["One thousand Makarioses will continue his work". That…]

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"One thousand Makarioses will continue his work". That is the motto carved on the mountain top tomb in which the man officially known as His Beatitude Archbishop Makarios I|| was buried last week.

But Greek Cypriot political leaders do not yet seem to have found even one new Makarios-that is a President sanctioned by the imperialists, the Communist Party and God.

Makarios was elected Archbishop of the Autocephalous (Orthodox) Church of Cyprus (then a British colony) in 1950.

His oath on taking office included committment to "Enosis" (union of the island with Greece). Enosis has previously been supported not only by the Church but also by the Communist Party iknown as AKEL) which had hoped for a Communist victory in the Greek civil war of the 1940s.

After the victory of the imperialist-backed right wing, Enosis in Cyprus became the policy of the right.

EOKA In the same year Makarios became Archbishop, a Greek colonel, George Grivas established EOKA, an organisation pledged to a military campaign against the British in favour of Enosis.

Grivas had led the anti-communist 'X' commando group and also ordered his followers to attack Communists in Cyprus.

Grivas realised however, that he could not succeed without the support of the powerful Archbishop.

Makarios, as the price of his (sometimes ambiguous) collaboration with EOKA got Grivas to soften his attacks on the Communists.

In return AKEL maintained a neutral position on the FOKA campaign, abstained from any more principled form of anti-colonialist struggle and hid behind the copious prestige of His Beatitude-a position they maintained faithfully up to his death.

In 1955 EOKA launched its major military campaign against the British Army which was unable to control it and resorted to generalised reprisals against the Greek population of the island (80% of the total).

Makarios The removal of Makarios to a șear's exile in the Seychelle Islands :: 1956 and 1957 had the opposite efiect to the one the British colonialists wanted.

He was repatriated and, after long negotiations with the leaders the minority Turkish community, the British, Greek and Turkish governments, the London i=i Zurich accords were signed i nich led to Cyprus' independence ::460 agreement involved a renuno: Enosis at the insistence Turkish government. and i consecutional safeguards Turkish community with Greece and Turkey. The British also maintained generous military facilities on the island.

Thus in 1960 Cyprus became a neo-colonial state and Makarios was elected President with 70% of the vote.

The support he lost from some pro-Enosis forces who spoke of betrayal, was made up for by the complete support of the AKEL Communist Party and the EDEK Socialist Party.

EDEK's origins are as a petty-bourgeois nationalist party and despite its "socialist' pretentions it has failed to challenge the AKEL's control of the working class.

UNCH A LLENG

AKEL has dominated the island's main trade union federation, the PEO. But EDEK has been as abject a supporter of Makarios as AKEL.

The EDEK leader, Vassos Lyssarides, was the Archbishop's personal physician.

Through the early 1960's Makarios maintained unchallenged power through a delicate balancing act between the EOKA and its reactionary backers in Greece on the one side and AKEL Communists and EDEK Socialists on the other.

It was a kind of virtuoso political ( protection racket-he offered "protection" to each side against the other.

But he was unable to meet the demands of either the supporters of Enosis or of the masses of Cypriot workers who voted for the AKEL Communists.

The one policy which seemed able to prevent the pro-Makarios alliance blowing apart was an aggressive chauvinist policy within the island towards the minority Turkish community.

Hence in 1963 Makarios proposed constitutional changes to the Turks which would have reduced the formal protection of the minority.

This precipitated inter-community violence and in 1964 the arrival of a United Nations "peace-keeping" force which has remained ever since.

The other policy through which Makarios aimed to reconcile the potential conflicts among his supporters was his demagogic "non-aligned" foreign policy which un practice brought him increasingly close to the Soviet Union, although he was careful never to • lose the confidence of the imperialists.

This policy also meant increasing influence for the AKEL whose leader, Papaioannou, has a season ticket to Moscow.

OPPOSITION

This policy, however, met with increasingly active opposition from the reactionary military dictatorship which had taken power in Greece in 1967 and which was closely allied to Grivas and the remnants of EOKA.

This conflict came to a head in 1972 when Makarios accepted military aid from Czechoslovakia.

The Greek Junta forced Makarios to hand over these arms to the United Nations, to sack his cabinet and replace it with personnel acceptable to the colonels.

The Old pro-Makarios ailiance was shaken and he came to rely much more on the far right proEnosis forces.

But this was not enough for the Grcek colonels. In 1974 they supported a coup against Makarios led by Nicos Sampson, an officer in the Cypriot army.

Although Makarios fled into his second exile the coup pered to be The Turkish army invaded the island (and has occupied 40% of it ever since). Sampson was forced to resign and replaced by a caretaker regime under right-winger Glaicos Clerides.

And the Greek Junta was fatally wounded by these events and within a few weeks had itself been overthrown.

In December 1974 Makarios returned to Cyprus and reestablished the old political alliancealthough a section of the right-wing under Clerides, the interim President, decided to move into more open opposition in preparation for the end of the regime of Makarios whose health was already With the frenetic diplomacy taking place over the last week in Downing Street, Chequers and been missing-the authentic voice of the workers and peasants of The centrepiece of the discussions has been a renewed effort to reactivate the Zimbabwe 'stabilisation' plan devised by the United States, Britain and South Africa.

What they are planning is the removal of lan Smith, and his rapid replacement with a black and white neo-colonial government legitimised through elections which would exclude the liberation movements from political power.

An essential part of this plan is that Smith's arm should be twisted into accepting it by the South African government.

Hence the fawning welcome given by British Foreign Secretary Owen and US Secretary of State Vance to Pik Botha, Foreign Minister of the racist dictatorship in London last week.

Botha has succeeded in keeping Duan and lanie guessine as to the deteriorating.

In last year's general elections Clerides' Democratic Rally party failed to win any of the 35 seats in the parliament.

All were won by the popularfront alliance of AKEL, EDEK and the bourgeois Democratic Front which supported Makarios.

Immediately after Makarios' death this popular front alliance is still holding together.

His "natural successor" Sypros Kyprianou, leader of the Democratic Front, and the interim President, is in poor health.

This is why political leaders have been arguing over which of two reactionary Presidents is to Makarios in his coffin Owen Smith.

The South African dictatorshir wants least of all to see a military and political victory to the liber.

ation movements.

OPPORTUNISTS

At the same time it is probably not convinced that the British-American neo-colonial plan is capable of avoiding this outcome.

If the racists of South Africa are essential to one side of the OwenVance plan, the opportunists of the black ruled states and the Zimbabwean nationalist organisations are equally essential to the other side.

They too were in London last week. Tanzanian president Julius Nyerere, has implied that he will support the plan which can only mean he is prepared to withdraw material aid to the guerrillas.

More crucial to Owen and Vance is Bishop Abel Muzorewa, head of the United African National Muzorowa is extremely anxious to destros the guerrilla armies and assume power herself in the guise succeed Makar.

The respe situation lies Socialist Party the Stalinists munist Party.

Os. nsibility for this with the EDEK and even more with of the AKEL ComThe policies of the AKEL leaders have been totally consistent for 30 years: a complete refusal to stand up for any independent demands of the working class.

They have tied the interests of the working class to Makarios and the Cypriot and imperialist bourgeoisie.

Although they receive up to 40% ot the votes in elections, they have abjectly supported his narrow chauvinist policies and his consistently anti-working class social and economic measures.

AKEL's fawning adulation of Makarios has allowed its bureaucratic leaders to grow fat.

The party has concessions to run import-export businesses such as the People's Spirit Company of Limassol!

These "leaders of the Cypriot working class" are in effect part of the capitalist class.

No necd is now greater in Cyprus than the building of a Trotskyist party which can fight for the independence of the Cypriot workers and peasants and against the consequences of decades of chauvinism and class-collaboration.

Such a party must fight against the installation of a new right wing President to regice Makaries: 10r the withdrawal of all foreign armies from Cyprus (those of Turkey, Greece, Britain and the United Nations); for an end to the popular front; and for a whole programme of economic and social demands for workers and peasants along with democratic rights for the Turkish minority.

In London last week behind a smokescreen of bombast about "one man, one vote" he was pushing a pernicious compromise plan to replace Smith with Constitutional Council representing the UANC, Smith's racist Rhodesia Front and the British government.

There are persistent reports that he has already done a secret deal of this kind with Smith.

The recent visits of ZANU leader Robert Mugabe, and ZAPU leader, Joshua Nkomo, to Peking and Havana respectively suggest that they are preparing to step up the war.

Nonetheless, both leaders have shown in the past (for instance, through their participation in last year's Geneva conference) that they are prepared to compromise with the imperialists, and Nkomo took care to go to Cuba by way of London.

In Zimbabwe itself, however, developments in the national liberation war have highlighted the desperate situation of the racists.

In recent weeks major railway lines around Salisbury have been cut three times by bombs.

In the face of the growing assault Smith is trying to repair his damaged prestige among the whites through a "general election" at the end of August.

LAST - DITCH EFFORT It is that situation which has made Owen, Vance and Botha rush to try to achieve what can only be a last-ditch effort at compromise. It is the task of the British labour movement to sabotage this counterrevolutionary plan by demanding the expulsion from the party of Owen and al other Labour Ministers resp ale for collabor-ale in Southern

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NTERNATOS

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Heathrow Airport, to 'solve' the Zimbabwe problem, one thing has