The first four volumes of the secret Cyprus File, which has been locked up in the Greek Parliament for decades, and which was compiled, classified, and reconstituted by parliament, will be handed over by Parlaiment Speaker Nikos Voutsis to President Prokopis Pavlopoulos, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and opposition leaders tomorrow.
The full content of the four volumes will simultaneously be posted on the website of the Greek Parliament, so that all citizens may have “immediate and unhindered access to the historical truth”.
That will close a political and moral issue that has been pending for decades – the release of the documents that detail the betrayal of Cyprus, which began with the Greek junta’s failed coup against Cyprus’ President and Archbishop, Makarios, and reached its pinnacle with the Turkish invasion and occupation, until this day, of nearly 40 percent of the island’s territory.
The parliaments of Greece and of the Republic of Cyprus had jointly undertaken the initiative to fully shed light on the known and unknown aspects of the Cyprus tragedy.
The material was collected between February, 1986, and March, 1988, by an investigative committee of the Greek Parliament, and the dossiers were stored in the basement of parliament.
The file consists of four boxes containing 134 dossiers, including the testimony of 188 witnesses, and of 45 witnesses examined by a sub-committee for the drafting of parliament’s report, which never came to a vote in parliament. It also contains accompanying documents submitted by the witnesses.
All the evidence and documents were earlier handed over by Voutsis to the Parliament Speaker of Cyprus.
When the material was being compiled in the Greek Parliament, it was discovered that 11 of the initial dossiers, containing the first and crucial depositions of witnesses – who played a decisive role in the 15 July, 1974 coup organised by the Greek junta against Makarios, which paved the way for the Turkish invasion – were missing.
The entire enterprise also required the transcription of worn tapes of testimony compiled by the investigative committee in the 1980s.
