Cyprus: Ready to Explode Again

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Since the retaliatory bombing by Turkey's air force last August, Cyprus has dropped out of the headlines, thanks to the United Nations peace-keeping force, which has kept an uneasy truce between the warring factions. But the potential for renewed violence has been building up all the time.

For one thing, an estimated 5,000 soldiers of the Greek regular army have filtered into the island and have been enrolled in the National Guard under the command of hard-bitten General George Grivas, who led the guerrilla war against the British back in the 1950s. His well-trained, 14,000-man force is now arrayed against some 12,000 Turkish Cypriots mostly armed with vintage rifles and shotguns.

Burlaped Name. But if Grivas has only a narrow edge in numbers, the edge in military hardware is about 20 to 1. The Turkish Cypriots own no ports and have to depend on relatively rare shipments by submarine from Turkey. To add to the ports they control, the Greek Cypriots have built a new one at Boghaz, north of Famagusta. Last month an Egyptian freighter with its name and homeport covered with burlap docked at Boghaz and unloaded five Soviet-made torpedo boats. Early this month 32 Soviet tanks arrived at Boghaz.

The widening arms gap has caused the Turkish Cypriots to complain loudly to Ankara, which in turn has protested violently to the United Nations and anyone else who will listen. And of late the sound of gunfire is being heard once again in the island's isolated villages. Early last month shooting resumed at Famagusta. On Feb. 19 a Turkish Cypriot woodsman was killed near Kokkina. When there was a flurry of gunfire last week at Ambelikou, a tiny Turkish Cypriot village near the town of Lefka, Ankara responded with a roar of anger. A naval flotilla of 35 vessels normally based at Izmir put to sea bound for Iskenderun, just 100 miles from Cyprus. As Turkish Foreign Minister Hasan Ishik postponed his scheduled visit to Pakistan, there were angry threats of another Turkish air strike or a naval bombardment or even an invasion.

The government of Cyprus' President, Archbishop Makarios, responded with counter threats. Makarios said there was no intention of attacking the Turkish Cypriot communities unless "we have to put these areas under full control so as to face the attack from the outside free from any internal distractions." Bellowed Grivas: "If the Turks dare to bombard Cyprus, the heaps of dead will not be Greek!" Grivas last week flew to Athens, and the rumor was that he was asking for a squadron of Greek jet fighters. In his absence, his National Guardsmen cleared a sizable area adjoining Nicosia airport, perhaps to give the jets a home.