Striking miners statue unveiled
A STATUE has been unveiled in Lefke to commemorate seven striking miners who were seriously wounded when British Colonial police opened fire on them in 1948.
The incident took place during a strike between January 13 and May 17 that year by some 1,300 Greek Cypriot and 700 Turkish Cypriot miners employed by the former Cyprus Mines Corporation (CMC). The often-violent period of action, the longest in the industrial history of Cyprus, also resulted in 76 miners being sentenced to prison terms of up to two years, along with some of their wives.
People from both sides of the Cyprus border attended the ceremony and a cocktail reception last week, with those present including Lefke Mayor Aziz Kaya, former miners, trades union representatives and local people.
Following speeches, an exhibition was opened in the municipal offices featuring historic photographs taken of CMC personnel and mining operations.
The months of protest followed a oneday strike a year earlier, on May 1, 1947, when some 2,000 miners banded together for the first time to demand better conditions.
A documentary film about the strike, entitled Miners’ Memories, featured an interview with one of the strike leaders, Pantelis Varnava, who died in 2013. Mr Varnava was said to have played a key role in uniting Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot miners to confront CMC management with demands that included better wages, a cost of living allowance and improved working conditions — including an eight-hour day.
“The strike is now 70 years ago and most of the people who took part have died,” said a member of the ceremony organising committee in the South, Merope Tsimilli-Michael. “When the film was made in 2007, however, more were still alive, so by watching it we can access their memories.”
The film also shows locations that formed a backdrop to the miners’ lives, such as the hospital where the US-headquartered CMC provided free medical care and milk for miners’ children.
During the strike, the company stopped handing out milk and closed the hospital. It pulled out of its Cyprus operations completely after the 1974 conflict, prompting still-unresolved concern that waste left behind at its mining and processing site at Gemikonağı could be toxic.