EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, or Greek National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters)
Years: 1955 - 1959
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A delegation from Cyprus had submitted a demand for enosis—union with Greece—to London after the Second World War.
The demand had been rejected but the British proposed a more liberal constitution and a ten-year program of social and economic development.
King Paul of Greece had declared in 1948 that Cyprus desired union with Greece.
In 1951, the Orthodox Church of Cyprus had presented a referendum according to which around a great majority of the Greek Cypriot population wanted the union.
The United Nations had accepted the Greek petition and enosis had then become an international issue.
Both Greece and Turkey had become members of NATO in 1952.
The British withdrawal from Egypt in that year had led to Cyprus becoming the new location for their Middle East Headquarters.
The Greek Cypriot demand for enosis, led by Archbishop Makarios, emerges with new force in the 1950s, when Greece begins to accord it support on the international scene.
This attempt to win world support alerts Turkey and alarms the Turkish Cypriots.
When international pressure does not suffice to make Britain respond as required, violence escalates with a campaign against the colonial power organized by EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston).
Its leader, Colonel George Grivas, creates and directs an effective campaign beginning in 1955.
The first bombs are set off on April 1, followed by leaflets.
Attacks on police stations start on June 19.
The Governor proclaims a State of Emergency on November 26.
Lieutenant Colonel Georgios Grivas (known as Dighenis), a Greek Cypriot and former leader of a right-wing resistance group in the Athens area during the wartime German occupation, in 1955 organizes EOKA (Ethnikí Orgánosis Kipriakoú Agónos, or National Organization of Cypriot Struggle).
The self-determination movement forces, encouraged by the Orthodox cleric Makarios III, begin a guerrilla war for enosis against British occupying forces, together with terrorist attacks on the island's Turkish minority.
EOKA bombs public buildings and attacks and kills both Greek-Cypriot and British opponents of enosis.
When Greece’s negotiations with Britain and Turkey fail in 1955 amid political violence stirred by the Greek-Cypriot EOKA) ...
At a meeting with Makarios, Grivas states that their group needs a name and suggests that it be called the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston—EOKA).
Makarios agrees, and, within a few months, EOKA will be widely known.
Grivas circulates his first proclamation as leader of EOKA under his code name Dighenis (a hero of Cypriot mythology), and what will be a four-year revolutionary struggle is launched.
According to captured EOKA documents, Cypriot communists are not to be accepted for membership and are enjoined to stand clear of the struggle if they are sincerely interested in enosis.
The Turkish Cypriots are described as compatriots in the effort against an alien ruler; they too are simply asked to stand clear, to refrain from opposition, and to avoid any alliance with the British.
Heretofore the British had considered colonial domestic matters internal affairs not to be discussed with foreigners.
Greece accepts the invitation with some hesitation because no Cypriots have been invited, but reluctantly decides to attend.
The Turks also accept.
The Greeks are dissatisfied because Cypriot self-determination (a code word for enosis) is not offered; the Turks because it is not forbidden.