New Wrinkle

Down the main street of the tiny Cypriot village of Vassa one night last week strode 15 masked men in strict military order. A year ago, the sight of such gunmen meant that some one had been singled out for death as a collaborator with the British. But this time the EOKA men proved to be bound on a singularly innocent errand. Invading the village coffee shop, they ordered its customers to face the wall, then searched their pockets for British cigarettes.

The raid on the Vassa coffee shop was the start of a new and radically different EOKA attack on British rule in Cyprus. Colonel George Grivas. who heads EOKA, issued a leaflet announcing that he was "raising the banner of passive resistance," peremptorily ordered a boycott of British football pools and such imported British goods as cigarettes, shoes, whisky, soft drinks and sweets. Proclaimed Grivas: "Britain is sucking away the sweat of the Cypriot people. She digs her hands into their pockets and takes their money in the form of import duties, taxes, and fines."

By week's end Cyprus' stores were running low on locally produced cigarettes; Cypriot cobblers happily reported soaring demand for their ill-made shoes; and thousands of tickets for a government lottery on behalf of Cyprus' hospitals were going unsold. Some 1,300 headmen and elders of Greek Cypriot villages resigned office in open refusal to cooperate with the British authorities in any way. Said one weary British businessman: "I thought passive resistance meant everyone was going to lie down on railroad tracks the way they did in India in Gandhi's day. This looks worse."

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