Word: cypriotes
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...addition to the dead and wounded, whose numbers were still being counted, Greeks were holding thousands of Cypriot prisoners, including 1,750 in the Limassol football stadium. Reportedly, hundreds of Greek P.O.W.s were taken off the island to Turkey. Both sides obviously hoped to use the prisoners as bar-gaming chips in peace negotiations that got under way last week in Geneva...
...Greeks began shooting, and they soon drew counterfire. A heavy shell, possibly a bazooka, hit the northeast corner of the building, killing one Greek Cypriot soldier and fatally wounding a second. The Turks continued to shell the hotel roof intermittently. None of the hundreds of journalists and guests crowding into the lower floors were injured by the Turkish firing. Later, when the Greeks removed their guns from the hotel and withdrew to the patio, they were loudly cheered by the much relieved newsmen and guests...
This amiable state broke down after World War II. Archbishop Makarios, then the religious leader of the island's Greeks, along with the legendary Greek General George Grivas, fostered a guerrilla force known as EOKA (an acronym from the Greek words for National Organization of Cypriot Fighters). They wanted to free Cyprus from British rule and achieve enosis-unification with Greece...
...that would enable the Turkish sectors of the island to unite with Turkey and the Greek with Greece. They established a guerrilla unit of their own, T.M.T. (Turkish Defense Organization). Violence erupted between the two groups in the mid-1950s, and Turks began to move out of sectors of Cypriot towns in which there were Greek majorities, and establish their own enclaves. Nicosia, for instance, saw a mass exodus of Turks from the south side to the north. Greek lawyers hesitated attending trials at law courts located in what became almost exclusive Turkish enclaves...
When they were not fighting among themselves, Cypriots fought the British. After four years of guerrilla warfare, which claimed more than 500 lives, Cyprus attained independence in 1960. The settlement was negotiated by Britain, Greece, Turkey and representatives of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities. However, it pleased few of the Cypriots, since it fulfilled the yearnings for neither enosis nor taksim. A hybrid government was created that called for a Greek as President and a Turk as Vice President. In the Cabinet and legislature, the Turks were given 30% of the seats -nearly double their percentage of the island...