeorgiou the man mus t also be commended for his courage to break

aw ay from his past, and present us with an insider's view of the subver-

sion of the C ypriot state. N ot surp risingly, he has foun d no imitators,

and this places an added respon sibility on his shou lders. As one of the

very few if not the only onew ith the qualifications, know ledge, and con-

nections in both Greece and C yprus to do this sort of w ork, he must con-

tinue his research into the catastrophe and provide us w ith inform ation

on many unansw ered questions: G rivas's conn ections w ith the Papadopoulos

and Ioan nides jun tas; the role of Greek intelligence in N icosia during the

1964-74

period; the role of prom inent C ypriot enosists an d of E SEA

(Coo rdination C omm ittee for the Enosis Struggle), of which he know s

mu ch mo re than he has disclosed; the last days of the Ioann ides junta;

and the biggest question of them allw hich I think remains u nansw ered

why did Ioannides order the coup ?

Bo th of these w orks, how ever, and any futu re ones, can only provide

us w ith answ ers; they canno t redress the situation and the suffering. Moral

responsibility mu st lie and mu st be accepted by those w ho took u p the

sport of disregarding reality and u ltimately turned their guns on their ow n

brothers. Some of them may indeed have had good in tentions , but those

w ho plead good intentions as their defense in tragedies of the kind that

befell the sw eet land, mus t be made aw are or reminded of some w ords

of wisdom spoken in the past: the road to hell is paved with good

intentions.

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Evriviades the Hell of Good Intentions Cyprus Invasion