EOKA veterans’ anger at Kyrenia monument to their British victims
By Jean Christou
Cyprus Mail
29 Nov 08
EOKA fighters are outraged over plans by Britons living in the north to
erect a memorial to the 371 British soldiers killed during the Cypriot
struggle for independence.
According to the website of the `Friends of the Cyprus Memorial’, a
memorial is to be erected in the old British cemetery at Kyrenia to
mark the 50th anniversary of `the ending of the Cyprus Emergency’.
On it will be inscribed the names of the 371 British servicemen ` 28
members of the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, 274 British Army, and 69
Royal Air Force who died there 1955-1959, the website said.
The Royal British Legion is part of the campaign, being organised by
the Friends of the Cyprus Memorial. The monument is expected to cost
£200,000 sterling and will be funded from public donations.
But in a written statement for the EOKA fighters’ association, Thasos
Sophocleous called the move unethical and an insult to the Greek
Cypriot people who had fought against the colonial power for
independence.
`We are not saying that those 371 killed are not entitled to a
monument, nor do we have the right to ban them, but we do have the
right to tell them that they should be making this gesture of honour in
their own country,’ Sophocleous said in a written stateme
nt.
He was in Greece yesterday and could not be reached for comment.
Even worse,’ he added. `Is the fact that the monument will be in the
occupied areas without informing the government of Cyprus. And that is
why their actions have political implications and are considered
provocative.’
Sophocleous accused the Turkish Cypriot side of being complicit.
He said Britain was a big country with lots of land to create monuments
for their dead. He said what was planned for Kyrenia was like the
Germans and Italians creating monuments to their World War II dead in
Britain, or like the Greeks building monuments to their dead killed in
Turkey in 1922.
`Is there a monument in Turkey for the Armenians killed there?’ he
asked.
`This is a reversal of the moral order and a violation of international
ethics.’
Sophocleous said Turkish Cypriots had also benefitted from the
1955-1959 EOKA struggle, `which freed them from the English yoke’.
He also criticised the British High Commission, which he acknowledges
has no official involvement, `but tacitly approves’ when it should have
advised that this was the wrong thing to do.
`We strongly protest against this illegal and unethical action,’ the
statement added.
A spokesman at the High Commission said yesterday: `This is not a
British government project and we are not involved.=E
2
However, the High Commission may find themselves presented with a
diplomatic dilemma when the monument is officially unveiled next April,
since the High Commissioner might be invited to the event.
According to the website set up for the project, almost all Britain’s
military dead remain buried at the British cemetery at Wayne’s Keep,
which is in the buffer zone.
`Because public accessibility to Wayne’s Keep is in consequence
exceedingly difficult ` the UN reports that on average only one visitor
a week manages to get there ` the permanent memorial is to be sited in
the old British cemetery at Kyrenia,’ it said.
It said given the requirement of public accessibility, the old British
cemetery in Kyrenia was a fitting site for a fixed memorial.
Established in 1878 when the British first arrived on the island, it is
the last resting place of the only Victoria Cross recipient buried on
the island.
Sergeant Samuel McGaw of the Black Watch lies beside four other members
of his regiment, who also died in that first year of 1878.
After fighting in the Crimean War, McGaw disembarked at Larnaca on July
22, 1878, and set off for Camp Chiflik Pasha in Nicosia that same day.
While on the march to the camp, Sergeant McGaw died of heat stroke.
The website said there were also other graves with strong military
connections at the Kyrenia cemetery.
`The memo
rial is in remembrance of the dead, not the now distant
conflict which ended 50 years ago,’ said the group.
`It makes no political point, nor should it. Servicemen do not play
politics, they simply serve their country whether that be in Cyprus,
Iraq, Afghanistan or any of the many other conflicts remembered through
memorials such as this.’
It also said that although the British cemetery in Kyrenia is in the
`Turkish Cypriot North’, and in a state not recognised as such by the
world at large, it remains `for all practical purposes British ground
as it has been since the British arrived on the island in 1878.’
`The memorial has no place in the events which divided the island in
1974 or in the politics of the island today,’ it added.
The group did say that after the reunification of Cyprus it may be that
the memorial would be re-sited in the British military cemetery at
Wayne’s Keep.
`But that is for the future. Until then, those who died before Britain
departed the island, are remembered beside the graves of those who died
when the British first arrived. The beginning and the end in the same
place? That is history, not politics,’ the website said.
The memorial will be the centrepiece of the cemetery, measuring 6.4
metres wide, and 2.5 metres high.