Familiar Target

The U.S. embassy on Cyprus last week once more became a target for Greek Cypriots who are fearful of growing Turkish power on the island and accuse Washington of supporting Turkish moves against them. Five months ago, as furious Greek Cypriots stormed the building, and burned the American flag, Ambassador Rodger Davies, 53, and a Cypriot embassy employee were murdered by mysterious snipers who fired through the windows. Last week, another stone-hurling crowd of 5,000 marched on the building. Marine guards firing tear-gas shells were unable to halt the demonstrators. Nicosia police finally drove off the crowd, but not before a wing of the embassy had been set ablaze and offices ransacked.

The attack was only one incident in a raging demonstration that spread to Athens and was directed at British as well as American facilities. In the Greek capital, Cypriot students climbed the walls of the British embassy compound and tossed fire bombs that burned automobiles and scorched the embassy. On Cyprus, meanwhile, one youth was accidentally killed by a military vehicle during a Greek Cypriot demonstration against the British at the entrance to the Akrotiri base area on the southern coast. The protests were aroused by a decision to move 10,000 Turkish refugees out of the British bases where most of them have been sheltered since they fled their homes during Cyprus' civil war last summer. The refugees are to be flown to Turkey; from there the Ankara government will resettle them in areas of northern Cyprus now held by Turks. Greek Cypriot protests that the resettlement will reinforce the de facto partitioning of the island went unheeded. Even as the demonstrators rioted, the first planeload of refugees flew out of Akrotiri for Turkey.

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