Christodoulides unveils monument to Eoka fighters

A monument dedicated to Eoka heroes was unveiled in Pyrgos, Limassol by President Nikos Christodoulides on Saturday, who announced a total of €160,000 in government funding for the community. The first €10,000 will go to the community council to cover unpaid costs from building the monument. If the outstanding bills come to more, he said, the government will settle the difference. A further €150,000 will fund the redevelopment of the village’s traditional centre. The monument was funded by residents and the local authority, who began a fundraising campaign in 2012. Christodoulides said the people of Pyrgos answered the call to join the struggle “en masse” and called it the “purest struggle” in the country. The monument matters, he said, as younger generations must learn of the nation’s fight for independence “so that they may take pride in it”. In regards to the Cyprus problem, Christodoulides acknowledged that “some may argue that honouring Eoka conflicts with efforts at reunification”, but countered that “any lasting solution must rest not on self-negation” and instead on “respect for history”. He decried Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s insistence for a two-state solution at the UN General Assembly, as “extreme and counterproductive”. Eoka, formed in 1955 under the leadership of General George Grivas, launched an armed campaign against British colonial rule with the aim of achieving union with Greece. The period, known to the colonial government at the time as the Cyprus Emergency, saw violence directed at British forces as well as intercommunal tensions between both Eoka and the Turkish Cypriot paramilitary faction (TMT), led by Rauf Denktash.