Return of glasses after 40 years…

Return of glasses after 40 years…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

The day is sunny and nice and we are all excited about what we are going to do… We have been preparing for this meeting for the past week and we all cross our fingers that it would go smooth… Because we all know, deep in our hearts that it would be an emotional day… It is Saturday, the 1st of February 2014…
A Turkish Cypriot friend, author of stories of `missing persons` from Messaoria, a gynaecologist currently practicing is Ankara, is flying in today just for this purpose... My readers would remember his stories that we have published on these pages, the touching stories of Dr. Dervish Ozer, who had been a 10 year old kid in 1974, living through the shock and trauma of war, a bomb falling where they were hiding away from their village, his mother being wounded from her hand and losing some of the fingers of her hand… Little Dervish on that day deciding to become a doctor, the ten year old boy, in order to help his mother. He would keep his promise to his mother, the little ten year old boy and in fact would become a doctor. His mother would be sent to Varosha to Dr. Hadjikakou to be treated and he would treat her so well that she would forever be grateful to the late Dr. Hadjikakou… I would get Dervish in contact with one of the daughters of Dr.
Hadjikakou because Dervish also makes sculptures and he has made a sculpture of Dr. Hadjikakou who had treated her mother so well and he wants to erect this monument as a symbol of friendship, somewhere on the Green Line where both communities can see…
The whole story starts with him actually, the stories he would listen from his elders, the stories he would eavesdrop in coffee shops and he would follow them up, learning details, doing research, going out and speaking with more people as he would grow up. One day he would call me and we would meet and he would share with me what he knew of the area… We would continue to speak through the phone or when he would come for quick visits to Cyprus… He and his family would try to help for me to understand what actually happened in this area back in 1974 and he would also show me possible burial sites, telling me their stories… I would ask him to write these down as stories from his childhood and he would begin writing and I would publish these stories on my daily page in Yeniduzen called `Cyprus: The Untold Stories` and he would be happy and I would be happy and encourage him to write more… I would translate some of those stories and we would publish
them in POLITIS as well, the stories of the 10 year old kid from Ebicho who saw too much for his young age, traumatized by war… As he would write more and more, I would know that the poison of the trauma would go away, at least some of it and he would feel better… Finally I would tell him to prepare his stories and we would help to publish him the book of his stories called `Say hello to him`, stories of war and `missing persons` from Khora Publications in Nicosia in Turkish. Hopefully one day we would have an opportunity to publish all of them in Greek and English as well since these stories are written in such a humanitarian way without taking any sides, only speaking of the feelings of `missing persons` and their close relatives, of days of war through the eyes of a child…
So he would hear the story of the glasses and he would follow it…
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot soldier with a goatee beard would go to Ebicho and seek refuge with two or three UN soldiers there in a house – on the wall had been written `UN`. The village, having come under attack from Greek Cypriot soldiers had been evacuated from the 20th of July 1974 and the Turkish Cypriot villagers would only return on the evening of 14th of August 1974. They would hear of one or two Greek Cypriot soldiers who had taken refuge with the UN inside the village and would go and surround the building and ask the UN soldiers to give the Greek Cypriots to them. During this whole fuss, a jeep with some Turkish soldiers with a Turkish Cypriot driver would appear and one of the Turkish officers from the jeep would kick the door in and would take the Greek Cypriot soldier with the goatee beard and glasses from the house. Someone would hit him in the face and his glasses would fall to the floor. The jeep would take him away and only his glasses
would remain behind.
Someone would pick up the glasses and would give to a Turkish Cypriot from the village whose glasses had been broken when trying to escape the war and he would wear them for many years, being thankful that they fit…
Having learnt the story of the glasses, Dervish would go after more information. Could we find the person to whom these glasses might belong? I would write the story and publish in POLITIS in 2011, together with the photo of the glasses but we would get no response.
Sometimes life works in funny ways so one day, through a friend I would meet Despina who had been looking for information about a Greek Cypriot `missing person`, the husband of the best friend of her mother's. We would start investigating and soon it would be clear that the glasses might in fact belong to him. As Dervish Ozer would come for his book launch, I would arrange for them to meet and talk. Despina would provide a photo of the `missing person` and we would go to the village of Dervish to meet the guy who wore the glasses for many years. Dervish's sister would cook lunch for us and we would sit talking about what had happened in that village. Despina and the family of the `missing person` would provide some photos so Dervish could show in the village to see if it is him. Dervish would go round showing the photo to those who had seen him being taken away from the UN building and they would recognize and confirm that it's him. We would agree
that Despina would tell the wife of the `missing person` about the glasses, prepare her for this and Dervish would come again from Ankara in about a month to meet her and to give her back the glasses.
So off we go to Ebicho, Despina, her mother, her mother's best friend who is the wife of the `missing person`, the brother of the `missing person` to Ebicho to meet Dervish and his family. We have also invited the Permanent Secretary of the UN at the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Mr. Florian von König because we want the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to do further investigation about this `missing person`.
Dervish greets us and we go to his sister's house. Mr. A. who had worn the glasses for some years is there to greet the relatives of the `missing` Greek Cypriot. The meeting is very emotional as the wife of the `missing` Greek Cypriot takes the glasses and opens the box to touch them… This is the first thing, the first news after waiting for exactly 40 years… Both Dervish and Mr. A. explain to her what had happened, me translating to English, Despina translating to Greek so everyone in the living room would understand… Mr. A. would give a gift of `tesbih`, `beads of patience` as we would call in Turkish to the wife of the `missing person`. The family also prepared a letter to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they give it to Mr. Florian who is also very much touched by this emotional encounter. It is like a scene from a movie but a movie based on reality, not fiction…
Mr. Florian tells the wife of the `missing person` to keep the glasses, a photograph would be enough… His humanity touches our hearts and we thank him for this…
We sit to eat with the family of Dervish and then we go to see his father and mother in their field where they have planted broad beans, broccoli and spring onions… They collect vegetables for us to take back with us… The mother of Dervish, Mrs. Mine cries as she talks about the war to Mr. Florian…
`We have seen pain, we have seen war, that's why we want to help` she says… Having lost two fingers during the bombing, she shows her hand to Mr. Florian saying, `This is nothing, you see, she has lost her husband… Such things should never happen again in Cyprus… That's why we try to help stop this pain and suffering…`
The wife of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` will not sleep, his brother will not sleep, I will not sleep tonight, perhaps Despina too and her mother will not sleep… We will all not sleep since the day has been so powerfully emotional…
We are happy to return something that belonged to a `missing person` but we must not stop there – both Dervish, myself and Despina, we will all work to find out more details about what happened after he was taken away from the UN building and to try to give more answers to the family…
The wife of the `missing person` will keep the glasses, the glasses that found their way to her house after 40 years, the glasses that her beloved husband wore… If this is not some kind of `miracle` of humans working towards peace, I don't know what else is… It is because of Dervish that we managed to get them back to where they belonged – his humanity would stop at nothing, would encounter any obstacles and would work with a human heart to stop the pain of the relatives of `missing persons`, having experienced war at the early age of ten and having seen things that no child should ever see…
I thank Dervish and all who helped the return of the glasses – they all give us a lesson of humanity of how much can be done on this island, if only we care a little bit about each other…

2.2.2014

Photo: The glasses that were returned to the relatives of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` after 40 years...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of February 2014, Sunday.

From Ebicho to Komi Kepir…

From Ebicho to Komi Kepir…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Surrounded by cypress trees, the big cavity looks like a small picnic area, all green, glowing in the warm winter sun… It has the shape of a rectangle, my reader calls it `The hollow with the cypress trees…`
A lot of soil had been taken from here and probably sold or used in constructions or in gardens and that's how this rectangular shaped big cavity came to be. Later on, cypress trees have been planted towards the edges inside the cavity and they would grow to provide protection from the winds of Messaoria…
The old man from Ebicho (Abohor, now called Cihangir) is showing us this place – he is the father of one of my readers… My reader is abroad and I call him to ask where in this cavity we should be looking for…
`Check the north-eastern corner` he says… `It has to be between the edge and the cypress trees… Two `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried there…`
Already Xenophon Kallis has gone down the deep cavity to explore – he stands 2-3 meters below, checking the ground where my reader is describing through the phone… We are together with the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay… This is our first stop today, on the 21st of January 2014, Tuesday and we will continue to investigate and to show some other possible burial sites…
According to my reader the two `missing` Greek Cypriots who had been killed and buried here back in 1974, had been trying to escape – they were in the group of 45 Greek Cypriots captured in Voni, in Frosso Dimou's house. They had been arrested and taken on foot towards Beykeuy, a neighbouring village.
A group of Turkish Cypriots in command around this area would execute them but during the execution, the automatic gun they were trying to use would get stuck and some of those from the group – maybe around eight or ten persons – would try to escape towards these fields… A chase would begin on foot, to try to catch and kill them… My reader, who had been a ten year old kid back in 1974, would hear the stories about this group, about the chase and he would grow up to investigate the details and tell us about what happened in this area… So the two would be caught and killed and would be buried in this spot… This possible burial site would have to be investigated to see if their remains are still there or whether they have been removed while taking big amounts of soil from this spot. The person who had chased and killed and buried them with his own shiro (bulldozer) would tell my reader the story so in a way, we have `first-hand information`
through my reader…
We take photos and coordinates of the area and we move to another old cavity outside Ebicho (Abohor) – we want the old man to show us the exact location of the huge cavity that once existed in the trash damping ground there. It has been partly fenced in order to prevent trash being thrown… Close by is a shooting range used by the military from time to time…
The old man, the father of my reader shows us where the cavity had used to be and shows us where its contours had been… Once upon a time, the British had taken havara soil from this cavity in order to build the road close by… In 1974, one of my readers had seen some Greek Cypriots being buried in this cavity… The hole had been 20 meters by 30 meters and its depth went as far as 3-4 meters at some points…After the war in 1974, having collected the dead bodies from around Palekythre and Ebicho, one of my readers had witnessed to the burial of 8-10 Greek Cypriot `missing persons` here. Later on this havara hole would become a rubbish damp and tons of rubbish must have been thrown in the hole, not just this hole but to the whole area where we are standing now… Finally the authorities of the village would try to fence it off in order stop people from throwing rubbish here… Kallis had found photos from 1963 of the area and on another visit, I had
shown this photo to the old man, to be sure of the exact location of the possible burial site and we had come before to explore with him. Now he is showing the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, the exact location of the havara hole…
He is around 80 years old and moves like the `Atomic Ant`, short, skilled, energetic… `I'm okay, at least I can find my way back to my house!` he jokes with us…
`Back in the old days, there used to be around 700-800 Turkish Cypriots in our village and there was only one sick person with cancer` he says… `Nowadays, everyone in the village suffers from something… Life has deteriorated, what with the things we eat, the pesticides and hormones and so on… Thank God I am healthy and can still move around and do my own stuff…`
He points out someone who had come and stopped further up…
`See? That man over there, he has cancer…`
We thank him and leave for Karpaz area. This family is so precious for me – they have been helping to uncover all the details of what had happened in this area during the war and helping us to locate possible burial sites. A beautiful family I hold close to my heart because such families are becoming extinct from Cyprus – they have an open heart, they always welcome you and offer you whatever they have, showing hospitality like it used to exist in old times…
Our next stop is the Famagusta Boghazi where we meet two Greek Cypriots from Ephtakomi… Together we go to Galatia and just outside Galatia (Mehmetchik as it is called by Turkish Cypriots) on the road to Ephtakomi they show us a little bridge where they say some `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried. There are three small bridges on this road and two have been excavated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Back in August, one of my readers had also shown a possible burial site on this road but further down…
We say goodbye to the two Greek Cypriots and go to Komi Kepir to check on a well that had been filled during the disappearances of the Greek Cypriots of the area… The well is just outside Komi Kepir… We meet the owner of the land and although in the beginning he had denied that there in fact had been such a well in his field, now that he sees Christina Pavlou Solomi with us whose father and brother are `missing` since 1974 and he recognizes her, he says, `In fact, there is a well, it is in this field…` When he looks at Chirstina and sees all the pain in her eyes, something gives way in his heart and now, he tries to locate the well in the field… Kallis already has a map and shows this to the owner, telling him that the well is marked on the map… Years ago, Christina's mother, Panayiotou Pavlou Solomi had visited Kallis and told him that in this field a well had been closed abruptly just when some people had gone `missing`. Her husband and son
were being kept as prisoners of war in Galatia together with the others from her village and surrounding villages. The villagers had got suspected about why an open well would be closed… `Katirci's well` as it is called is somewhere here – Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay are investigating the field now with the owner… It is Christina's presence here that made the difference – although it is extremely difficult for Christina to come back to this village and to stand in this field, she has made a tremendous effort in order to help find the `missing`… She has a few tears in her eyes and I hold her hand, she is like an angel on this earth, like a saint, going beyond her own pain and suffering to help to stop the pain of all other relatives of `missing persons`… She has taken a big step and not everyone can do that – it takes a lot of guts and courage to be able to do what she is doing, despite her own suffering… Her tears pass
through my heart and I am grateful to have her as a friend in my life… She is so precious for me, a gem, a jewel, shining her light through the things she does…
On our way back Christina shows us the Agios Afxentios Church, a very old church where renovation work is just beginning… She shows us her house, her grandmother's olive oil mill… Time to say goodbye to Komi Kepir for now but we will come back again, hoping to help to have better days for our children…

25.1.2014

Photo: A possible burial site in Ebicho (Abohor)...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 9th of February 2014, Sunday.

Stories from Silikou and Limassol…

Stories from Silikou and Limassol…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We set out early morning around 08.30 from Nicosia with two cars on the 15th of January 2014 Wednesday to go to Ipsona together with a Turkish Cypriot witness from Silikou village… The witness is an old man with health problems and he needs to be back at 12.00 o'clock since he has to go into dialysis every day on that hour… Still he comes all the way from Prastio Morphou (it is called Aydinkeuy by Turkish Cypriots now) to show us a possible burial site…
We pass Ipsona and take the road towards Kouris dam… The roads have changed but once we find the right road that the old man remembers, he is happy… At a junction we stop the cars and get out… He shows us an area where there might be some `missing persons` buried. One of his Greek Cypriot friends had seen the burial place and had told him about it and now he is sharing it with us.
We start chatting about his village Silikou and talk about how the father of Nicos Anastasiades, ` Chrysanthos ` as he calls him had saved the lives of his Turkish Cypriot villagers… I had written about this before, one of his villagers, Pembe had told me the story and later on the Turkish media had `discovered` the story… Now the old man tells me more details of what had happened:
`I was the muhktar of the village at that time but could not get out of the village` he tells me, `so we sent Ibrahim Dayi to Chrysanthos Anastasiades to tell him that some Greek Cypriots from outside our village had come and our lives were in danger… Uncle Ibrahim was old so they would not touch him while he travelled to find Chrysanthos, the father of Anastasiades… Chrysanthos was coming from a very poor family and the family of Ibrahim had helped him survive when he had been a child, giving him bread to eat and money… So when Ibrahim would contact Chrysanthos who had been chief of police in Limassol at that time, Chrysanthos would immediately call the Greek Cypriots who came with bad intentions in our village and would send them away, telling them they cannot touch the Turkish Cypriots in Silikou… Some of these Greek Cypriots who had come to our village from outside were from Platres, Trimiklini, Pera Pedi…`
Probably they were some of the EOKA-B teams of the area…
The old man continues to tell his story:
`Chrysanthos was from our village Silikou but he had married to Pera Pedi and had been staying there. After the phone call from Chrysanthos to them, telling them off, they came and apologized and then left. They were afraid of Chrysanthos, that's why they apologized… But this way, our lives were saved…`
We look at the possible burial site on the way to the Kouris dam and then say goodbye to the old man – he will pay a short visit to his village Silikou and then head back in time for his dialysis.
But we have more work to do because I want to show the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee another possible burial site so we head back to Limassol together with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay. Here we meet my friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia from Komi Kebir – she has been helping voluntarily the search for the `missing persons`.
We stop at the entrance to the `Turkish Mahalla` of Limassol, `Ayanton` as the Turkish Cypriots call it. We walk towards the north, taking behind us the mosque and the church of the Ayios Antonios neighbourhood. I show the officials of CMP the place shown to me by some Turkish Cypriot witnesses where some Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing` from the 60s might have been buried. The information was that some `missing` Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are suspected to be buried in the well of the toilet of the `military` building where they might have been kept as prisoners for some time. We walk around the buildings and some Greek Cypriots using these buildings now help us to locate the actual building used as a prison, the toilet itself and show us where the wells are – they are behind the building, they point out four wells but the biggest one, closest to the toilet, might be the possible burial site.
It is said that unknown persons, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot might have been buried in the toilet well or in the shooting practice area in those times.
Next we try to locate the entry to the underground shooting practice area, some tunnels built underground since there were rumours that some `missing` might have been buried there…
One of my readers who had served here had told me that some `missing persons` had been buried in a well in the underground shooting range.
It is Kallis who discovers the entry – inside a house here, in the kitchen, was a big well and from the well they could enter the tunnel for shooting practice. It is covered now but when the Greek Cypriot refugee family moved in this house, they had discovered a big well, open, inside the kitchen! The well was very clean, no water, no trash – if this was the main entry, that's understandable… We find out that the tunnels stretched under the Turkish neighbourhood, were elaborate and might have had other entrances… Perhaps this had been the main entrance… I have a Turkish Cypriot reader who had served his military service here and I will arrange to take him here so he can tell us more about the secret tunnels and what had happened in these former military buildings of Turkish Cypriots… The refugees living in these houses offer us coffee – they are from Famagusta and very kind, reminding us of the hospitality of our people once upon a time
in Cyprus…
There is yet another secret shooting range underground in Larnaka that we still need to locate – we know from testimonies of my readers that some people were tortured and probably killed, still `missing` until now…
We say goodbye to Limassol with its secrets gradually unfolding before our very eyes… With some more help from readers, I am sure we will discover more about what happened in this neighbourhood back in the 60s and perhaps find the possible burial site of the `missing persons` from around Limassol…

18.1.2014

Photo: Possible burial site outside Limassol around Kouris dam…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 2nd of February 2014, Sunday.

Breaking the zones of silence…

Breaking the zones of silence…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Readers continue to call and speak, breaking the zones of silence created by leaderships of this island throughout the years, consolidated by the behaviour of authorities in both sides, cemented by examples of attempts of silencing people in the past half century…
The zones of silence created in this country are so thick that sometimes you would think they are impenetrable but still there are enough people with hearts of courage and humanity to filter through and to shine the light towards the path of truth… There have been enough readers from both sides to attempt to tell the truth, to speak about things unspeakable, to show places of mass murders, to take a step towards a path that can only lead us to our common future together on this island… Because it is the zones of silence that will always keep us apart, that will help the partition to consolidate, that will keep the suspicion cunningly eating away the hearts of our communities. Seeds of suspicion, half-truths and a cloud of mistrust will always keep our communities apart if surrounded by these zones of silence… Only when we speak up, these clouds will start to clear and the truth would come out to the open…
A reader calls to tell me the story of a shooting range… In the 1960s there had been a private shooting range he says, somewhere in Cyprus… There had been a person who was not supposed to be there on a certain night but he happened to be there and he saw a bulldozer burying some people within the area of the shooting range… My reader does not know if the people were executed on that spot or if they were already executed and were only taken there to be buried.
The man who was not supposed to be at the shooting range on the night of the burial told this to one of his friends and it is how my reader found out…
Years later, a house would be built within the land of this shooting range but my reader thinks perhaps if we investigate the yard and the surrounding land, we might find a trace of this possible burial site…
My reader believes that the people supposedly buried in this shooting range might be some `missing` Turkish Cypriots…
We would have to investigate whether this story has some truth in it or not…
A few months ago, with some Turkish Cypriots, I had gone to Limassol – they wanted to show me some possible burial sites… One of them had been another, secret shooting range next to the Turkish Cypriot mahalla of `Ay Antoni` as they called it. This shooting range had an entrance from inside the river – we would try to find it… The whole area had been renovated by the municipality and we saw roughly where the entrance to the secret shooting range might have been… My Turkish Cypriot readers showed me another building where prisoners were kept and questioned back in the 60s… Some `missing` Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot might have been buried in the shooting range and perhaps in the place of interrogation and prison. In the yard of the headquarters there had been a well for filthy water and there were some witnesses who had said that they might have buried some people in that well used as sewage… The building had changed and a huge garage
of some sort had been built in its stead but surely the well would be there… We could not enter the garage since it was closed but we took photos and decided to continue our investigations with Turkish Cypriots of Limassol who might know more details… There had been some `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Limassol who were `silenced` by people from their own community and one of them was rumoured to be buried somewhere here… In the zones of silence created in those years, it was quite easy to `label` someone as a `traitor` - even envy among persons or a rift would be enough to `label` someone that might even lead all the way up to his death. In the late 1950s there had been a teacher who had built a new house in my mother's village Knodhara and he was engaged and was getting ready to be married. An influential person from the village was envious of the good looks and the new two-storey house that the young teacher had built, this influential person
was also in love with the girl that the teacher would marry. He would start a rumour that the teacher who had been the leader of the underground organization around this area and who had been given the task of keeping the guns belonging to the underground organization hidden, buried somewhere had sold those guns in order to build a brand new, two storey house! The influential person would even report this to the headquarters and finally the teacher would be executed because of these lies… After his execution a simple shepherd would contact the authorities of the underground organization in this area and say `What shall we do with the guns, now that the teacher is dead? I had hidden the guns together with him…` And thus, the truth would come out that the teacher was innocent and killed for nothing, just simple envy… But few people would know the actual truth, hidden under the clouds of silence – it was so simple and easy to `label` people and
even get them killed in those years…
Perhaps the most vital thing to do is to create an atmosphere for breaking these zones of silence – my readers have been doing that and we are dismantling mountains of lies through their efforts… If the leadership of this island in both sides of the partition line are serious about building a culture of peace, the first thing that they must do is to help their communities to speak up, to talk about the truth of what happened in the past, to encourage this in education and to lead their communities towards a safer ground where there would be no zones of silence… We cannot build a common future over zones of silence… Unless we face the truth together, unless we try to find out what happened in the past together, any future on this island would be shaky and easy to bring down with simple manipulations… Lies and rumours survive under clouds of suspicion – it is only the truth that will all make us free from being used and manipulated…

11.1.2014

Photo: Turkish Cypriot neighbourhood of Agios Andonios in Limassol...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of January 2014, Sunday.

From Strongylos to Sinda…

From Strongylos to Sinda…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

On the 20th of December 2013, Friday we are on the roads again, at my beautiful Messaoria… Living in Nicosia, I am always nicely surprised with the flat beauty of Messaoria, the simplicity of its traditional houses, the land stretching for miles with nothing, giving me the feeling of endless space, all the colours of Van Gogh in autumn and all the colours of Matisse in springtime… It has its own quiet beauty, whispering to us its tales of past centuries if we have the patience to uncover… Buildings of mud brick, simple minarets or mosques or tiny churches, it is covered with the footprints of civilizations that have passed from here but no longer exist…The group of eucalyptus, standing next to lonely, romantic palm trees… The silhouettes of farms where the master and his fiefs worked, the Catholics, the Jews, the Maronites, the Venetians, the Genovese, the Albanians, the Ottomans, the Turkish Shamans, the Greek Orthodox, all mingling in this
dusty soil, the Tekkes of Alevites, the Hodja who had been kidnapped in 1958 and killed and supposedly burned in a gamini, the blood and the tears and the early morning stars and late night darkness existing together on this land… Here in Messaoria, the eternal poverty of the simple folk, the eternal richness of the `masters` and the struggles the people waged to survive on this beautiful soil just to survive under `masters` of an ever-changing nature – at some point in time each and every one living on this soil would become `vulnerable`, in a fight for life when `masters` would change, when their religion or ethnicity would become a `sin` and they would have to change to adapt to new conditions, otherwise they would be wiped out completely from this land. The land would become `hybrid` like a chameleon with ever-changing colours of adaptation – under the Venetians, the Greek Orthodox would be `vulnerable`, under the Ottomans the Venetians would
have to change `colour` and adapt to other colours, since they would lose everything, including their homes and land and this would be an eternal struggle for every single ethnic or religious group on this land with no one to spare – perhaps the best word to describe our `civilization` would be `vulnerability` - `vulnerability` because of ever-changing conditions and ever-changing `masters` who would invade or conquer or buy this island and the eternal struggle of ordinary persons to keep what little they have…
Our first stop is right outside Strongylos where there had been some information or suspicions about a possible burial site… We are together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay… We are meeting a family from Strongylos who have some `missing persons` - the place we stop I recognize it from some years ago… This well, I had shown to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee some years ago back in 2009 - that is almost five years ago - as a possible burial site, to be investigated. We had come here together with Panayiotis Poyrazis and his wife Angelou… Panayiotis was the son of the `missing` mukhtar of Strongylos, the kind hearted, humanitarian Stavros Poyrazis… I had met Panayiotis Poyrazis back in July 2009 when we had honoured those who had saved each other during the time of war and the `missing` Stavros Poyrazis was one of those to be honoured on the night of 22nd of July
2009 at the `Peace Hall` on Ledra Street, Nicosia. We had honoured some Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, some of them `missing`, some of them deceased, some of them alive – these Cypriots were `role models` for our communities – they had done acts of courage and humanity under the most severe conditions – they had saved the lives of other humans from other communities during the time of war and conflict… Their acts of humanity would illuminate our path, if we had eyes to see and ears to hear… Just like Stavros Poyrazis, we had honoured the `missing` member of parliament, the only `missing` Cypriot Member of Parliament in Cyprus, Cengiz Ratip from Polis – he too had saved a busload of Greek Cypriots from being executed and he too has been `missing` since 1964… Cengiz Ratip too, had done acts of courage and humanity, going out of his way to negotiate the release of `hostages` from both communities during troubled times…
So on the 20th of December 2013, we go to Strongylos to meet a family who have `missing persons` - Strongylos is like a thorn in my heart – near the well we start talking about the past: How Hasan the Desteban from Vatyli while coming to Strongylos on his bicycle had been ambushed and killed at the entrance of Strongylos and how he has been `missing` since then, about the mukhtar of Strongylos, Poyrazis and how he had helped to save Turkish Cypriots of his village not only once but twice, that is both in 1963 and 1974 but how he ended up to become a `missing person`…
This is a well made of stone – it is not far from the `Cave of the Horses` and `The Cave with Columns` where a big group, gathered by some Turkish Cypriots from Sinda and a few from Strongylos had been taken to be executed – the group suspected to be around 19 or 21 `missing persons` were killed in those caves and later buried elsewhere… According to information from my readers from this area, there had been a `military operation` to empty the graves and bury them elsewhere… One reader had come forward with information that they had been buried in the Abalestra Chiftlik, in a well… After this information from a reader from Messaoria, during the exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, remains of some `missing persons` had in fact been found in the well in the Abalestra Chiftlik outside Sinda.
We say goodbye to the family from Strongylos and continue to meet another reader and his uncle from Sinda. His uncle through one of my readers had helped to find six `missing` Greek Cypriots from Lyssi and two other `missing` Greek Cypriots I don't know from where… I had gone and met him and he had shown us two burial sites that later we would show to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would find, just as he described the remains of the six and the two `missing persons`.
Today we meet him again with his cousin. In an area called `Pallirodi`, he shows us a well where some Greek Cypriot shepherds `missing` since 1974 might have been buried. We had been working on this for the past few years when one of my readers, Shevket, had pointed out two other wells closer to Kontea with the same story…
Mr. Shevket had been a kind hearted soul – born in Houlou, he had become a refugee three times – twice in 1963 and once in 1974, ending up in Lyssi. Although he was not from the area but from Paphos, he had tried to help us through one of my readers from Sinda.
There had been five or six Greek Cypriot shepherds with their flocks of sheep trying to leave – they had been caught by some Turkish Cypriots from Sinda – according to my readers there were around 900 sheep… Three of them were killed and buried in a well in this area and two or three with the help of some other Turkish Cypriots had managed to survive and escape and remain alive… The flock had been shared among the killers.
Now that we stand on the edge of this well in Sinda, the old man who had helped us previously reminds us of the story with the shepherds supposedly buried in this well: Sometime after they had been killed and buried in the well, a Turkish Cypriot shepherd came to water his flock but his sheep would not drink the water from the well – it was stinking so bad… Shevket had told us the same story… So the shepherd took his flock elsewhere, later on finding out that there were `missing persons` buried in that well, that's why the stinking water… This well is not so far, I find out from the well that we had shown where another `missing` Greek Cypriot, Strouthos might have been buried… We will investigate more to find out more details about what actually happened in this area and whether this is the actual spot the `missing` shepherds have been buried.
The old man and his cousin want to show us another possible burial site so we go to the area outside Sinda called `Kırk donum` meaning `Forty Donums` - this had been the road to Nicosia from Sinda since the Lusignan times – it is a dirt track, no longer used since we have new, asphalt roads, long forgotten except by those who live in this area…
The old man shows us a well and tells us the story: Two Greek Cypriot soldiers, trying to escape in 1974 had been hiding in this area and they were discovered by some Turkish Cypriots and killed and supposedly buried in this well…
We thank the old man and his cousin from Sinda for their kindness, for trying to help to uncover possible burial sites, for trying to help those they don't know, that they never met… Another act of courage and humanity from Messaoria because barbarism and humanity in an eternal struggle still exist on this land and my readers choose humanity instead of siding with `evil` on this beautiful but painful island…

5.1.2014

Photo: Murat Soysal and Xenophon Kallis, officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee at one of the possible burial sites that my reader has shown us...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of January 2014, Sunday.

Not a Hollywood movie…

Not a Hollywood movie…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

No, it was not a Hollywood movie, an American thriller where a group of five or six young students, barely 15 or 16 years old, would witness a double murder and would have to remain silent for the rest of their lives… No, it was not a scene from a movie where they would not even talk about what they had witnessed amongst themselves and it would take a lot of courage on the part of one of them to be able to come up with the information and share with me, after a lot of encouragement from a mutual friend…
They had been a group of young students, barely 15 or 16 years old and had gone to a field to collect some fruit… It might have been spring time or early summer since they had been wearing short sleeves, as he remembers… Perhaps it was April or May 1964…
The place was in Parissinos, Strovolos, not far from the CINEPLEX… In the field they had gone to, there were orange trees, fig trees, gonnara… Perhaps they had escaped from school to have some fun and some fruit and had come to this field… Outside the field which were fenced, it was all open space – no buildings in this area in those times but empty fields stretching on and on…
While collecting and eating fruit, the youngsters had heard the noise of a car, a police Landover approaching and they panicked! Since the field did not belong to any of them, they thought they were going to get caught stealing fruit! They all tried to hide, take cover, lay down on the ground so they would not be seen stealing the fruit…
The Landover had stopped just on the edge of the fenced field and two men with Sten guns had got out and had taken out two persons – one of them was middle aged and the other a younger person…
They stood them side by side facing the road and shot them with the Sten guns they had…
There had been some heaps of earth so the youngsters assumed that either there was a well there or the guys with the guns had opened a hole from before in order to bury these two unknown persons…
The youngsters had assumed that those two unknown persons executed there had been two Turkish Cypriots… It was daytime, perhaps early afternoon…
The youngsters were shocked from the shooting and were terrified of what they had seen had left after the Landover had left and would close their mouths for the rest of their lives, not even talking amongst themselves about what they had witnessed… Over time, two of these youngsters had died so there remained only 3 or 4 of them alive, who remembered this shocking experience…
One day about three years ago, one of them would tell this story to a mutual friend and she would find me and tell me what she had heard. She would even take me to the place and show me the site where two `unknown` and probably `missing persons` had been killed. He would decline from coming and showing this place – his shock continued after so many years…
On the 9th of December 2013 Monday, I would have a brief encounter with our mutual friend with this witness and she would ask me what had happened. Sure, I had told the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee about this place but it would be much better if the witness himself would come and show us. She would call him immediately and we would agree to meet the following day around CINEPLEX. I would immediately call the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would agree to come and meet the witness.
So on the 10th of December 2013, Tuesday we would meet the witness… He would be sad and you could read that sadness from his face…
`How did you feel when this happened?` I would ask him and he would say `I thought that lives of some people did not count… That life was cheap for some… It was a big shock and we did not even speak amongst ourselves about what happened, afterwards… We closed our mouths for a lot of years… I did not even tell my wife about this – one Christmas night when we were abroad in 1989 or 1990, I told her about it… It took me so many years to speak about it even to my wife…`
Since they had not seen whether the two `unknown` persons were actually buried here, the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would have to make further investigations about this. Had they been buried here or further up where there were some wells? Was there a well here or was it a hole they had dug with the purpose of burying the two `unknown` persons that they would kill? There were other wells across the road so could they have been buried in those wells?
In two of the wells further up, the remains of a total of nine `missing` Turkish Cypriots - `missing' from 1963-64 – had been found and these remains had been returned to their families and they have been buried. So apparently this whole area was an area where they killed and buried people in the wells…
We would thank the witness and our mutual friend for coming and showing us the location of the crime that took place back in 1964 and say goodbye to them… The witness would not give his phone number – he would still carry the fear and shock of those days locked up in his heart… If it was not for the humanity and encouragement from our mutual friend, perhaps he would carry his secret all the way to his grave and would never speak up… She, like an angel would encourage him to tell her the whole story, to show her the place and later on would manage to convince him to come in person and show us this area… There aren't enough words to thank her for doing this…
I will make a call on those young students of those days who had witnessed to this incident to call me with or without their names and tell me if they have seen anything more or if they have heard any more details…
No, it's not a Hollywood movie, not a thriller we watch on TV where five or six youngsters witness a double murder and have to stay silent for many years, fearing even to speak about it amongst themselves and one of them, almost half a century later would come to show where the murders took place… This is the island of Cyprus, we are in 2014, we are talking about two `unknown` persons killed in 1964 in broad daylight in Parissinos, Strovolos, Nicosia… Please share if you know more details so that we can give some answers and perhaps some remains to the relatives of those two `missing` and `unknown` persons… My phone number is 99 966518 and if you want to remain anonymous, you may remain anonymous. Thank you…

Photo: Not a movie but actual life, this was the scene of the double murders...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 12th of January 2014, Sunday.

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I learnt all the details about death and what remembrance and reflection means at a very young age… I was only seven years old when my father died on the 3rd of April 1966. I can never forget that date, I can't erase the 3rd of April from my mind or in my soul, it has become part of my memory that simply can't be erased.
I had been taken to one of my father's friend's house to stay overnight and out of the blue at night, I was thinking `What does it feel like when someone's father dies?`
My father had died that day but I did not know. No one had told me. They had only taken me to the house of Hakki Suha, to stay in the same room with Shirin, his daughter, my friend. Hakki Bey was the head of Bayrak Radio and my father had worked there for a brief period as translator. His Greek was perfect, his English was perfect, his Turkish was perfect. It was a time for persecution for him and he had been thrown out of many jobs… He had refused to join TMT, the paramilitary underground organization, he had rifts with Denktash because of this, he had been close with Greek Cypriots which was a `sin` in those days, he had been thrown into prison, me visiting him with my mother and reading him a poem I had learnt at the pre-elementary school, him crying, my mother crying, me, the three or four year old kid, trying to make sense of why he was there, why there was this green mesh between us, why I couldn't hug him, why he couldn't come home for the
New Year. He was set to spend New Year in prison because he had committed the `sin` of saying `NO` to joining the TMT.
`I can't slay a chicken` he had explained to them… `If I join and tomorrow you come and tell me you have to kill your brother because of this or that pretext, I can't do that… You go on your way but I can't join TMT…`
This was the `sin` he had committed and why he was in prison.
Eventually he would get out and work at odd jobs, the next day being thrown out of those jobs, the owners of the businesses being threatened by the paramilitary organization.
He had got a job at Bayrak to translate and I think it was his last job… Because he would die of a heart attack on the 3rd of April 1966.
That's why I must have been taken to the house of his boss and stayed the night there. That's why I must have sensed something terribly wrong with my life and as a seven year old kid asked myself, `What must it feel like to have one's father die…`
I wish no child finds out the answer… But I did… Next day, I was taken home… My aunt from Kridhia was crying out loud, my father was in the garage, in a coffin… They had put cotton in his nostrils and in his ears…
I wanted to hug him, kiss his chubby cheeks but they wouldn't let me… I couldn't hug him one last time… He was just there, in a coffin, still, peaceful and yet my heart was crying out loud… Our next door neighbours had five kids with whom I played a lot, making `Karagozi`, the shadow theatre or `Ispastra` with cards or hide and seek or simply with our dolls… Zehra, the eldest daughter would take me to their house and we would sit, me sad, Zehra and all the other kids, not really knowing what to say or do with me, feeling sorry for me...
Later we would go to the cemetery with my sister and her husband and their daughter Il. She was barely three or four years old and she too tried to console everyone, particularly my mother:
`Grandma, don't worry` she would say, `this is just a room underground… He would just live there… It's a very small room but he would be okay…`
Things would change in our lives… From then on, we won't go to weddings or parties… We won't go anywhere alone… In those years it would be considered a shame for a widow to go anywhere alone… We would only go if my older sister and her husband would take us somewhere like the beach…
The most dramatic thing every year, from then on, would be the month of April… At the beginning of April, my mother would start acting funny… She would be all nerves, she would close inside herself like a clam, she would lay on the couch, her hand on her brow… As a child I would suspect she had been crying…
Close to the date April 3rd, we would have the same behaviour every single year, throughout our lives… I would feel awkward, I wouldn't know how to console my mother, I didn't know how to console her, there was actually no consolation… April 3rd for her was a day of remembrance and reflection. It was a day of mourning the death of her husband… Every 3rd of April, we would have `Mevlid` in the house. We would invite neighbours and family to come to listen to the religious singings of a Hodja, Ahmet Gurses… We would prepare for this from days before: We would clean the house, get chairs from neighbours, make flaounes (pilavuna) with my mother in the kitchen to offer at the `Mevlid`, the Hodja would come, all women would gather and sit, I would offer rosewater in an antique bottle to each and every guest during the `Mevlid` and at the end help my mother to offer the flaunes and the `Sadrazam Sucugu` (a sort of lokoumi with walnuts inside), tea
and lemonade and coffee. At the end of each `Mevlid` I would cry when the Hodja would pronounce our names, saying `This mevlid is going out to Mr. Niyazi Uludag from his daughter Sevgul and Ilkay and his wife Turkan…`
So I learnt as a child what death and remembrance means, what it means to sit and think about your loss, how it had been when he was there, how it became so different when he was no longer there, my beloved father…
April 3rd was a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of our family… I would always wish we never had those days in our lives because they were very sad days…
So when I saw that there would be a dancing event on the 21st of December 2013, I panicked… 21st of December? I knew that the organization arranging this event was a well-meaning organisation, a Greek Cypriot foundation doing this in the northern part of the island. Immediately I tried to contact them… I managed to contact one of the organizers. I would tell him about how 21st of December was considered a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of the Turkish Cypriot community. 21st of December 1963 was the day when the inter-communal fighting had begun and many Turkish Cypriots, as well as Greek Cypriots were killed or disappeared on that day and the following days… It would be a very sad day for many Turkish Cypriots whose loved ones went `missing` or were killed on that day… I remembered my mother and me, how on the 3rd of April, we would be in the mood of mourning and remembering… I told the organizer that this day – 21st
of December - was not a day to come out and dance together in the streets since it was a very sensitive date particularly for many Turkish Cypriots. Many Turkish Cypriots are still `missing` from that date…
The foundation had organized a bi-communal youth dancing event in the Buyuk Han in Nicosia, in the northern part, as well as in the southern part of our capital. The person I contacted panicked. Although they had some Turkish Cypriots in their group, no one noticed that date, no one had warned them that this was a very sensitive date, definitely not a date for `dancing in the streets`… He tried to call all others concerned with the organization of the event… I suggested to him to postpone it but it was one day before the event and after they held a meeting, they decided that they could not cancel it.
On the 21st of December 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the 1963 events, a small group of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots went outside Buyuk Han and danced tango in the street…
Perhaps this showed that while some mourned, some wanted to celebrate life… Although done unintentionally, it brought out the paradigm of life and death in the same moment… Later on I would ask one of the organizers if he would be willing to organize a street dance event in Ledra Street on the 20th of July, it would be the same thing – these were very sensitive days and very sensitive memorial dates for our communities – unless we learn to show respect to that, we would never be able to build a culture of peace on this island.
For me, the most meaningful words came from a new group called `Left Intervention`… In a statement they said:
`We do not forget that about half a century ago, some Holidays in this country were not Happy at all. On December 21, 1963 the streets of Nicosia witnessed a series of events that epitomised the failure of the Cypriot political leadership to build a state based on mutual respect and cooperation.
On that night, the corpses of two Turkish Cypriots shot by the police, accounted for the toll of that day. There had been many more corpses on either side in Cyprus, prior to, and after that day.
Officially, quasi-officially, and unofficially sanctioned and organised deaths. Yet, there was no prosecution and no trial. We invite everyone resenting the culture of impunity in Cyprus manifesting itself in recent scandals to consider its deep historical roots. The demand for justice starts for there.
We propose to establish December 21 as a day of remembrance and reflection in Cyprus. We can only enjoy happy holidays if we admit and accept that at some point, some people on either side of the island contributed to turning a Christmas holiday into a bloody one. These people are among us, have never been confronted with the consequences of their actions, and are even honoured in the context of official state ceremonies.
Left Intervention, 24 December 2013.`

22-28.12.2013

Photo: December 1963 meant more tears, more refugees, more `missing persons`...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 5th of January 2014, Sunday.