ABSTRACT
The Republic of Cyprus survived as a unitary state for little more than three years. The leaders of both ethnic groups in the island tended to treat the 1959 settlement as a temporary expedient. On the eve of Cypriot independence, Archbishop Makarios, already president-elect of the new state, declared: ‘The struggle is not over. The end of the armed struggle marks the beginning of new Greek struggles for consolidating the gains and further augmenting and exploiting them’.2 Three years later, the elaborate power-sharing system of the young Republic ground to a halt. The pretext was provided by the issue of separate municipalities to which the two ethnic communities were entitled under the Constitution. Makarios, who had originally consented to this arrangement, refused to implement it, belatedly realizing its divisive potential. The Turkish Cypriot leadership reacted by blocking the public revenue mechanism. In November, Makarios presented his so-called ‘Thirteen Points’ for amending the Constitution. His intention was to circumvent the safeguards for the Turkish Cypriot minority, particularly the extensive veto powers of its representatives in the executive and the legislature. In this atmosphere of distrust, a shooting incident on Christmas Eve 1963 triggered the spiral of intercommunal violence.
