Along the Mason-Dixon Line

Riots these days are generally made, not born. On Cyprus, as in Algeria, they frequently happen just before the U.N. is about to take up the subject, or when someone is about to offer a new plan. Last week's riots on Cyprus, the worst in years on that embittered, embattled island, anticipated Britain's latest and long-delayed new offer.

Britain communicated its plan in advance in private to the Greek and Turkish governments, but even though the men in the street did not know what Britain proposed, Cyprus was plunged into a savage round of riots. In the past, the British have generally found themselves ranged against the Greek Cypriots crying enosis --union with Greece. This time it was the Turks who started the trouble, and the British were trapped in the middle. Turkish Cypriot fought Greek Cypriot and came close to communal war.

Staying On. The heart of London's cautious plan is that Cyprus is entitled to more self-government, but is in no condition for a change of ownership. Highlights: P: Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots would each elect a separate "communal assembly" to handle their own local problems, education and church affairs. P: The communal assemblies would in turn elect a Central Council to act as a kind of cabinet under a British governor. Representation on the Central Council would be in rough proportion to the population (400,000 Greek Cypriots, 100,000 Turkish Cypriots).

P: To give Greek and Turkish governments a sense of participation--and of responsibility--in Cypriot affairs, Athens and Ankara would each send to Cyprus one representative who could take part in the Central Council's meetings, raise questions with the governor and submit disputes to an "independent tribunal." P: Britain would remain responsible for the island's defense and its internal security for at least the next seven years.

In short: Britain will stay on Cyprus at least until 1965. "Time will prove us right," said Prime Minister Macmillan.

Behind the Screams. The public outcries of protest against the plan from both Greece and Turkey did not match the private qualifications of those officials who realize that intransigence on both sides has got out of hand. While Greeks protested that there was no promise of future "self-determination," the Greek government was ready to go along with any compromise acceptable to Greek Orthodox Archbishop Makarios, leader of the enosis movement (the British were expected to allow the exiled Makarios to return to Cyprus). Although the Turks started riots on the grounds that the plan failed to provide for "partition," realistic Turks are aware that the partition scheme is geographically infeasible. The Turks mainly want to keep the island from going to Greece; privately, they would forget partition if the British stayed. In public, however, it was another matter.

A bomb exploded mysteriously at the Turkish information office in Nicosia. No one was hurt. Turkish Cypriots accused Greek Cypriots of setting off the bomb, but British officials accused the Turks themselves of planting the bomb as a pretext for starting trouble. Turkish Cypriots surged from their quarter of Nicosia, armed with guns, sticks, stones and knives. Screaming "Partition or death!", they wrecked and burned Greek Cypriot shops, beat every Greek Cypriot they could lay hands upon, killed two. When British security forces arrived, the Greek Cypriots, forgetting three years of terror against the British, taunted the Tommies: "Where have you been?"

Three hours after the rioting erupted, the British ordered a curfew, but it was 4 o'clock next morning before order was restored. Summoned to battle by the peal of church bells, Greek Cypriots out for revenge killed a Turkish Cypriot woman, shot a Turkish Cypriot auxiliary policeman. Busloads of Greek Cypriots poured into the towns from the hills. When the curfew was lifted later to allow housewives to shop, the Turks descended with a roar from their quarter again, looting and beating. In one fearful day Turkish Cypriots set fires in 30 Greek Cypriot establishments, then stoned the firemen who came to put them out.

Out of the Corn Fields. British security forces dropped barricades of barbed wire across the so-called "Mason-Dixon line" that divides the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot quarters of Nicosia. In the hills near the capital. British forces intervened in the nick of time to prevent a clash between marching columns of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. But after arresting and questioning a band of Greek Cypriots armed with cudgels, the British drove them not home but into the countryside, and released them unarmed on a road near Guenyeli, a Turkish Cypriot community near Nicosia. "We ran and ran," one 14-year-old Greek Cypriot survivor recalled later, "but the Turks were everywhere. They came out of the corn fields in the hundreds with knives and axes and meat skewers." The toll in that incident: eight killed. The week's toll: 15 killed, hundreds injured.

To bolster the protest on Cyprus, the Turkish government whipped up a demonstration of 100,000 persons in Istanbul, and similar rallies in other major Turkish cities. From Ankara radio came a week-long tirade of incitement to Turkish Cypriots. The Greek government protested Turkish "barbarism" in NATO's permanent Council in Paris, and asked for NATO intervention. In a protest to the U.N. Security Council, the Greeks accused the British of a "very poor show" and "inadequate action" in curbing the Turkish Cypriots. The Greeks withdrew their 200 men and their families from NATO headquarters at Izmir. Turkey.

All this took place even before this week's public announcement of the British plan. At men of Britain's 16th Parachute Brigade flew into Cyprus from Britain to rein force the 20,000 troops and police already on duty. They came at the request of harried Governor Sir Hugh Foot, who went out to Cyprus six months ago with liberal plans to end harsh British security measures, and in high hopes of solving the Cyprus dispute.

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