Exactly

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Jul 31, 2010 at 18:05

Hi, Hellene !

Great observations ! I fully agree with you .

But in fact the Greeks organized their referendum in 1950 under the auspices of Makrios . The result was astonishing. Out of 229 747 persons entitled to vote 215 108 voted in favour of Enosis and the rest didn't vote only because the British had forbidden all civil servants to participate in the referendum. But the result of this referendum was ignored by the British who didn't cared more about their own interests than about people's wishes !

1954 -as far as I know - was a critical year in a different respect too. The Greek government took the Cyprus issue directly to the UN and this completely changed the situation. Out of a sudden it became an international issue and may have ended for the British just as ignominiously as their mandate in Palestine. Now to counter a foreseeable pressure and defeat in the UN Britain invited and used Turkey as its ally by supporting its fully illegal claims to Cyprus. Turkey had no right to Cyprus in virtue of the Treaty of Lausanne it had signed in 1923. The rest is as you write. The British sided openly with the Turks against the Greeks ... just as the Americans did in a more violent way in 1974.

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