The general tone of the agreements
was one of compromise. Greek Cypriots,
especially members of organizations
such as EOKA, expressed disappointment
because enosis had not been attained.
Turkish Cypriots, however, welcomed
the agreements and set aside their
earlier defensive demand for partition.
According to the Treaty of Establishment,
Britain retained sovereignty over
about 256 square kilometers, which
became the Dhekelia Sovereign Base
Area, to the northwest of Larnaca,
and the Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area
to the west of Limassol. Britain
also retained certain access and
communications routes.
According to constitutional arrangements,
Cyprus was to become an independent
republic with a Greek Cypriot president
and a Turkish Cypriot vice-president;
a council of ministers with a ratio
of seven Greeks to three Turks and
a House of Representatives of fifty
members, also with a seven-to-three
ratio, were to be separately elected
by communal balloting on a universal
suffrage basis. The judicial system
would be headed by a Supreme Constitutional
Court, composed of one Greek Cypriot
and one Turkish Cypriot and presided
over by a contracted judge from a
neutral country. In addition, separate
Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
Communal Chambers were provided to
exercise control in matters of religion,
culture, and education. The entire
structure of government was strongly
bicommunal in composition and function,
and thus perpetuated the distinctiveness
and separation of the two communities.
The aspirations of the Greek Cypriots,
for which they had fought during
the emergency, were not realized.
Cyprus would not be united with Greece,
as most of the population had hoped,
but neither would it be partitioned,
which many had feared. The unsatisfactory
but acceptable alternative was independence.
The Turkish Cypriot community, which
had fared very well at the bargaining
table, accepted the agreements willingly.
The provisions of the constitution
and the new republic's territorial
integrity were ensured by Britain,
Greece, and Turkey under the Treaty
of Guarantee. The Treaty of Alliance
gave Greece and Turkey the rights
to station military forces on the
island (950 and 650 men, respectively).
These forces were to be separate
from Cypriot national forces, numbering
2,000 men in a six-to-four ratio
of Greek Cypriots to Turkish Cypriots.
Makarios, accepting independence
as the pragmatic course, returned
to Cyprus on March 1, 1959. Grivas,
still an ardent supporter of enosis,
agreed to return to Greece after
having obtained amnesty for his followers.
The state of emergency was declared
over on December 4, 1959. Nine days
later, Makarios was elected president,
despite opposition from right-wing
elements who claimed that he had
betrayed enosis and from AKEL members
who objected to the British bases
and the stationing of Greek and Turkish
troops on the island. On the same
day, Fazil Küçük,
leader of the Turkish Cypriot community,
was elected vice president without
opposition.
The first general election for the
House of Representatives took place
on July 31, 1960. Of the thirty-five
seats allotted to Greek Cypriots,
thirty were won by supporters of
Makarios and five by AKEL candidates.
The fifteen Turkish Cypriot seats
were all won by Küçük
supporters. The constitution became
effective August 16, 1960, on the
day Cyprus formally shed its colonial
status and became a republic. One
month later, the new republic became
a member of the UN, and in the spring
of 1961 it was admitted to membership
in the Commonwealth. In December
1961, Cyprus became a member of the
International Monetary Fund and the
World Bank.
Independence did not ensure peace.
Serious problems concerning the working
and interpretation of the constitutional
system appeared immediately. These
problems reflected the sharp bicommunal
division in the constitution and
the historical and continuing distrust
between the two communities. Turkish
Cypriots, after eight decades of
passivity under the British, had
become a political entity. In the
words of political scientist Nancy
Crawshaw, "Turkish Cypriot nationalism,
barely perceptible under British
rule, came to equal that of the Greeks
in fanaticism." One major point of
contention concerned the composition
of units under the six-to-four ratio
decreed for the Cypriot army. Makarios
wanted complete integration; Küçük
favored segregated companies. On
October 20, 1961, Küçük
used his constitutional veto power
as vicepresident to halt the development
of an integrated force. Makarios
then stated that the country could
not afford an army anyway; planning
and development of the national army
ceased. Other problems developed
in the application of the seven-to-three
ratio of employment in government
agencies.
Underground organizations of both
communities revived during 1961 and
1962. EOKA and the TMT began training
again, smuggling weapons in from
Greece and Turkey, and working closely
with national military contingents
from Greece and Turkey that were
stationed on the island in accordance
with the Treaty of Alliance. Friction
increased in 1962 regarding the status
of municipalities. Each side accused
the other of constitutional infractions,
and the Supreme Constitutional Court
was asked to rule on municipalities
and taxes. The court's decisions
were unsatisfactory to both sides,
and an impasse was reached. Government
under the terms of the 1960 constitution
had come to appear impossible to
many Cypriots.
Some Greek Cypriots believed the
constitutional impasse could be ended
through bold action. Accordingly,
a plan of action--the Akritas Plan--was
drawn up sometime in 1963 by the
Greek Cypriot minister of the interior,
a close associate of Archbishop Makarios.
The plan's course of action began
with persuading the international
community that concessions made to
the Turkish Cypriots were too extensive
and that the constitution had to
be reformed if the island were to
have a functioning government. World
opinion had to be convinced that
the smaller community had nothing
to fear from constitutional amendments
that gave Greek Cypriots political
dominance. Another of the plan's
goals was the revocation of the Treaty
of Guarantee and the Treaty of Alliance.
If these aims were realized, enosis
would become possible. If Turkish
Cypriots refused to accept these
changes and attempted to block them
by force, the plan foresaw their
violent subjugation "in a day or
two" before foreign powers could
intervene.
On November 30, 1963, Makarios advanced
a thirteen-point proposal designed,
in his view, to eliminate impediments
to the functioning of the government.
The thirteen points involved constitutional
revisions, including the abandonment
of the veto power by both the president
and the vice president, an idea that
certainly would have been rejected
by the Turkish Cypriots, who thought
of the veto as a form of life insurance
for the minority community. Küçük
asked for time to consider the proposal
and promised to respond to it by
the end of December. Turkey rejected
it on December 16, declaring the
proposal an attempt to undermine
the constitution.
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