Two Armed Camps

Abstract

The early months of 1964 had been an anxious time for Makarios. However, as the United Nations Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) began to build up — it took till June to come near its projected strength of 7000 officers and men — the Archbishop was able to plan his long-term strategy. The UN force, as he saw it, was there primarily to protect the Greek Cypriot community against further Turkish Cypriot attacks and to be a deterrent to any aggression from Turkey. It was also there — as its mandate clearly said — to help the Government of Cyprus restore law and order and bring about a return to normal conditions. Since the Government was now entirely Greek Cypriot, this could be — and was — interpreted as giving the major community the right to call upon UN troops to disarm Turkish Cypriot irregulars or dismantle their road-blocks and fortifications. (The UN force had other ideas about this.) Makarios had furthermore insisted on the Security Council’s resolution containing a reference to the clause in the United Nations Charter (Article 2, paragraph 4), which holds the ‘territorial integrity’ of a member-state to be sacrosanct. The Archbishop saw this as the best guarantee against de facto partition until he could get the United Nations to condemn the 1959–60 agreements and affirm the absolute sovereignty of a government elected by a majority of Cypriots.