EOKA

EOKA, underground nationalist movement of Greek Cypriots dedicated to ending British colonial rule in Cyprus (achieved in 1960) and to achieving the eventual union (Greek enosis) of Cyprus with Greece.

EOKA was organized by Col. Georgios Grivas, an officer in the Greek army, with the support of Makarios III, Orthodox archbishop of Cyprus. Its armed campaign, begun early in 1955, reached a climax in 1956, with the exile of Makarios to the Seychelles and the temporary depletion of British forces in the island because of the Suez Crisis. By early 1957, however, a reinforced British army renewed attacks on the mountain hideouts of the considerably outnumbered EOKA. Violence subsided after Makarios’s release from detention in exile in March 1957, though there were increased hostilities leading up to mid-1958, when EOKA clashed with Turkish Cypriot guerrillas. In 1958 Makarios announced he would accept independence for Cyprus rather than enosis. In February 1959 a compromise agreement was concluded between Turkish and Greek representatives at Zürich and endorsed by the Cypriot communities in London (see Cyprus: British rule). The next month, EOKA disbanded.

In 1971 Grivas, who had served for a time as commander of the Greek Cypriot National Guard but had been recalled by the Greek government, reentered Cyprus secretly to form EOKA B, to “prevent a betrayal of enosis.” After Grivas’s death in January 1974, his followers vowed to continue the struggle. Makarios (then president of Cyprus) officially proscribed EOKA B in April 1974, three months before he was ousted and before Turkish forces invaded and divided the country in a brief civil war. In 1978, EOKA B declared its dissolution.