On April 1, 1955, the Greek Cypriots rose up to shake off the British yoke, with the aim of "Union" with the motherland Greece. Their struggle ended with the "London-Zurich Agreements" (February 19, 1959), by which Cyprus was declared an independent state.
The request of the Greek Cypriots to shake off the British occupation of Megalonis and the union with Greece came to the fore in 1950, with the referendum of January 15 (it was organized by the Church of Cyprus and 95.7% of the voters were in favor of the union with Greece) and the election of Makarios III as Archbishop of Cyprus on October 20. It was the time when colonialism was blowing the whistle and one after another the conquered countries vigorously sought their independence.
The governments of Athens, at the urging of the Greek Cypriot leadership and under the pressure of the organizations of the Cyprus Struggle in Athens, made efforts to internationalize the issue, with successive appeals to the UN. On November 10, 1954, the retired colonel Georgios "Digenis" Grivas (1897-1974) arrives on the island and forms the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA), which on April 1, 1955 takes action against the British colonialists, marking the beginning of the liberation struggle of Cypriots. Born in Cyprus, Grivas had been an officer in the Greek army and during the German occupation he had founded the anti-communist organization "X", while he had taken an active part in the Civil War. The political leader of EOKA was Archbishop Makarios (1913-1977), later the first president of the Republic of Cyprus.
The start of the struggle, as mentioned above, began in the evening hours of March 31 to April 1, 1955, with attacks on government buildings, police stations, the radio station and a British camp in Famagusta. During the struggle, in addition to the English dynasts, EOKA targeted their Greek Cypriot collaborators, the Turkish Cypriots of the "Taxim" organization who sought the "unification" of Cyprus with Turkey, but also members of AKEL, which the "nationalists EOKA accused them of being collaborators of the British. The dispute between "rights" and "lefts" in Cyprus over the role of AKEL in the national liberation struggle continues to this day.
Despite the blood shed and the fighters who gave their lives (Karaolis, Dimitriou, Pallikaridis, Auxentiou, etc.), the goal of the "Union" was not achieved. With the agreements of London and Zurich (February 19, 1959, Cyprus became an independent state on October 1, 1960.