Students march to US Embassy, commemorate Polytechnic uprising

Dozens of Cypriot students went on the march to the US embassy in Nicosia on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of the 1973 bloody Athens Polytechnic uprising against the military junta then ruling Greece.

The students, carrying antifascist banners, laid flowers and shouted slogans at the barrier erected by police that cut them off from the outside of the embassy. US and Nato policies were blamed for the continued existence of the Greek junta that was finally brought down after the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 after backing the July 15 coup that led to Turkey’s intervention on July 20 that year.

On November 16, 1973 after a week of protests, students at the Athens Polytechnic barricaded themselves inside but were brutally dealt with by the military in the early hours of November 17 when a tank mowed down the gate and entered the institution to quell the uprising. Though none of the students were killed, 24 civilians were killed in incidents outside the campus.

In Cyprus, political parties issued statements to mark the 50th anniversary of the crisis.

“Although the heroic uprising failed to overthrow the dictatorship, which collapsed only after the treacherous coup and the barbaric Turkish invasion of Cyprus, it emphasised that the ideals of Hellenism cannot be exploited,” Disy said in its statement.

Edon, the youth wing of the socialist party Edek said the Greek students had risen up against the US and Nato-led junta of colonels.

“This struggle to get rid of the fascist junta, but also the slogan ‘bread, education, freedom” embraced the desire of an entire people,” it said.

Left-wing Akel said the Polytechnic uprising continues to inspire protests against injustice.

“Akel and the entire Cypriot people do not forget that the same hands of the nationalists that bled the Polytechnic, a year later also bled Cyprus by consciously cooperating with Turkey in the division of our homeland,” it said.

“History has confirmed many times in Greece and Cyprus that nationalism and patriotism were nothing more than the sheep of treason.”