r/cyprus • u/Fun_Success_45 • 21h ago
History/Culture UNTOLD HISTORY: Just finished reading Makarios' interview with Oriana Fallaci Italian journalist and author (1974)
English: https://archive.org/details/interviewwithhis0000fall/page/318/mode/2up
Italian: https://archive.org/details/intervistaconlas0000oria/page/596/mode/2up?q=samson
Archbishop Makarios himself described his penchant for brinkmanship to Oriana Fallaci in one of the most comprehensive interviews he ever gave.
https://www.makarios.eu/cgibin/hweb?-A=3285&-V=english
Archbishop Makarios did not leave a memoir or diaries, so this 1974 interview with world-renowned Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci stands as one of the more revealing published conversations with the archbishop and president, just four months after the coup against him.
In the English edition, Makarios' interview lies between pages 310 and 331. A short, eye-opening account of history.
One of the most controversial parts among many:
O.F.: So you too were expecting the coup.
M.: No. I never thought they'd be so stupid as to order a coup against me. In fact, to me it seemed impossible that they wouldn't consider its consequences. I mean Turkish intervention. At the most I thought they might do such a thing by making a deal with Turkey, that is, authorizing Turkey to intervene so that Greece could then respond, to be followed by partition and double enosis. I went on thinking so even after the coup, when I got to London. It took some time for me to realize that Ioannides had simply acted out of a lack of intelligence. And yet I knew him. In 1963 and 1964 he had been in Cyprus as an officer of the National Guard, and one day he came to see me, accompanied by Sampson, in order to "explain to me secretly a plan that would settle everything." He had bowed to me, he had kissed my hand most respectfully, then: "Beatitude, here's the plan. To attack the Turkish Cypriots suddenly, everywhere on the island. To eliminate them one and all. Stop." I was flabbergasted. I told him I couldn't agree with him, that I couldn't even conceive the idea of killing so many innocent people. He kissed my hand again and went away in a huff. I tell you, he's a criminal.
