Turk v. Greek

The British have long feared that if Greek Cypriot extremists keep throwing bombs, many among the 94,000 Turkish Cypriot minority who want no part of union with Greece will fight back. One night last week a masked gunman entered a coffee shop in the village of Polis, ordered a Turkish Moslem constable to rise, then shot him dead. The murder, which islanders attributed to the underground EOKA terrorists, set off a round of communal fighting. For three days knives flashed and stones flew as Turk fought Greek in ugly little scrimmages all over the island. Scores were hurt. Many Greek-owned shops were wrecked. Crying "civil war," Fazil Kutchuk, leader of the Cyprus-Is-Turkish party, wired Ankara for Turkish government support.

Cyprus' doughty British Governor Sir John Harding also had his own daily round of troubles. From rooftops and balconies terrorists tossed three bombs one morning into the long, narrow Nicosia street that British troops call "murder mile." One soldier was killed, twelve were wounded. When the British closed down 37 shops and evicted 17 families along the street, a crowd of schoolgirls suddenly filled the pavement, shouting "Death to Harding." The girls paraded down the street, defying military police who were patrolling against just such an outbreak.

Thirty-five hundred miles away, in the Indian Ocean Seychelles Islands, Greek Archbishop Makarios, whom Harding had exiled, reappeared in the news. Though the archbishop himself is kept under "light escort," his secretary, out for a stroll, evidently dropped a letter in a mailbox addressed to the editor of a Kenya newspaper. Unopened and uncensored, the letter reached Nairobi, where the East African Standard promptly printed its complaint: Makarios and his three clerical companions were being treated like criminals for no greater offense than "expression of our love of freedom." In London a red-faced Colonial Office spokesman admitted that the four churchmen had gone on a one-day hunger strike at their villa. But the island governor, he said, had talked things over with Makarios "in a friendly way," and persuaded His Beatitude to eat his next meal.

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