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séparation of the communities began to take on the appearance of permanence. By
March 1964, the Greek-Cypriot National Guard was being established and the UN
Security Council had created a role for international peace-keepers in Cyprus. By
June, General George Grivas 31
had returned to Cyprus to command the newly
formed Greek-Cypriot National Guard. Greek army officers were becoming
increasingly apparent on Greek-Cypriot check-points 32 . By then, leading Turkish-
Cypriot figures knew they would not be returning to their officiai positions in the
Government of the Republic of Cyprus 33 . Field Marshall Lord Carver, Commander
of the Truce Force and then Deputy Commander of UNFICYP from February to
July 1964, claims that the objective of the Turkish-Cypriot leadership was "to
concentrate their population in the north and bring about partition" 34 , and that:
Policy was clearly dictated from Ankara, and any déviation from it was
liable to lead to condign punishment by the TMT, the Turkish-Cypriot
fighters organisation. 35
The Nicosia enclave had two open Checkpoints, three if you count the VIP
Checkpoint at the Ledra Palace (still in opération). When inter-communal violence
had broken out again in December 1963, the Turkish Army contingent had moved
out of its Nicosia Barracks and taken up strategie positions covering the Nicosia to
Kyrenia trunk road. Whilst Turkish-Cypriot fighters, with or without Turkish army
assistance, captured the strategie strong point of St Hilarión in the Pentadaktylos
31 Leader of the violent campaign by EOKA for the union of Cyprus with Greece (enosis) 1955-60.
"...the fanatical General George Grivas ...a native Cypriot, took Greek citizenship to join the
Hellenic Army. In the wake of the libération of Greece from the Nazis, Grivas led a white-terror
campaign against communist partisans which helped precipitate the second round of the Greek civil
war, 1947-9." McDonald 1989. op. cit., p.8 and note 8, p.81.
32 Former Greek Prime Minister, and a Minister in his father George Papandreou's government at
the time, Andrea Papandreou, claims that after the breakdown of the Cypriot constitution: "A
clandestine opération then began on a huge scale of nightly shipments of arms and troops, of
'volunters' [sic] who arrived in Cyprus in civilian clothes and then joined their 'Cypriot' [sic] units.
The process was not completed until the middle of the summer. No less than 20,000 officers and
men, fully equipped, were shipped to Cyprus." Papandreou, A. 1970. Democracv at Gunpoint.
Andre Deutsch, p. 100.
33 Interview with Ozalp Sarica, op. cit.
34 Field Marshall Lord Carver, in Koumoulides 1986. op. cit., p.30.
35 ibid., p.31.
134