The British counter-insurgency in Cyprus

Abstract

The Cyprus Emergency is often lumped together with Malaya and Kenya as an example of British counter-insurgency practice in the 1950s. Malaya and Kenya in particular are often used as models of how to succeed. The general perception is that these counter-insurgency campaigns, which are often connected with the strategy of ‘winning hearts and minds’, were highly successful,1 and have ‘become synonymous with the conduct of a successful counter-insurgency campaign’,2 in contrast with the methods employed by the French in Indo-China and Algeria, the Dutch in Indonesia, the Portuguese in Angola and Mozambique, the Americans in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan. However, Cyprus, which tends to be comparatively neglected and less studied, presents a far less rosy and more problematic picture of British counter-insurgency practices in the 1950s. The geography and politics of Malaya and Kenya make them unsuitable as a model for counter-insurgency operations in the very different situation in Cyprus between 1954 and 1959. Rather than the usual comparison with Malaya and Kenya, Cyprus should be seen in parallel not only with Palestine, Aden, and Northern Ireland but also with Portugal and Rhodesia.