With emotion and pride, the Cypriot Hellenism commemorates today the 1st of April 1955, the anniversary of the beginning of the Liberation Struggle of EOKA. The youth of Cyprus, no longer enduring servitude and slavery and with faith in the justice of their struggle, rise up against the British colonialists and join their voice with other peoples fighting against colonialism. They take the sacred oath and take action. The struggle is unequal and its outcome uncertain. The long Greek history and its heroic figures inspire and guide the steps of Afxentios and Pallicarides, Zacos and Lena, Draco and Karooli.
The Greeks of Cyprus had already begun to claim the right to freedom and self-determination since the beginning of the British rule in 1878. The dream of union fuelled their militancy, culminating in the events of October 1931. The British response to this rebellion was swift and harsh and their rule has since been transformed into a brutal dictatorship. After the Second World War and the world-historical upheavals it brought about, the hopes of the Cypriots were raised by the massive voluntary participation in the British army and the assistance that Greece provided to the British allies during the war. However, the colonialists still refused any talk of liberating Cyprus. Against this background, a referendum was held in 1950 among the Cypriot people, in which 97% of the population expressed their desire for union with Greece. But this attempt, like every other attempt to settle the issue diplomatically, fell through because of British intransigence.
The struggle, which began on April 1, 1955, was immediately embraced by all the people, students, women, people of all ages. The fighters, who were mostly young children, unacquainted with war tactics, under adverse and unprecedented conditions, gave their lives for their country. With meagre means they fought from their hideouts, ambushed the mighty colonial power and sacrificed themselves on the scaffold of the gallows in defiance of death. Thermopylae, Marathon, Alamana, Maniaki, Pindos, revived in every corner of the island and every day new glorious pages of daring and self-sacrifice were written in blood.
The participation of the student youth in the Struggle was numerous and decisive. The Battle of the Severio Library, in which the students of the Pancyprian High School gave lessons of patriotism, which remained forever engraved in the memory of our people, remained historic.
In February 1959, the Zurich-London Agreements marked the end of colonialism and the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus. Unfortunately, however, problems quickly arose between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot inhabitants of the island. These problems were exploited by Turkey in 1974 and, on the occasion of the treasonous coup d'état, it invaded our country, occupying a large part of its territory and causing painful consequences for our people.
Today, when times are difficult and the conditions experienced by the whole of humanity are unprecedented, the shining examples of strength, will, love of freedom and self-denial for the common good are for us timeless messages of true and unpretentious philanthropy. Let us keep the memory of the sacrifice of our heroes and the struggle of our people against British colonialism alive and let us follow in the footsteps of their steps towards freedom and justice.
(EP/EXP)
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