I Was a Guerrilla Fighter
AS TOLD TO “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN CYPRESS
NATIONALISM was something I was taught from infancy. The Greeks gave civilization to the world, I was told, and I was not to forget that I was a Greek Cypriot. At school my teacher of history hammered into my head stories of brave heroes of the Greek rebellion against the Turks in 1821, relating them with enthusiasm.
At home, too, I was taught nationalism. It was mixed with religion, my father being a priest of the Greek Orthodox Church. ‘We are Greeks and we want our freedom,’ my father emphasized time and again.
We were then under British rule. I was taught that if we could force the British, viewed as tyrants, out of Cyprus, we would become free! I was brought up to hate the British.
On April 1, 1955, the EOKA (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) commenced action. Its purpose was to sabotage military targets and create havoc and fear among the British by killing indiscriminately, until they left our small island. Then we would become free! Freedom!—the word sounded so melodic in my ears.
With a sense of pride I used to read in the newspapers about the achievements of EOKA men and women. I wished that I were among those brave men, those patriots—but how? One day my wish came true.
I Joined the EOKA
The EOKA organization was under the leadership of Digenis, who was a legend in Cyprus. It had a second in command and some section leaders, one for every town. There were also many group leaders. I was soon to meet a section leader.
The year was 1957. I was then twenty-five years old, married and had two children. When the EOKA section leader of my town approached me, I listened to him with great respect and attention. Yes, I wanted to be an active member of the organization. I was all for this cause, but I needed training. My training consisted of making bombs.
When I mastered the art of bomb making, I was appointed as a group leader. I had thirty-two men under me. At last I was achieving my goal!
Placing the Bombs
Our duty was to make time bombs and mines in our secret hiding place. We would then place them wherever our section leader commanded us. They would be set to explode and do their work of destruction at a specific time.
We had a big problem, though, and that was how to transfer the bombs from our hiding place to the target area without being noticed. This problem we managed to solve by making suitcases with concealed. compartments. In the bottom compartment we used to put the bomb, and after we closed that part we would put in clothing and other articles. We were careful to make sure that the clothes we put there did not belong to any of us who had the job of placing the bomb.
Thus, if the police or the army should stop us for a search and they found the bomb, we could excuse ourselves by telling them that the case was not ours, that probably we picked it up by mistake. And to prove this, we could point out that the clothes we were carrying were not ours.
One day we were commanded to place a time bomb in a hall in an army base where a British general was to speak to his officers. One of my men who was working in the army base managed to make a duplicate key to the hall. The next day some of us crept into the army base, opened the door of the hall and placed the time bomb. It went off according to plan. At least ten officers were killed and some others wounded.
When an airplane carrying army men was to leave Cyprus one day, I was commanded to sabotage it. We managed to place a time bomb in the luggage of one of the passengers. But there was a delay in the flight’s departure and before the luggage was even delivered to the plane the bomb exploded in the airport.
My activity expanded, and every time we fulfilled one of our “jobs” three or four persons were killed or wounded.
Apart from the risks of being arrested and hanged or shot, I was facing other dangers too. For example, once the bomb we had planted from the previous night did not explode. And some of my men and I were working at that very place! If the time bomb exploded now, all the people, including me and my men, could be killed. An anonymous phone call to the bomb disposal squad saved the situation.
Caught with Incriminating Evidence!
Once I was caught. It was amazing that I escaped death. We were carrying in a car some four-inch iron tubes, useful for the making of bombs. Then we were stopped by the military police. When they searched our car and found the iron tubes, they suspected us and radioed the army authorities. We were arrested and put in different prison cells. The interrogation started.
We told them the same story: One of our fellow passengers was working in a firm dealing with iron. After he finished a job, he was collecting all the remaining pieces of iron, and we were just helping him to take them to his new job. The army checked out our story and found it to be plausible.
Nevertheless, what tormented my mind was not the iron tubes; it was something far more incriminating. In our car I had a letter from my EOKA section leader! It contained orders for another group leader, and in the envelope was fifteen pounds sterling. I was to deliver that letter, which mentioned that the money was in the envelope.
When the military police searched our car, one of them saw the envelope. He took it, opened it and saw the fifteen pounds. Into his pocket it went. Would he now deliver the letter to army authorities? That was my great worry. If he did, then I was lost. How could I explain its existence in the car? They would know that I was an EOKA man. Fortunately for me this man’s love of money was too strong. He kept the money, and under the circumstances he could not disclose the incriminating letter. I was saved. It cost me only three days of interrogation and imprisonment.
I Met Jehovah’s Witnesses
Being a nationalist, I was also a religious man, religion and nationalism here in Cyprus having long been very much associated together. One day I was selling lottery tickets, the proceeds of which would be used for the building of a new Greek Orthodox church. In the same establishment where I was working there was one of Jehovah’s witnesses employed too. Many times I heard him speak about Jehovah to my colleagues. He even spoke to me. I liked the man. If he were only more patriotic, I thought!
This Christian witness of Jehovah one day told me that real freedom, not just from all kinds of nationalistic suppression, but freedom from sickness and death would come through Jehovah God’s kingdom. On another occasion I approached this man and asked him to buy a lottery ticket. He sympathized with me, commending me for doing what I thought was a Christian work, but he did not want to buy one. He said he would like to help me in a different way. He suggested that he would put my name down for a year’s subscription for the Bible magazine The Watchtower. I accepted.
After a few weeks the magazine started to come to my house by mail. But since I really was not interested in reading it, I used to throw it in a corner of the house. I did not even take it out of its wrapper.
On a certain day the Witness asked my opinion about an article that a recent Watchtower contained. It was about a subject in which I was really interested, but as I was ashamed to say that I did not even open the magazine, I told him that I would give him an answer the next day. Back home, I went through the pile of magazines that I had thrown in the corner and found the article. Reading it over, I found that it interested me. After that, every time I met this witness of Jehovah he had something interesting to discuss with me.
Bible Study Leads to Real Freedom
Very shortly I accepted a Bible study. I included my family in it since I began to see that love for God and love for my fellowman were more powerful in me than nationalism. I began to learn more about God, his name and his purposes. I began to realize that happiness is not achieved by promoting any kind of nationalism, any kind of human government. I was for the government of Jesus Christ, God’s kingdom. How glad I was to be shown from the Bible that God has a purpose in allowing the nations to go to the extent they have gone, that this is the generation that is going to see the big change that true Christians have been expecting for centuries. Tears were in my eyes as I learned that Jehovah is a merciful God, ready to forgive, and how much I personally needed forgiveness!
After a few Bible studies I made up my mind. I loved and needed God and his kingdom. I symbolized my dedication to Jehovah God by being baptized in water. Afterward the first thing I did was to send the Watchtower and Awake! magazines to all the men who fought under me. Only one showed some interest in the Bible’s message.
Today I am a “group leader” again, but a different kind—the presiding minister of a peaceful congregation of Jehovah’s witnesses. I have again with me about thirty-five persons with whom I work. And oh! what a joy to go out with them in the field ministry telling the hospitable and kind people of Cyprus the good news of the approaching peace of a thousand years under the Kingdom rule of Jesus Christ. (Rev. 20:4-6) What a joy to read to my countrymen about the resurrection of the dead and the wonderful conditions that the true God Jehovah is to bring about in his fast-approaching new system of things!—Rev. 21:1-4.
I have now found the real freedom for which I was searching. How thankful I am to that witness of Jehovah who showed me the real purpose in living!