“Finish it off, they’re pressuring us from the outside”

Opinion 1974Cyprus problemeokaGreeceturkish invasion “Finish it off, they’re pressuring us from the outside” Kypros Makk Relevant News Fifty-two years since the betrayal 15 July 2026 “Finish it off, they’re pressuring us from the outside” 15 July 2026 They watched hell coming and shut their eyes 15 July 2026 Costas Venizelos 15 July 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber Fifty-two years on from the coup staged by the Athens junta and its local branch, EOKA B, the historical truth cannot be read two ways. There may have been failures of judgement. But there’s one crucial distinction: betrayal is not a mistake! We can argue for hours about what Makarios should have done and didn’t. But the junta and its Cypriot outfit handed Cyprus to the Turks, in the service of American interests. They were being run by American intelligence: the CIA. In those first hours of the coup, a phone call was recorded between the Hellenic Army General Staff (GES) and the National Guard General Staff (GEEF), at the “highest” level. The Greek side had strongly indicated that they needed to “finish” with Makarios, who had escaped and was in Paphos. “Finish it off. They’re they’re pressuring us from the outside, you know who…” What exactly did the man in Athens mean, and what did the man in Nicosia understand him to mean? However carefully coded the language, the exchange was telling in itself. In his testimony to the Cyprus file inquiry before the Greek Parliament, Petros Arapakis, Chief of the Navy in 1974, stated: “Makarios’s letter to Gizikis, dated 2 July, played no part whatsoever in the decision to carry out that tragic act. By the time the letter reached Athens, the order to execute the coup in Cyprus had already been given […].” Arapakis went on to state: “The planning by foreign centres of decision-making was designed to serve allied interests at the expense, in this case, of Greece and Cyprus, and in favour of Turkey. Eliminating Makarios was intended not only to avert the risk of Cyprus becoming ‘another Cuba’ and to head off any non-aligned moves on his part that might have worked against Israel and the Western allies, but also to create conditions that would justify the establishment of a Turkish base in northern Cyprus, in line with allied aims.” “But to keep the CIA’s role in the Cyprus issue from coming to light, this investigation was never allowed to take place in America, or indeed in Greece. Ioannidis was never put on trial for the coup against Makarios.” (Findings of the Cyprus Parliamentary Committee on the Cyprus File, page 130). Fifty-two years is no licence for anyone to start rewriting history and truth. Plenty gets said and reported. That EOKA B had nothing to do with the coup, for instance. But how could it not, when in that final stretch Athens’s orders were to step up its activity, to create chaos and give the coup its “justification”? The state’s forces may have all but dismantled the illegal organisation, its leaders picked up with little effort, yet the orders from Athens were unambiguous. Nor can we accept the story that Ioannidis was acting alone, or that Georgios Papadopoulos was some kind of “good dictator”! Who planned the 1972 coup? Wasn’t it Georgios Papadopoulos, head of the junta? And Grivas? Wasn’t he leading EOKA B at the time? Some EOKA B members clearly didn’t know what was happening. That’s entirely plausible. They don’t carry the same responsibility as their leaders. It’s enough that they recognise who is responsible for the tragedy. The coup of 15 July 1974 was carried out to give Turkey its invasion of Cyprus. The Americans may have assured them that the Turks would establish a bridgehead, Kyrenia to Nicosia, but that changes nothing. They agreed to hand over Cypriot territory to Turkey. That is betrayal. P.S. In mine and Michalis Ignatiou’s book, ENOCHOS (“Guilty”), out now, we reveal, among other things, the CIA’s role, and name the man who gave the order to Dimitrios Ioannidis. It was CIA agent Gust Avrakotos, who plainly wasn’t acting on his own initiative. He was taking his orders from Kissinger. Subscribe to our Newsletter Latest News Fifty-two years since the betrayal They watched hell coming and shut their eyes The fragile state of the Iran-US negotiations When grief becomes clickbait: Why Cyprus needs legal boundaries on death reporting EU countries back ‘full ban” on Israeli settler imports, the only obstacle is unanimity Game of Thrones actor Clive Russel to attend Cyprus Comic Con Cyprus Met Office issues yellow warning for extreme heat Follow en.philenews on Google News and be the first to know all the news about Cyprus and the world.