A very British and a very Cypriot coup

Archbishop Makarios came to symbolise the Greek Cypriot nationWith Andy Burnham about to take over as UK prime minister in a very British coup, Cyprus marked 52 years since the coup against President Makarios with sirens blaring at 8.20am on Wednesday, July 15. In the UK, prime ministers are removed mid-term without general elections by political intrigue instead of tanks. Since 1990, five prime ministers have been removed this way: Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Keir Starmer. The coup d’etat in Cyprus was an attempt to kill the democratically elected president of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) with a view not just of a change of president but of regime change. Makarios was controversial but he had wit and charm and style and was far and away the only Cypriot president with the personality and gravitas of a world statesman. By 1974 he came to symbolise the Greek Cypriot nation and the RoC as it began to emerge as a Cypriot entity rather than a state in transition to Enosis – union with Greece. The change began with the presidential elections of 1968 when Makarios was challenged by Dr Takis Evdokas, a pro Enosis candidate after Makarios proclaimed that while Enosis was desirable, it was not feasible, and won 96 per cent of the Greek Cypriot vote for his pragmatism. He was elected president again, this time unopposed, in February 1973, but faced a very Cypriot ecclesiastical coup in March that year, when the Cypriot Holy Synod of three Bishops purported to defrock him of his status as archbishop on the ground that it was incompatible with holding the secular office of president —whereuponhe became known as plain Mihalis Mouskos in pro-Enosis circles. Makarios’ reaction was that being president was not incompatible with his ecclesiastical role as it had a spiritual dimension, which he argued unconvincingly. Nonetheless, he was able to convene a Supreme Pan Orthodox Synod in Nicosia that annulled his defrocking and defrocked the three local bishops for impertinence. The local bishops had a point, even if they were motivated by his alleged betrayal of Enosis. Makarios’ status as archbishop gave him an unfair electoral advantage in Cyprus where the church was – still is – very influential. Local ecclesiastical law was changed in 1980 to prohibit churchmen from seeking or holding secular office. So much for the very British coup and the very Cypriot ecclesiastical coup that for all their disruptive effect did not involve regimechange. A few days before the coup d’état in Cyprus of July 1974, that did involve an attempt at regime change, Makarios gave a television interview to BBC TV from the presidential gardens, in an idyllic setting surrounded by flowers and birdsong that belied his precarious predicament. He had already sent a mildly pompous letter to President Gizikis of Greece in which he expressed his awareness of an invisible hand from Athens threatening his physical existence and in which he requested that the Greek Army officers in Cyprus be withdrawn. “And what would happen if they refuse?” his interviewer asked. Makarios gave a humorous reply: “well in that case I shall disband the national guard and they can stay in here as tourists”. The reply to Makarios’ letter was the coup. July 15, 1974 was a typical summer morning and Cyprus was teeming with tourists, many of them British. Makarios had arrived at the presidential palace from his summer retreat at Troodos early and was showing some Greek Egyptian schoolchildren round the presidential palace when tanks and armoured cars of the Greek Cypriot National Guard under Greek army officers rolled up and started firing at the palace to kill Makarios. The schoolchildren were caught in the crossfire but were otherwise unharmed and survived to recount their ordeal many years afterwards. Makarios escaped via a back exit and travelled to Paphos by car, from where he made a broadcast in his deep familiar voice most Greek Cypriots knew well from his many speeches. “Eimai o Makarios – I am Makarios,” he said, confirming he was alive and that the coup had failed. He ended his short address to the people of Cyprus with his favourite classical line:“nin hyper panton o agon – now the struggle is for everything.” The Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) that had been taken over by the putschists had announced that Makarios was dead, so it was important for him to say he was alive and that the struggle for democracy and against dictatorship was existential and would continue. He was pursued to Paphos by army units loyal to the putschists where his only escape was to call on the British for assistance. What is less well known is how the British reacted to the coup and how they extracted Makarios from Paphos. According to reliable British sources, immediately after the coup Britain, as a guarantor power, urgently considered a counter-coup to reinstate Makarios, but this was vetoed by the service chiefs who warned that British forces could be trapped in a guerrilla war. However, on being informed by Makarios’ aids and UN peacekeepers that he was in a corner and needed to be rescued, British forces at RAF Akrotiri on orders from UK prime minister Harold Wilson immediately flew out a rescue helicopter accompanied by two heavily armed Westland helicopters to extract Makarios and take him to the British airbase at Akrotiri and then to London. When the rescue helicopter landed in Paphos there was an unexpected hitch because Makarios had a phobia of helicopter travel borne of post traumatic stress. In 1970, there had been an attempt on his life when the helicopter that had taken off from the Archbishopric in old Nicosia was shot down. His Greek airforce helicopter pilot was injured but landed the helicopter safely, from which Makarios emerged unscathed but with an understandable phobia of helicopter travel. In the end his survival instinct overcame his phobia and he flew out to Akrotiri from where he was flown first to Malta and then to London and Claridge’s hotel in Mayfair – historically the hotel of choice of exiled royalty. He left London to attend the UN Security Council in New York on July 19, where he made the most difficult speech of his life. Before he left for New York, however, he held a press conference in which he made the wittiest remark of his political career: “they tried to kill me, as you see I am alive, but tell me were my obituaries good,” he said memorably to wide acclaim. Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a former part time judge