•• • • • • The Child Heroes of Cyprus • • • • • • • • I ii . • "i.. ,..•.. \1··. .. ~1...I .·~I • ··~ ·111 • • • • by Shannon Nakamoto Undergraduate Senior Thesis • History Department • California State Polytechnic University, Pomona • June 9, 2009 • Advisor: Dr. Amanda Podany • • • • • It was a tense morning in Nicosia in 1956. The people of Cyprus were in a state of • emergency according to the British government, with the growth of a nationalist guerrilla • organization known as EOKA, led by General Georghios Grivas. The new Colonial • Governor, Field Marshal Sir John Harding, had called for the surrender of EOKA and • General Grivas, and the allotted time window was soon to come to a close. 1 • Everyone was waiting to see what would happen, when laughter cut the air on the • streets of Nicosia. A lone mule was walking the streets of the capital city loaded with • wooden swords and toy guns, carrying a sign that said "My Marshal, I surrender." Even • Harding's men laughed at the animal as it passed. It was not long before the mule became • • something of a national joke.2 Other than that lone mule, not a single person surrendered; • not exactly the response Harding had been expecting. • The mule was a brilliant publicity move on the part of EOKA. It assured the • people of Cyprus that EOKA was doing well and there was no cause to worry. Who had • It • come up with this idea? made the very thought of surrender to the British something to • be laughed at. Neither Grivas, nor any of his loyal assistants could take credit for the • idea. Renos Lyssiotis, a student and the leader of the nationalist youth in Nicosia, came • up with the idea the idea through one of the young girls in his group. She had boasted that • only a donkey would be stupid enough to surrender. He immediately got a group together • to set the mule free in the main street ofNicosia.3 • Soon alter this event, Harding's men were desperately trying to find General • Grivas. They felt that, if they could capture EOKA's leader, the entire movement would • • 1 George (Georghios) Grivas, The Memoirs ofGeneral Grivas, ed. Charles Foley (New York: Frederick A. Praeger Inc., 1965), 89. • 2 Ibid. • 3 Ibid. • • '• • • collapse. Security forces, acting on a tip, moved in on the home of Niki J\rtemiou, • arresting her and confiscating documents in her possession. She was one of the mail • couriers for EOKA, located in Nicosia. Worried about what would happen if J\rtemiou • were to give any information to her captors, Grivas acted immediately, changing • everyone from the current system of communication to a back-up one in order to protect • his and his men's whereabouts.4 • To Grivas' great surprise, Artemiou would be interrogated for some time, but • would not say a word. Artemiou even had a letter smuggled out to Grivas. It was written • in lemon juice and looked to the naked eye like a blank piece of paper. The letter told • Grivas valuable information about what the British knew and the kinds of questions they • were asking her. Niki Artemiou was eighteen years old. 5 • In November 1956, Harding announced new emergency regulations, making it a • mandatory death sentence for anyone found carrying weapons. It was not until March • 1957, however, that the colonial government would convict anyone of carrying weapons. • On the morning of March 14, 1957, Evagoras Pallikarides was the first man to be hanged • 6 7 • under this new statute when he was discovered with a gun hidden on his pack donkey. • Just before Pallikarides' execution, the inmates of the Nicosia Central Prison protested by • banging on the walls and singing the Greek national anthem. Other protests spread across • the island.8 To this day, Pallikaridcs is considered a martyr. His childhood home in • • • 4 Ibid., 124. 5 Ibid. • 6 "Cyprus Fighters Propose a Truce," New York Times, 15 March 1957, p. 4. • 7 Grivas, Merno;rs, 121. • '"Cyprus Fighters Propose a Truce," p. 4. • 2 • • • • Tsada, in the hills overlooking Paphos, is now a memorial site, with events held there in • • his honor. 9 Pallikarides was only eighteen years old when he was hanged. 10 • Stories like these abound in the history of the nationalist movement of Cyprus. • Through them we can see that the children of Cyprus threw themselves into the battle • against British rule. It can be fairly said that the movement was successfol largely due to • their participation, ingenuity and sheer determination. At times inspiring, shocking, and • even funny, the story of the youth involvement in the nationalist movement of Cyprus is • largely untold. • The youth of Cyprus would help the movement in many ways. Foremost among • these was that they would act as a pool for EOKA to recruit its fighters from. Moreover, • they kept up the morale of the Cypriot people, incited patriotic demonstrations, and • gained international attention. When someone was injured or killed in the fight against • • the British forces in Cyprus, it was easy to overlook. When that person was a teenager, or • worse, a small child, Britain would immediately receive international scorn for barbarity. • The Cypriot students are frequently underestimated in the analysis of their activities in the nationalist movement. Scholars are quick to blame General Grivas or • • Greek education for the growth of violence among the youth of Cyprus. There was an • • incredible amount of initiative on the part of the youth, however. The role of Grivas and • of Cypriot education can not be completely disregarded, but also can not be correctly • called the sole factors behind the massive youth cry for enosis, or union with Greece. • The children of Cyprus fought for enosis with such fervor that it took everyone by • surprise. "Our first major demonstration was on 24 May 1955, when some 700 pupils • 9 The writer attended a concert at his childhood home in the summer of2008. 0 • ' "Cyprus Fighters Propose a Truth," p. 4. • 3 • • • • threw themselves into the struggle with such determination that the police bolted before • them, pursued by a hail of stones, and the army had to be called out. Atler that, nothing • could hold the schools back." 11 Surprises for the British continued; in the words of • General Grivas, "The British were baffled to find that the enemy throwing bombs was a • sixteen-year-old schoolboy, or that those distributing revolutionary leaflets were ten-year­ • olds from the primary schools. They tried to frighten children away from the movement • 12 • and persuade parents to keep them indoors." • It is incorrect to blame General Grivas for the students' nationalist fervor. It can • also be argued that their education, though an influence on all children, is not to blame • for the growth of violence on the part ofthe youth of Cyprus. Their education, in the • early years of British rule certainly promoted eventual union with Greece, but there is • evidence that the many students hoped for this union passively. Students primarily • pursued diplomatic means in the formative years of the nationalist movement. While • there was a certain level of nationalist violence among the students in the earlier years of 1 • the 20 h century, it could hardly be compared to the strength of the youth in the 1950s, • when the situation became classified as an emergency by the British government. • Historical Background • The history of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been one of successive • occupations. The people of the island have been subject to Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, • Greek, Roman, Ptolemaic, Arab, Byzantine, Templar, Lusignian, Venetian, Ottoman, • Turkish and even British rule. Each of these groups has leti an indelible stamp on the • culture of Cyprus. The most influential of these is certainly Greek. Modern Cypriots 11 Grivas, Memoirs, 34. • 12 • Ibid., 34-35. • 4 •• • • • speak Greek, follow Greek culinary customs and cultural norms, claim Greek history and • descent as their own, and profess themselves to be children of"Mother Greece." It is this • fact that led to a sort of Greek nationalism which came to a head in the 1950s, in which • the people of Cyprus called for enosis. • Starting in 1878, Cyprus was given to England by the Ottoman Empire for • administrative purposes. It was not until 1923, 13 with the Treaty of Lausanne, that • 14 • complete control of Cyprus and the Dodecanese was given to the British and they • became Crown Colonies. The rise of nationalism and anti-colonialism worldwide made • the growth of interest in enosis something that should have been expected. Equally • expected was Britain's reluctance to acknowledge it. The British were on the verge of • • losing their Middle East strongholds in Egypt and Britain hoped to retain Cyprus as their • last major Middle East post. When Britain granted the Dodecanese to Greece in 1947, • despite Turkish objections, the enosis movement in Cyprus was further strengthened. • There were more than just British interests in the retention of Cyprus as a colony. • The largest enterprise on the island, the Cyprus Mines Corporation, was owned by the • Mudd family of Los Angeles, California. The company annually produced • $25,000,000.00 in copper and pyrites. K.J. Hendrick, manager of the Cyprus Mines • Corporation, told the New York Times, "if they had enosis we would be kicked out on our • ear and the place nationalized."15 • In 1950, the Cypriot Orthodox Church held a referendum to discover if the people • truly desired enosis, since the colonial government refused to perform one when the • • 13 Ibid., 44. 14 A group of Greek islands, located off the southwest coasts of Turkey • 15 • Homer Bigart, "Cypriote Pupils Bedevil British," New York Times, 7 February 1956, p.