18 SEPTEMBER 1964, Page 15

CYPRUS VERSUS THE REST

Sits.—As Margery Perham points out in her book The Colonial Reckoning, apropos of colonialism from earliest times, 'because conquest led in time to the extension of peace, trade, higher standards of living, and a' large measure of civic and provincial self- government, most of its peoples settled down to contentment and even pride under its sway. Rebellion was the unforgivable sin ' And Cyprus has never been forgiven its justifiable rebellion from 1955 to 1959; and Great Britain is still punishing her. Justifiable rebellion, because in the case of Cyprus, she was taken over as a Crown Colony against the will of the people after the First World War, when they were led to expect enosis, and when after, the Second World War the Cypriots again asked Great Britain to apply to them the prin- ciples of self-determination, and were refused, they rose up in protest and resorted to arms to enforce what they had a right to expect from a nation which purported to uphold the dignity of freedom.

All this is being held against the Cypriots today by the British public, aided and abetted by propa- ganda through press and television, and an un- precedented hate-campaign which we can only assume is to save the interests of the British Government's apparent policy of 'divide and rule,' in the belief that our Middle Eastern commitments are best served in wooing the Turks and antagonising the Greeks and Greek-Cypriots. Surely it would have been more to our advantage to have retained the friendship and co-operation of the Cypriot Government, which would have more positively assured the continuance of our bases on the island?

I' am one of several English people who have written repeatedly to the London press, in vain, pleading for the chance of putting the real situation in Cyprus before the public, for it to read both sides and judge for itself whether justice is being done; and the only conclusion 1 can come to is that the truth is shameful for us, and that freedom of the press only means their freedom to suppress. The only channels through which the Cypriots can express their rightful aims, through which they can tell the self-complacent British public the whole truth behind these tragic events, are the daily newspapers and television, yet never, from the very beginning, has a Greek-Cypriot been given a hearing, but Turks and Turkish-Cypriots are given every opportunity of giving their account: pictures of Turkish villagers in distress, and pathetic refugees forced out of their homes by their own extremists—not by the Greeks—have been constantly shown to us, yet not a picture or an expressed opinion of the Greek refugees; nor, to our shame, pictures of the charred and mutilated bodies of the innocent victims of the bestial Turkish napalm bombing!

What kind of hypocrites have we become, and what meaning is there left in the much-publicised axiom of British fair play? We are judging and condemning a whole people on the so-called 'evi- dence' of the prosecution only, without hearing what the counsel for the defence has to say! It is hardly credible.

I have recently returned from Nicosia inspired by the fortitude, courage and faith of these people who are prepared to die for what they know is their righteous cause: they are a David against the Goliath of power politics; and if the United Nations lets them down now, there is no hope for the world; for this is the United Nations' great testing time.