Ready to Explode Again

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.

Closed Ring. As they have built up their armament, the Greek Cypriots have been slowly closing the ring about the Turkish communities by cutting off supplies and setting up roadblocks. In theory, the Turkish Cypriots are at liberty to travel anywhere, but in practice it is difficult. At some roadblocks Turkish Cypriot truck drivers are stopped for tedious "searches," in which their cargoes of fruit or vegetables are unloaded on the ground and sometimes damaged beyond use. No gasoline is allowed into the Turkish quarter of Nicosia. A few Turks make a habit of driving back and forth to gas stations in the Greek sector, where they fill up their cars, then return to the Turkish quarter and siphon the gas into communal storage tanks.

The Turkish Cypriots are hardly blameless. On occasion they advance their lines by digging new trenches, thus prompting the Greeks to retaliate with new earthworks of their own, bringing both sides dangerously close together. Last January, heavy rains caused the collapse of part of Nicosia's 16th century battlements, exposing a 150-ft. tunnel built inside the wall that would have given the Turkish Cypriots a commanding position for firing across the so-called Green Line that divides Turks from Greeks.

Double Denouncing. The three-day gun fight at Ambelikou last week dramatized a new Greek Cypriot tactic. It began when the Turkish Cypriot villagers used a bulldozer to widen a rude hill path leading to Lefka, which is also Turkish-controlled. Any attempt to improve road communications or to move villagers to larger Turkish towns is met with force. The Makarios government argues that a concentration of the island's minority would play into Turkey's hands by giving Ankara a beachhead for invasion. The Turks protest that the Greeks want to keep Turkish Cypriots well scattered so they can be used as hostages in case of invasion.

As the pressures and counterpressures rise higher, the 6,000-man U.N. peace-keeping force rushes back and forth interposing its Scandinavian, Irish, Canadian, British and Austrian troops between the short-tempered opponents. In Manhattan, the U.N. Security Council voted to extend the life of the $2,000,000-a-month peace-keeping force for another three months, until June 26.

At week's end Turkey's Premier Suat Hayri Urguplu proposed bilateral talks on Cyprus with Greece because, as things are, "We are waiting in darkness, staring at each other, mumbling to ourselves. Big problems are not solved by monologues, only dialogues." Greece answered that it was ready to talk, but not bilaterally, and demanded that both nations labor to make a success of U.N. mediation.

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