CYPRUS
Stit,—In his letter to you (Spectator, Septem- ber 23), Sir Richmond Palmer, obviously ig- noring the history of Cyprus, Turkey and Greece, made some rather astounding state- ments.
He seems to believe, for instance, that the abolishment in 1945 by the Labour Govern- ment of teaching English in the Cypriot schools is responsible for what has happened since in Cyprus. Yet he offers no explanation of this phenomenon. Are we to infer that had the teaching of English not been abolished, the Cypriot Greeks would have given up their language or their ideals? But the Cypriot Greeks have been using the Greek language during the past 3,000 years, and have clung to their ideals in spite of 300 years of French rule, eighty-two years of Venetian rule, 307 years of Turkish rule and seventy-seven years of British rule.
Sir Richmond, furthermore, rules that the modern kingdom of Greece has no claim what- ever to Cyprus, and that it is quite untrue that modern Greece is the motherland of the Cypriots. But Sir Richmond misses the point: neither Greece nor, still less, Great Britain or Turkey can have, according to modem con- ceptions concerning the rights of man, any claim on Cyprus. Cyprus belongs to her people who alone are entitled to decide about their own fate.
Sir Richmond's assertion that at the time Cyprus was occupied by the British there were only 20,000 Greek-speaking Cypriots is untrue. According to official figures, ip 1881 there existed 140,500 Greeks and only 45,500 Turks, and earlier, the proportion of the Greek element was stronger. His further asser- tion that Greek refugees from Asia Minor (1922) are responsible for the great increase in the Greek-speaking population of Cyprus is also groundless. This is proved by the follow- ing official figures: in 1918—that is, four years before the Greeks were compelled to abandon Asia Minor—the population of Cyprus com- prised 240,000 Greeks and 60,000 Turks.
Sir Richmond commits several more mis- takes. It is true that the Turks, for obvious reasons, had granted some privileges, mainly concerning education, to the enslaved Chris- tians of their empire (which Britain has abol- ished in Cyprus), and that they had recognised the heads of the Greek Orthodox Church as national leaders who, as a consequence, were the first to be punished (hanging was the penalty) whenever the Christians tried to shake off their yoke. But they never abandoned, governing*their possessions, as Sir Richmond's assertion seems to imply. To the abolishment by the British of these privileges he attributes the 'so-called enosis campaign,' and not to any love of Greece or desire to be governed by the Athenian politicians.
The simple-mindedness of Sir Richmond is truly disarming. He seems to forget that, Greece being not administered by bishops, enosis will not give back any civil power. to the' Archbishop, but on the contrary will de- prive him of his present exalted position; that Greece is governed by a national government and not by the 'Athenian politicians'; conse- quently, that the Cypriots will have their own representatives both in parliament and in the government—a form of administration which they perhaps prefer to the whims of a British Governor.
,Sir Richmond also attributes the enosis movement to Communist influence. Doesn't he know that Communism is outlawed in Greece, and that consequently enosis is not what they really want, but that they are staking on short- sighted colonial policy in order' to help Moscow's propaganda against the West? As for the lack of love of Greece which he men- tions, we believe that neither he nor anybody else is entitled to express these feelings. Only a plebiscite organised by the UN could answer that question. But the British Government, wiser than Sir Richmond, are not willing to allow such an experiment.
If your readers were very much interested in the Cyprus question, they could find the true facts in many books written by Britons. As, however, it is only natural that they are not. groundless assertions like those made by Sir Richmond can only mislead them.—Yours faithfully, CONST. MARTINOS President Union of Disabled Officers 1940-41, 4 Alex. Soutsou Street, Athens, Greece
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