History
The National Guard was established in 1964 as a force composed entirely of ethnic Greeks, following the 1963–1964 breakdown of social and political relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots on the island of Cyprus. As outlined by the tripartite Treaty of Alliance (1960) and defined by the early Constitution of 1960–1963, Cyprus was entitled to an army of 2,000 men, to be made up of 60% Greek and 40% Turkish personnel. The first elected President of the Republic of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios III, proposed thirteen constitutional amendments to the 1960 constitution, which would have adjusted distribution of manpower and voting power for all civil and military services. This adjustment was aimed at giving greater representation and influence to the Greek Cypriot majority, which at the time formed around 82% of the island's indigenous population.
Read more about this topic: Cypriot National Guard
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“As I am, so shall I associate, and so shall I act; Caesar’s history will paint out Caesar.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)