HONOUR AND GLORY TO OUR HEROES IN CYPRUS!

HONOR AND GLORY TO OUR HEROES!

The annual event organised by the local AKEL Party organisation and the mass organisations of the Left in Athienou took place today in memory and honor of our two heroes and martyrs Derviş Ali Kavazoğlou and Kostas Mišaoulis, the symbols of the friendship and common struggle of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

The events began with a humble ceremony at the very site where our two comrades were ambushed and assassinated by the Turkish Cypriot nationalist organisation TMT where a monument has been erected. In a solemn ceremony, brief addresses were made and wreaths were laid.

The event continued at the Local Club of the Peoples Movement of the Left in Athienou where a political and cultural meeting took place. One minutes silence was observed in memory of Kavazoglou and Misaoulis, as well as with all the martyrs who sacrificed their lives in the struggle for peace, democracy and freedom in Cyprus.

This year the keynote speech was delivered by comrade Sotiroulla Charalambous, AKEL Political Bureau member and General Secretary of the class-based Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO)

S.Charalambous pointed out that the cowardly assassination of Kavazoğlou and Mišaoulis was a pre-planned political murder committed by those who want our people to be divided, to make them fight and kill each other in order to perpetaute their power in our country.

She noted, inter alia, that, “Fascism has only one color and that is black and only black. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriot Leftists and Communists know very well what this color means. It doesn’t matter if the person who pulled the trigger and committed the murder is a Greek Cypriot or a Turkish Cypriot. The roots of these murderers are one and the same.

…Those who thought that they would kill the vision of a united, peaceful, democratic homeland by murdering Kavazoğlou and Mišaulis on 10th April 1965 were mistaken because the struggles and sacrifices of our comrades continue to nourish and grow the tree of cooperation and class unity between Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot workers….They continue to be a source of inspiration for those who continue the true patriotic struggle with their goal.”

AKEL Political Bureau Member and PEO General Secretary Sotiroulla Charalambus concluded her speech by stating, “As in life and in struggle, we remember our two comrades who gave their lives shoulder to shoulder, embraced each other in their final breath, side by side, these lines come to mind: “We Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Armenians, Maronites and Latins can raise the sun of our common homeland, peace, prosperity and social justice together.”

The event concluded with a cultural program.Speech by AKEL Political Bureau member Aristos Damianou at the event in memory of Kavazoglou and Misaoulis

“Kavazoglou and Misaoulis’ Local Club, Acropolis, Nicosia

8 April 2022

Comrades,
Turkish Cypriots compatriots,
Dear friends,

Tonight, we honor our history. Tonight we pay due tribute to two heroes of the Left. Tonight we commemorate the sacrifice of Kavazoglou and Misaouli. We recall that painful day when the clock stopped to write history. The story of the sacrifice of two children of Cyprus, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot. The story of the murder of two Communists, members of AKEL and PEO by the fascists of TMT.

Unfortunately, it was neither the first, nor the only time that imperialism, fascism and nationalism turned their weapons against our people, our comrades. But, going back 57 years, we can now say with certainty that the sacrifice of our two heroic martyrs marked the modern history of Cyprus.

It was the climax and culmination of the fascist and nationalist hysteria that gradually led to the crime that was committed in 1974. So what if the executioners were TMT tools. They could, as in other executions, have been organs of EOKA B. Both TMT and EOKA B were tools and instruments of bigotry, national-chauvinism and the partition of Cyprus.

On that horrific day, 11 April 1965, TMT set up an ambush to assassinate the two people’s fighters and murdered them when they were fighting for peaceful coexistence, cooperation and reconciliation between the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Dervis Ali Kavazoglu, as a member of the Central Committee of AKEL, was travelling all over Cyprus, conveying the Party’s positions for the waging of a common struggle and exposing the plans of nationalism-chauvinism and imperialism. On that fateful day, he was accompanied on his journey by his comrade and worthy member of the class-based trade union federation of PEO, Kostas Misaoulis.

The common path and drama of our people, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, is expressed vividly by the heroic sacrifice of our two comrades. The common struggle for a living wage, for life and dignity. In that last blood-stained embrace lies all that we have been fighting for and made so many sacrifices for decades: the struggle for a truly independent and free homeland, without any foreign guardians and dependencies. Without nationalisms and so-called “mother countries” (Note: Greece and Turkey).

We are struggling for a Cyprus without the burdens of partition, nationalism and foreign intervention. Where, in conditions of peace, prosperity and security, our people will strive for the other, broader visions: for the creation of the preconditions for a society of rights, for a full democracy at all levels, freedom of spirit and creation. For a society of social justice and socialism.

Without any doubt, the fascists of TMT, with the murder of Misaouli and Kavazoglou, wanted to silence everything that stood in the way of their divisive plans. They wanted to terrorize every Cypriot people’s fighter who was struggling for our common homeland. They did so on other occasions as well.

They believed that by committing their atrocious crimes they could kill the ideas and vision of the common homeland. But they were fooling themselves. The sacrifice of Kavazoglou-Misiaouli inspired and strengthened the faith and determination in the common struggle of the Cypriot people. Their sacrifice became a banner for the peaceful coexistence of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. A symbol of struggle for the reunification of our homeland. A bastion of resistance against all those forces and circles who envision the existence of permanent walls of separation and separate paths for the two communities, the “two peoples” as they falsely claim. But through the centuries, our people is one. The different origins, the different language, the different religions, the cultural richness that the two communities carry, never in the distant past has been a reason for separation. On the contrary, it was the source of a common path until artificial nationalisms and foreign interventions imposed separation. And it remains as a leaven in the common struggle for the liberation and reunification of our country and its people.

The question of course is whether the sacrifice of our comrades, but of all our other people who sacrificed their lives for the cause of our common homeland, for peace, freedom and democracy has been vindicated. Unfortunately, the answer is negative. Besides the powerful symbolism, apart from the importance of the sacrifice for our beliefs, values and ideals, our comrade’s struggle remains unjustified.

In a few months, 48 years will have passed since the illegal Turkish Army invasion and occupation with our people and land still divided.

With barbed wire prohibiting a common life, the waging of common struggles between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

With our fellow Turkish Cypriot compatriots living under the suffocating embrace of the Turkish establishment.

With a leadership that is the mouthpiece of Turkey and the advocates of partition in Ankara.

With the Greek Cypriot community living the uncertainty caused by the almost half a century of occupation.

With a President and a ruling party whose priority was to hold on to power, instead of making a sincere effort to reach a solution of the Cyprus problem through the opportunities that were presented for a solution.

However we are persisting, we do not give up. In conditions of partition, we continue to water the tree of friendship between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. With the projection of common political demands, with the expression of class and trade union solidarity, with the organisation of symbolic common marches and events. But first and foremost by uniting our voices to rise above the barbed wire of division and send out the message that the Left, AKEL, the progressive forces within the Turkish Cypriot community do not compromise with the occupation.

AKEL, faithful to the visions, struggles and sacrifices of Dervis Ali Kavazoglou and Kostas Misiaouli, but also of all the children of our small, bitter homeland who sacrificed their lives for a free, common homeland of Cyprus, will continue to fight for:

● The termination of the occupation, the withdrawal of the Turkish occupation troops and the end of the colonization 9of the occupied areas).

● The restoration of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus, as well as the restoration of the unity of the state, the people, the institutions and the economy.

● The abolition of any intervention rights and the anachronistic regime of guarantees.

● The safeguarding of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Cypriots, including the right of return and property of refugees and lawful owners from both communities.

● The full demilitarisation of the Republic of Cyprus.

We declare in the strongest possible terms that the danger of the permanent partition of our homeland, which in the long run will inevitably lead to a land border with Turkey, is now immediate and visible. Believing that the possibility of preventing this disastrous course still exists, it is imperative that we immediately abandon any tactical games and incomprehensible regressions. It is imperative that consistency is shown to the basis of a solution to the Cyprus problem, as well as a readiness in practice and not in words for the resumption of the negotiation procedure.

Because only a solution of the Cyprus problem can turn that embrace drowned in blood of our heroes into a bridge of peace and fraternity between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

Because only a solution can the sacrifice of our heroic martyrs be vindicated.

Because only with a solution can conditions of peace, prosperity and security be created for our people.

For the common path to continue.

For people to come together again.

To shake off the enemy, nationalism.

To stand as a bastion of resistance against foreign aggression.

Our path of struggle is long and difficult. The dangerous deepening of partition and the given hardening of the Turkish position separate us from the critical point to which the Cyprus problem has been driven until the day of the solution. AKEL believes that the path to reversing the submissive passage of time and the partitionist status quo presupposes a progressive change in the governance of the country. If it is not already too late, with the way developments have evolved. But we have to fight it because we do not compromise with either the occupation or with so-called “second best solutions”. We are not here to build and sell glass towers as this government has been doing. We are here to tear down the walls of division and bigotry. We are here to build the Cyprus of the future.

For AKEL there is only one solution and that’s what we are committed to – in memory of our heroes – to continue the struggle their sacrifice has been vindicated.

Honor and glory to our heroes!From last nights event in the Local Club of the Peoples Movement in the Acropolis neighborhood. A march through the streets took place, stopping at the house were Dervis Ali Kavazoglou stayed protected by his Greek Cypriot comrades. The march also stopped by the house of the house of the family of Kostas Misaoulis.
Keynote speakers included Aristos Damianou Political Bureau member and Koral Asam President of the Turkish Cypriot trade union federation DEV-IS.
The cultural program that followed included poetry and songs.

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