The liberation struggle of EOKA 1955-59 and the Chloraka coast

The Chloraka coast takes us back much further than the launch of the Cyprus struggle for liberation on 1st April 1955. It takes us to the days when the minds of certain visionary Cypriots and Greeks began to form the idea of transforming "the waiting policy" followed until that time by the Cypriot people into a "policy of a dynamic struggle" . This was made necessary by the stubborn refusal of British colonial policy to grant the right of self-determination to the people of Cyprus. British colonial policy left the Cypriot people with no choice other than an armed struggle. To this end, the Archbishop of Cyprus, Makarios III and Cypriot colonel George Grivas, together with other people from Greece and Cyprus established a Secret Committee for the Struggle in Athens whose aim was the libera- tion of Cyprus and Union with Greece. The members of the committee took their oath in Athens on 7 March 1953 but before doing so, they appointed Archbishop Makarios political leader of the struggle and George Grivas military leader. Once the members had been sworn in they immediate- ly began work to prepare the struggle. In Athens they began to amass arms and ammunition and in Chloraka in the spring of 1953 the first small team of freedom fighters was organised. On 5 March 1954 at "Vrexi" on the Chloraka coast members of this team (Costas Leonida, Andreas Azinas, Nicholas Azinas and Charalambos Azinas) received the first shipment of arms. This arrived on the boat "Siren" captained by Evangelos Louca Koutalianos. At "Alyki", the freedom fighters Costas Leonida, Nicholas Mavronikola and Michalakis Papantoniou received the leader of the struggle George Grivas Dhigenis. Dhigenis arrived in secret on the same boat on 10 November 1954, after a perilous voyage that began on 26 October at Piraeus. The three men took him to the home of Nicholas Azinas at Chloraka accompanied by Socrates Loizides and Notis Petropouleas. Theophilos Xanthopoulos from Greece was captain of the boat. THE CHLORAKA COAST ON THE EVE O