July 6, 1956
DIGENIS AND MAKARIOS: Nicosia, 7 – In a lengthy proclamation, the leader of the National Cypriot Fighters’ Organization (EOKA), Digenis (General Georgios Grivas), has stated: «The petroleum lords have been drafting one plan after the other for the future of Cyprus (…). We do not know what the latest plan will include, but we see that in all the previous ones, the same stereotype is reiterated: that no agreement is possible before EOKA is beaten and that while negotiations are under way, the struggle against EOKA will continue. (…) We are not a political party. (…) We are a national resistance movement against an occupying force. We represent the militant Cypriot people. (…) We do not consider that anyone has the authority to negotiate an agreement apart from the man whom the Cypriot people have elected as their true leader (Archbishop Makarios, whom the British exiled to the Seychelles). Any agreement that does not bear Makarios’s signature is unacceptable to us. (…) We have always been accustomed to putting our cards on the table. Let the lords read them. They are interpreted simply as sincerity in the peace talks, otherwise war until the end.» The EOKA leader Digenis.
