Earlier this month, Cyprus Mail reported Iran successfully hit RAF Akrotiri, a British Sovereign Base Area in Cyprus.
The attack has since prompted wider discussions around the British colonial history in Cyprus.
Cypriots have been protesting outside the bases over the last few years, denouncing their usage in spying on and targeting Palestinian people and aiding in Israeli military operations, as well as protesting the presence of US troops on the island.
Georgios*, a 23-year-old Cypriot, who moved to London for university, said: “The current Cypriot government should be held accountable for continuing its relationship with Israel and its allies when most people – especially as the youth are very much pro-Palestine.”
President Nikos Christodoulides came under fire in December for meeting with Israeli President Netanyahu and Greek President Kyriakos Mitsotakis, where all three leaders agreed to strengthen military ties, as they reaffirmed their long-standing trilateral partnership.
“While it is true that to some Cypriots the bases offer a sense of protection, I can say that after recent events that is no longer what the younger generation sees. The bases have always been unpopular amongst young people and many view it as a form of modern colonialism.” Georgios explains.
Eleni*, a young Cypriot near the RAF Dhekelia base, feels deeply frustrated about assumptions that Cypriot people are unbothered by the weaponisation of their land: “People think we allowed the bases to be here and that we want them here, but they don’t see that we have been protesting about those bases to leave Cyprus for decades now.”
“What will happen to the Cypriots in the region? We don’t know what is going to happen, we want to believe it’s okay because ‘it’s the bases’, but no, it is Cyprus.”
In 1960, Cyprus was given independence from the British Empire, following the London and Zurich agreement in 1959. The terms of their independence were that the British would retain their SBA’s (Sovereign Base Areas) RAF Akrotiri and RAF Dhekelia.
The Cypriot people have since been evacuated from the town of Akrotiri and they have been relocated to hotels, according to Cyprus Mail.
*Names have been changed
