Memories of refugee children in my life…

Memories of refugee children in my life…

Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 96651
00 90 542 853 8436

My first encounter with the refugee children was in Nicosia in the backyard of the library where my mother was working… It must have been the early winter of 1964 – all of a sudden, there came Turkish Cypriot refugees from Paphos and were settled temporarily in some empty buildings in the backyard of the library… The library building itself had been a `konachi` once upon a time so the buildings in the backyard must have been for the servants of the pasha… Spending all my time in the library as a child from the age of three, I started playing with the refugee children in this old `konatchi` (`palace`) which had a dark cellar, winding stairs, gilded mirrors and toilets outside as it used to be in the old days…
It also had a water reservoir and taps in the backyard for washing up – it had no shower or bathroom so the refugees would create a bath in one spot in the backyard – a makeshift room with lamarina – in order to be able to wash themselves…
They had brought their weaving machines from Paphos and I would sit and watch the refugee women weaving clothes – an old woman would be using a sheave to wind thread out of wool and I would watch them using a hand mill of stone to grind cereals…
I had made friends with a wonderful refugee child from Paphos, Melahat – she had blond hair and blue eyes and was very thin and we would play for hours with her…
In the backyard of the library an aid office for refugees had been opened and together with Melahat we would go and watch the chubby elderly guy in charge distributing the aid that would arrive from abroad… There were big bundles of raffia ribbons, clothing and even a fur coat… Someone who donated these must have been very imaginative: What would a refugee do with the bundles of raffia ribbons? They needed food and shelter and a decent life…
Food was rationed in those days, not just for refugees but for almost everybody… Not far from the library was another office for rationing food and petrol. There was no petrol I remember, you were only allocated so many gallons of petrol per month so my mother and I would have to walk home instead of using our old Volkswagen… The food they distributed for refugees were made up of canned food, some sugar and flour and lentils I remember…
But in those days Melahat and I did not have such things on our minds – as 5-6 year old kids, our biggest worry was to grow up quickly, to start school, to play games… The elementary school I was going was not far from the library which was in the very centre of the walled city of Nicosia. My school was in the Arabahmet area around Victoria Street and was actually a makeshift school: It was sort of `created` for the children of the refugees and the Arabahmet area… It was next to the famous Pavlides' garage and here in this building, I would learn to read and write, to count, to recite poetry, to dance with the music of Strauss, to sing songs and learn to play melodica… We had an orchestra and a chorus – there were very few rich children at our school – our school was a school for children who were poor or who were refugees… There was a rectangular yard of the school and the road passing in front of the Pavlides' garage – we would have
our PT lessons in the street because there was nowhere else to do this! My white shorts would get dirty from the asphalt but still this was no issue for any of us: All we thought of were the new games or the next school gathering for parents at the end of the year where we would be distributed roasted chick peas and a bottle of Belkola – we would throw the roasted chick peas covered with salt in the cola and listen to the noise it made! We were one big family of kids who came from poverty but poverty was not a sin, nor was it something to be ashamed of – you just learned to live with it although poverty would steal a lot of our childhood dreams…
And we had wonderful teachers – one teacher I remember prepared us to dance as butterflies with the music of Strauss… We had yellow chiffon wings that our mothers would sew on our dancing costumes… Our music teacher Nesrin would play songs with her accordion in class and our headmaster Fikri Karayel would choose five-six of us to go to private lessons in his house in the afternoons in our last year in order to prepare us for the English College exams for free – all of us whom the headmaster had prepared voluntarily would pass the exams with flying colours…
The English College was created after the intercommunal conflict in 1963 and was a school very much like The English School – because of lack of safety – people were `disappearing` from the streets – some of those Turkish Cypriot students who had been students of The English School could no longer go there for safety reasons… So The English College was created and this was a school that prepared students for the GCEs… It was an expensive school because all the books were imported from England and I remember my mother struggling to pay for those school textbooks…
After some time, a refugee village was built for the refugee families and my refugee friends from the library backyard moved into tiny refugee houses not far from Ortakeuy. We were growing up and moving to secondary schools and while I lost contact with most of the kids from that era, few of them in fact were in my class at The English College. Melahat with her family I heard, moved to Australia… Papatya from my class also moved as a refugee to Australia…
The English College would undergo another big change in 1974 – more refugee children would come to our school from Larnaka and Limassol and Paphos and gradually the name of the school would be changed to `Turk Maarif Koleji` (`Turkish Education College`) and it would lose its essence of being an `English school` - now students would not only prepare for GCEs but also for the university entry exams of Turkey so students would have to take more lessons in Turkish… During the time of The English College, teachers for French would come from France, teachers for various other subjects would come from England but gradually this would be wiped out and the school would acquire a different character than when it started off…
At The English College, the atmosphere would be a bit different from the Arabahmet Elementary School… We would have more `rich kids` in our school as well as children of refugees from all over the island. Here, I would be in the same class with Neshe Yashin, our famous poet with whom we would spend time outside school as well in the library or in her father's bookshop… Neshe too was a refugee child from Peristerona… Neshe's father, another famous Turkish Cypriot poet of those times, Ozker Yashin would publish a newspaper and write about the problems of the refugees… A refugee himself from Peristerona, he would be the spokesperson for the Turkish Cypriot refugees… Years later Neshe would visit her village and some Greek Cypriots would give her plates that had belonged to her mother and she would see and recognize some of the furniture that belonged to her mother… Their house had been looted…
As young students we would go around old Nicosia, write notes in class to each other, spend time in the library and Neshe would write poems… After 1974 she would write her most famous poem that would leave a mark on our hearts and souls: Which part shall I love?
`One should love one's homeland
So says my father
But my homeland is divided into two
Which part should I love?`

28.3.2015

Photo: Neshe Yashin

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of April 2015, Sunday.

Letters from the heart of Maria…

Letters from the heart of Maria…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I receive a letter from a reader, Maria from Lysi written in the language of the heart – her letter is so touching that I want to share it with you… I write to her to ask for her permission to publish it and she sends me a second letter, even more touching… Today I share with you the two letters from the heart of Maria:
First letter:
`Sevgul,
I am writing in the language that I know. But even if I knew yours, again I would write to you in the language of the heart.
I read your column unfailingly every Sunday and even if I throw out the newspaper, I always keep your page as a document for the book you are writing in our hearts, about life. Our life, our island's life, our country's.
I must confess that at the beginning two things seemed strange to me.
The first was the writing of the villages where we were born and lived our years, with foreign letters, "pseudonyms", which I want to believe that were baptised by a godfather, an illegitimate son of the war.
Then I noticed that the previously written Trikomo became Trikomo again, and previously written Lysi became Lysi again. Even if they name me Yasemen, I do not mind. But how can we rename memory to Akdogan?
The other thing was the search inside wells. I believe that anyway, we bend inside wells to see the water, or as my father was also doing, when he returned to his old village, in his old mandra, he threw a stone in his old well, to hear the sound of life. To see, as he said, if there was water.
I believed that we should not be looking inside wells for bones. The souls have been liberated and have flown like butterflies towards the light. Even if no one cried for them. Even if they hid their flight from our eyes.
I believed that we should not be looking for death inside wells. Even though I heard from my father the story of a Turkish Cypriot couple with a baby in their arms who were caught by Greek Cypriots and after they were killed, they were thrown in a well. One of the killers, when he was drinking and his soul was on fire and was burning him, he was yelling "the baby, the baby" as if he was saying "I have sinned, I have sinned".
How did we come to this point, both you and us, our souls laden with so much guilt of centuries, which still burdens even our steps? That we are walking the road of one breath for forty one years and we still have not come to meet each other!
How did we come to this point, both you and us, to find the homes that we were born in destroyed and outside the village piled up in different piles our earth and not to be able to identify them with our lives? Whose life is the one pile and whose is the other.
How did we come to this point, both you and us, to be identifying bones to be able to cry and to light a candle in the memory of the people who became life's fertilizer and who without giving us a message, flew to the light and we stayed in the darkness? Until we receive their bones.
How many lives were lost both in the wells and in the earth of the ruins?
I was saying, reading your column at the beginning, that we need to turn the page in our life. Enough bones in small boxes. I was in a hurry to turn the page, without reading it. To understand that for some people it is necessary. To understand, that by identifying death, we are burying with honour our guilt too. So that we do not burden them to our children. To understand that by identifying death our souls are also resting and being illuminated. They take light from the "missing" souls, who patiently wait to be "erase" one by one from a long list.
If I hastily turned the page, it would have remained unread and I would not learn how can the burial give birth to forgiveness and redemption. Understanding. And it is good what you do, that you give solace and the answer to the heart of all of those that live with a "why". They have the right to learn, to cry, to be redeemed. So that we can smile and shake hands, even from the distance of half an inch on the map.
Lately I read about Esra Aygin's experience in the two countries of one land, which is crossed by a river of now clean waters. She will have definitely imagined, as the song is urging us, our island as a whole. Without the invisible river which is crossing it with still murky waters from tears and blood.
I did not imagine it, I lived it. Here is also my story.
Sunday, at Apostolos Andreas, on his festival day. (I made his celebration, as my heart should have done, to honour his memory and to thank him for saving my son Andreas in an accident that he had, last year on his nameday.)
We finished and on the way back we reached the checkpoint. We passed it. And at some point I hear my husband saying "Here is my cousin's house". And I wondered, surprised "What is he saying? How come? Where am I?" Alzheimer's?
I was under the impression that we had not passed from the checkpoint, when we had already travelled for five minutes away from it.
I was under the impression that we had not changed position in the horizon. My whole soul, serene, was living a reality like a dream. Free from procedures and checks. Because the part of my soul which stayed behind, by not understanding where and when the north ended and where and when the south began, gave me a sign, that it was now coming with me.
I saw our island, as one. As it is. Without a river. With a sky which we do not look at, because our eyes are on the earth.
The house where I first saw the light, is in its place. No one is taking it on his shoulders. It is written in my soul. Even if Mustafa stays there with her permission. It is not burdening me.
The house where I first saw the light is inside my heart. I have my land. And I take it where I go. And it is with me, wherever I am.
I see our country whole, as I feel my heart in one piece. And I love it without wondering "why" or "which one of the two".
Stay well Sevgul.
I salute you from the heart, Maria.`

Second letter:
`Sevgul,
Thank you for listening to my heart. And if its words, are the same heartbeats in other people's hearts, then I am triply happy, that I am uniting in their rhythm. I feel that all together, we have an enormous heart. A heart which grows and grows and makes the miracle visible.
We deserve peace. We deserve a clean sky to draw on it, with all kinds of colours, bold and clear, our life. To draw well and truly, all those that the stars did not have the time to write.
As Kyriakos from Larnaka also told you "you have made the darkness brighter". We gather around you. All of us who have faced the darkness, were burnt and are sending it away from inside us, now we are small scattered dots that sparkle shyly. All of us united, we can give to our country the sun. We strengthen each other. We get stronger to do good, to create love, to make steps of the soul that bring us closer together.
I wrote the letter for you. With words that are superfluous inside me and are flooding. I came to the day that I opened my heart, I dared to spread it and to touch you like your words touch me every Sunday. Like the words of the people touch me, that confess to you their thoughts, feelings and their stories and I translate their message in my heart, that we are one. I realise that I feel, all that they feel. That they speak my words. This touch, I keep it in my heart and it warms me. You cannot imagine what a blessing is to have this sensation. To feel like you and you like me. And with the letter that you read, it is as if I touched with my heart, through you, the hearts of all of your readers. And I felt their beneficial touch like a push to "do". To act. And not only to feel, to think and to write. I owe it to the memory of Kemal.
Kemal was a Human. The only one who was around and helped my father, to stand on his feet, our first days in Dromolaxia. And every day that he was coming to our home and was sitting to have a coffee with my parents, I was hiding so as not to see him. And he was looking for me and was calling me "Maria! Maria!".
How could he realise that I was in such darkness? How could he see it, that I as closing my heart to his face and he was calling me to open up to him?
Let him hear me now, wherever he may be, that I am calling out to him a big "thank you" and a big "sorry". Because he was the person who held out his hand and supported us. And not even a "Christian" was around to do that…
My name is Maria and I was born in Lysi. I have two sons. Andreas and Efstathios. Efstathios is the one "typing" the letter on the computer and he is the one who answered to your first message (he told me the next day, shortly before we received your second message), while I was telling him "Wait for the day to pass". Youth is impatient.
I think it is time to seize the moment, like the youth, and not wait for the day. Not to "need the time" to get going. To leave my comfortable chair. Not to look at the sky, only through my window. To walk in our island and to come together with people. Like my soul wants it too!
Thank you Sevgul. Always be well.
Maria.
P.S. You can, if you want, publish the letter. This way others will also feel that we speak the same language.`

22.3.2015

Photo: A well in Kontea where a Greek Cypriot woman was buried in 1974…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of April 2015, Sunday.

The invitation…

The invitation…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

As years go by, the problems of our island are more and more aggravated… Our youngsters are still at military posts and `barricades` with guns on `duty` while young people, just like their grandmothers and grandfathers did 50 or 60 years ago are immigrating to other countries in search of a job… Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenian Cypriots, Maronite Cypriots who had struggled together once for workers' rights, who had worked together, who had gone to strikes together are one by one leaving the earth… A whole generation who had worked together in the fields, in road constructions, in collecting oranges, in constructions, in shoemaking and who had shared their food for the day, who had been in each other's weddings and funerals are being wiped out from the face of this earth… Those Cypriots who had danced together in weddings, who had sang the same songs in Turkish and in Greek, those Cypriots who had shared the pilavouna and the ekmek
kadeyifi during paska and bayram are going away from this earth… Not only did they speak Turkish and Greek but also English… A generation who knew each other, who respected each other but due to winds of `nationalism` having to take up guns and be on guard against each other is dying… Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women who had had their morning coffee together as neighbours, who had breastfed each other's babies, who had taken care of kids without discriminating as `yours or mine` are dying… Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women neighbours who had helped each other during days of conflict, who would hide each other and take care of each other, who would give bread, milk, cigarettes, sugar, rice or whatever there was in the house to each other, who would whisper the dangers to come to each other are dying…
While some Turkish Cypriots and some Greek Cypriots would take up guns and plan provocations, opening the way of the division, the generation who had left their houses crying due to the division are dying…
We remain behind, we heard these from our mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, some of it we lived, we experienced… And when we are gone, we know that such memory will no longer exist… This memory is being wiped out and instead another `memory` based on suspicion, enmity and `nationalism` is trying to be installed…
The mentality of people are changing towards `Them on their side and us on our side` and still preventing this, learning from the past and creating a future based on friendship is not allowed – the mentality in both sides is preventing this by trying to silence those who work for friendship and trust on this island.
The reality is that the two main communities of our island, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots have `limited` contacts. According to a recent poll by the New Cyprus Association 75% of the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots have no contact with each other. Among other reasons, one of the basic reasons for this is the problem of language… Living `separately` since the last 50 years, our communities can no longer speak each other's languages… The mentality that is prevailing in the northern and southern parts of our island is far from encouraging contact and cooperation… Only 25% that is only one fourth of our communities are in contact with each other. And this is a drastic situation. Because our common memory is being wiped out, those who struggle together for the solution of the Cyprus problem is also very limited…
Six years ago, on the 26th of September 2009, we had got women together in Pervolia at the PEO premises there and had workshops among Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women… They had developed ideas and had called on the leaders of the two communities… Women supporting a federal solution that would be bicommunal, bizonal, politically equal had said that they wanted a completely demilitarized island where outside interventions would not be possible. They had called on the two leaders to give their support to the victims of war and asked them for those who had committed crimes against humanity to be punished and banned from public life… They had asked the leaders to take steps that would bring our two communities together instead of steps separating them even more and had asked for the easing of the crossings and for opening more crossing points throughout the island… They had asked the two leaders to create infrastructures so that our communities
would learn each other's languages, for more bicommunal programmes in the media and for more cooperation for the interest of the two communities.
Of course as you can imagine, the leadership on both sides would not take such proposals seriously since they have always been after a `blame game` and interested only in a `win-lose` attitude. Unfortunately all they are interested is the `power game` and not really concerned with the needs and worries of ordinary people like you and me. When I say `leadership`, I include `leadership` in almost all areas, not just `governmental leadership` but in all other areas of life…
Therefore they would not be interested in steps to open the path for cooperation among the two communities…
So who will make life better for our communities on the island?
I want to share a poem by a woman from Canada, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, that I have been carrying in my heart – it had empowered me during rough times and kept me going – if only we can be true to ourselves and stop pretending, perhaps we can find the strength to struggle for a better life for all on this island. The poem is called `The invitation`…

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

14.3.2015

Photo: "Oranges in the Sand" peace activity of the Famagusta Initiative and other associations...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 5th of April 2015, Sunday.

From Epikho to Palekythro…

From Epikho to Palekythro…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Dr. Dervish Ozer comes from abroad for a few days and as we had agreed, we go investigating in the area of Epiho and Palekythro… We meet around noon – the weather is fantastic, the fields all green and yellow and we manage to see a few red tulips here and there… In some places purple flowers have bloomed and all over there are swallows and doves singing and busy flying: It is spring time in Cyprus, the spring time that we need to appreciate where life blooms and gives hope for better days to come even though on the ground life might look bleak at times…
We go to pick up a witness from his house, unannounced but our witness comes from a good family and he never refuses to come with us if we show up and ask him to help… He has helped find the Souppouris and Liasis families, killed by others but buried by him…
We go first somewhere in Epiho – almost a year ago, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had been digging at a bridge in Epiho… Now in the coffee shop he heard people saying that `They have dug the wrong place` and described `the right place` for looking for four or five `missing` Greek Cypriots… So off we go together, walking in the fields and trying to locate the place they have described him…
He asked them in the coffee shop, `Why didn't you go forward and warn them that they were digging the wrong place?` and the answer was `We don't want to be involved…` So they kept quiet for a year and only now start speaking up…
It is a sort of a stream behind a mandra – the stream is called `The Cemetery Stream`… We climb up and see the broken and now disused device installed during British times, in order to stop the water from the stream and use it for irrigation…
`They had seen the bodies in this area` he says, pointing out the length of the heaps of soil stretching along the `Cemetery Stream` behind the mandra. I take photos and notes and then we walk back to the car passing through the fields full of yellow and white daisies…
We drive to Palekythro, to the mass grave where very young children, women and some men from the Souppouris and Liasis families had been buried. We stop on the road…
`The road was not like that in those days` he says, `it was a narrow dirt track…`
At the orders of the soldiers, they had taken here on a trolley behind a tractor the bodies and buried them…
It was getting dark and in those days there was a curfew in order to stop looting so they had been in a hurry to leave back to Epiho…
They had thought they had buried all but as they were leaving in a rush, they noticed that they had forgotten to bury a child – the child was in the trolley behind the tractor. So they stopped and put the child on the side of the road and a few meters further up, they got off the tractor and left in another car for their village. They were terrified in case they got caught after the curfew – so that's why they were in such a big rush…
`We put the child on the side of the dirt track between these two houses – these two houses were there` he says…
The child he is talking about is the nine year old Giannis Souppouris whose body had not been found in the mass grave. Giannis was only nine years old… Petros Souppouris at that time 10 years old and his younger brother Costas were the only ones who had survived from the Souppouris family in this massacre. Their mother Areti had been 39, their father Andreas was only 48, their aunt Thekla 45, their small brother Dimitris only 5, their small sister only 3 years old… George Liasi who had been only 13 years old too survived wounded from this massacre and had identified the killers – his sister Yianoulla would survive with heavy wounds, her two year old son having been killed. Their mother, sisters, grandmother and grandfather were also killed in this massacre. There had been 21 persons in the house of Souppouris and only Petros Souppouris who had been wounded, his brother Costas who had escaped and had hidden, George who had been wounded and Yianoulla
with heavy wounds had survived… 17 had been killed but from the mass grave remains of 16 persons had come out…
It was the first time that I had seen a mass grave in my life while it was being exhumed and this had been such a great shock for me… I had sat by the mass grave and cried, seeing how they had been thrown in the grave, the clothes of women and children, their shoes and how they lay there, life stolen from them… We had gone together with my friend, journalist Andreas Paraschos to the mass grave…
Turkish Cypriots did not know anything about the massacre at Palekythro – I would find witnesses and learn the story of what actually happened here and had written so many articles and published so many interviews about it and finally Turkish Cypriots would learn about the Palekythro massacre. Dr. Dervish Ozer wanted so much to find out about what had happened to little Yiannis Souppouris whose remains they could not find in the mass grave… It is due to his investigations that we are here today, standing on the road and looking at the mass grave and talking with the witness who had buried them… I thank my reader, Dr. Dervish Ozer who has written so many humanitarian stories about our dark history, sad stories but also funny stories based on reality – he is one of the most promising writers in Cyprus who does not take `sides` but writes humane stories of both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… It is due to his insistence and putting his whole
heart to find out what actually happened to little, nine year old Giannis that we are here today… There are not enough words to thank him for doing this completely voluntarily as a humanitarian task…
I take photographs from the road and notes and we leave to go back on the Nicosia-Famagusta road, near Epiho… We take a left turn and stop – in this area there had been a lot of Greek Cypriot bodies who had been killed during the war – the whole area had been completely empty but now buildings have been constructed on the side of the road… We wouldn't know where they buried them – they are somewhere here all right but when people don't come forward and talk, we wouldn't find out – only accidentally as they are doing road works or waterworks or digging to build a new building the remains might come out…
We go back to Epiho – we stop at the house of our witness, thanking him for coming with us and then we go to the house of the sister of Dervish to have lunch… Afterwards we would go to his father's fields to collect some celery, broccoli, spring onions and other fresh vegetables that he grows organically… The view is amazing from Epiho – you can see the whole Pentataktilos mountain range from the field…
Perhaps one day our country will see better days and simply enjoy spring – but now we still have to continue to investigate in order to remove the darkness of the past from our lives…

7.3.2015

Photo: The missing child from Palekythro, Yannis Souppouris...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of March, 2015 – Sunday.

`I don’t like humans with guns, I don’t call those who hurt people `human`…`

`I don't like humans with guns, I don't call those who hurt people `human`…`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Dr. Hale Erel who had been a very small child in 1963 continues to write her memoirs from Kaymakli (Omorphita) as they could not escape and stayed behind… I want to share the memories of this child today with you… Dr. Hale Erel, whose writing we shared before on these pages, writes:
`We are in the car, I am sitting in my mother's lap, we are trying to go somewhere but we are prevented. Around the car are men with long guns in their hands. We want to escape but we can't. Guns are pointed at us, some people shout, I don't understand. My father does not speak, he has sons, he has daughters, his face is getting red but he is silent. If we had gone a little bit further, we would reach the Turkish Cypriot border and we would be saved. We can see the REGIS factory on the horizon. We are escaping, why we are escaping from home, I don't understand. There are soldiers who are blocking the car, they all have beards, some of them hold cigarettes – then a bit further up another commotion happens and their attention is diverted there, the front of the car now is open, I can see a man's body lying on the floor, he only has his pants on, the boots are crushing his naked back, four boots, two of them are on his head, the others on his
back. First I see this and my mother tries to cover my face, my father says, `Let's go back`. `It is Ruso` he says, I don't know who he is. The car is crowded but there is dead silence, no one speaks. My mother also says `Let's go back` and we go back.
I get to know failure that day and I say I will never have failures in my life. We go back home. We cannot escape from this imprisonment. We go in and my mother sends me under the table again. A little while later the door is almost crushed with fists. My father opens the door. We hide under the table, few kids, numerous soldiers walk in our house with guns in their hands. They run here and there. We have a lot of kids, a lot of women, grown up youngsters and fathers in the house.
Boots go around the house, I only watch the boots from under the table, when I peek out I also see the guns and the barrels of the guns. They shout at my father, my mother speaks to them half in Greek and half in Turkish and tries to tell them we don't have guns and that the children are very frightened.
They go upstairs. I hear the sound of the boots in the rooms, these are mixed with human voices that I don't understand. There comes someone in a black coat, with a gun over his shoulder and hand guns in his hands, he stops in front of my father with his red eyes… `Don't do it again` he says to my father, `don't try to escape…` Some Turkish, some Greek words. He holds my father by his shoulders and pushes him to the couch.
They gather up and go but their smell and fear remains behind. `It was …` my father says, with this one word everyone understands what he says except me, I am too young to understand the magic of this word. `We must escape immediately or they will kill us` he says. Once again we get in the cars. We must escape, we must go and never return. This is also a short adventure since they've cut the roads, men with guns. They stop us again and there are so many guns around us. They shout at us, pointing their guns at us. It is like a theatre, everyone lifts up their hands. I don't understand why they lift up their hands. My arms are next to my body and there is a soldier walking towards me. He shouts at me in a language I do not understand, I want to cry but I look forward and I meet the eyes of my brother, he has his arms up and he smiles at me, I smile at him for giving me courage.
We played a lot of games but it's the first time that we are playing `lifting your arms up` like this and everyone is playing with us. At that moment the slap in my face is so painful but I do not cry. I look up at the owner of that hand, I cannot see his face because of his gun but I understand that he is not a human being. I know that a human cannot hit a desperate child. I do not lift up my hands. I learn not to bend my head that day. That day I learn how to smile at life when I feel real pain and when my heart is really broken. No one understands how broken I am, my mind rules my heart, I put a smile on my face. I remember theatre and I wait for it to end.
Again those big boots prevent us from leaving. We go back in the car again. I sit in my mother's lap, my auntie kisses my cheek, I smile at my brother, I hold his hand as he takes me under the table again. `You stay here nice and calm` he says.
My life under the table does not last long. The door is almost crushed again with fists, in the front the man with a long beard and a long coat, with a lot of men with guns are everywhere. That day I swear that neither the real, nor a toy gun will ever enter my house, I will never be near a gun ever. I know that man, my father had said …, I remember. They shout and they search the men, they enter the rooms, they push everyone. I get out from under the table, my brother comes running and holds my hand, my eyes search my other brother, he comes and holds my hand.
Then they take away all men above 11 years old, 17 men away and I learn what is mourning in a house. The voices of women crying for their brothers, women crying for their husbands, women crying for their children and children crying for their fathers get mixed up. Big sisters start collecting from the ground what has been thrown out from cupboards, my mother learns what is it to cry and it's as though she teaches us this, my auntie throws herself around for her brother, the baby in the couchette learns how to cry again. I wrap myself around the skirts of my mother, for my father that I will never see, my mother does not see me, she does not feel me, she does not recognize me, she does not recognize anyone, she just throws herself all over the place. She forgets us, she actually forgets herself…
How many days have gone by, how many hours, no one knows. There is a commotion in the garden, there's voices, there's a knock on the door, there's men voices in the garden, this time I understand what they are saying, my auntie hugs her children who came back, she asks about her brother but no one knows what happened to her brother. `They didn't let my uncle go` says someone. The shrilling cry of my auntie is mixed with my mother's voice, one of them is crying for her husband, the other for her brother. Having a bullet in his pocket has prevented my father's coming home, that bullet that had broken our window, had gone on the refrigerator, my father had taken it from there and had put it in his pocket and had gone in haste, having forgotten about it. That bullet that had come out of numerous guns pointed towards us, having found its target. The owner of that bullet had big boots, men with beards, spoke in a language I did not understand,
couldn't understand why they were trying to kill us.
They could not kill, the UN had come in time to save them. Again … comes and brings us back our father as though giving him as a pawn to us, saying he will come back and pick him up, he wears that black coat, with his long beard and red eyes. He says he will pick him up in the morning and leaves. What a bad thing to have one's father like a pawn. How bad is it to have one's husband as a pawn for one night. I don't like men with long black coats. I don't like people who hold guns in their hands and I don't call people `humans` who hurt other people.
Morning doesn't come but time goes very quickly. As the door knocks, my father gets ready to leave to the unknown, he looks behind at my mother, at me, I jump to his lap. His beard that has grown hurts me but I do not cry, perhaps I have no more tears, they don't flow. My father opens the door slowly as he says goodbye to us with his eyes, like a victim but as we meet the eyes of the soldier at the door we understand that he is saved. He is tall and has a clean face. My mother jumps up towards the door, my brothers run to the garden before me, an English soldier takes me in his arms, then we walk together towards the door, we pass the garden, we come near a military car, the boot opens and I see the most wonderful sweets and gums there… I don't know if it is the sweets that make me cry or my mother and father watching us. I don't remember. The only thing that I remember from that day is that my big brothers carry the sweets and biscuits home,
my father hugging my mother, me tasting the best chocolate in the arms of a soldier. Then I remember that they call me `Watery eyes`. When I am happy, when I am sad, when I remember the past I have wet eyes and they call me `Watery eyes`. We have a bayram without it being bayram… And words like bullet and gun never cross our minds anymore. We forget everything. Sweets, chocolate, biscuits, tall smiling English speaking soldiers. I only remember those. I forget the guns, I don't know what a bullet is, that slap on my face never leaves a mark. I never remember those theatre players who have become soldiers without first becoming humans. Those who are not human, those who are just in a format of humans never enter my games anymore…`
(*) Huseyin Ruso is still `missing` from Kaymakli (Omorphita) since 1963.

Photo: Hale Erel as a child...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of March, 2015 Sunday.

Evil and humanity in Cyprus…

Evil and humanity in Cyprus…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Evil resides on the island with us. Evil has arms, legs, a head – it walks, it talks, it makes friends, it mixes with us… Evil is in the form of human being. Evil is in the form of a retired teacher, residing in Lefkonico and Limassol… The one who resides in Lefkonico and the one who used to teach in Limassol have many things in common: They were involved with rape in 1974. The one who used to teach in Limassol has the worst possible record: he was also involved in mass killings in Maratha… Evil has no nationality, no passport, no identity card: Evil is beyond nationality, beyond check points, beyond partition… Evil has arms and legs, it walks, it talks, it has a safe home in Cyprus because no one dares touch it. People fear evil so they keep away and do not really think that with their silence, they have been giving their `silent consent` to evil. Evil resides in Epiho in the form of human being, building apartments and renting houses… The
evil `person` from Epiho was also involved with rape and mass killings in Palekythro. But he resides comfortably on this island because no one dares touch him. The only time he almost got a heart attack was when the checkpoints opened in 2003 and during the Annan Plan campaigns… He was seriously considering selling everything he had and moving to Turkey – he knows what he has done and had some `fear` in his heart for a short time but now that 12 years has gone by since the opening of the checkpoints, he feels comfortable as before because he has understood that no one touches the evil… He can sleep safe and sound…
Evil resides in the form of the owner of a famous company in Nicosia, having being hired as a sniper years ago, coming to this island to kill those that the underground leadership did not like. Killing a very young journalist in a barber shop while he was shaving… No one dares touch him and he lives comfortably in this land of scars… Evil resides in Famagusta in the form of human being, walking, talking, still threatening – writing poetry and reading it out loud… This evil `person` was in the gardens of Perdjana in Varosha and what happened that day made one person go crazy but not him – he keeps his senses and even writes poetry, thinking of himself as a `hero`…
Our land has a scarface, hidden under the beauty, the sun, the sea, the brightness of the colours… Evil is everywhere – north and south – because this is its land. But there is also mercy, compassion and humanity that managed to survive on this land… Humanity also has a human face and despite all the fear, it manages quietly to seep through the soil – it is fragile and needs help and encouragement to show its face to us… Humanity is not as bold as evil, it hides under the shadows, it has camouflage and only if you encourage it, it might come out to show its beautiful colours – colours of love and friendship, colours of the heart of humans who have helped each other in drastic times – it too has no passport, no identity, it is there, hidden in the puzzle of broken Cyprus, you just need to look for the pieces and try to bring them together to fit in order to understand how we can survive on this land of evil and humanity…
Humanity resides in Lapithos and calls me one night to tell me about the burial site of two human beings…
`It had rained a lot` he says, `and there came out two skeletons, on the junction of this building…`
He explains to me where this junction is…
`I can show it to you` he says…
`Why are you so sure?`
`Because at that time, I took out the big bones and threw them in the river bed… At that time, there was no sensitivity about `missing persons` - all those years ago because this happened in 1978-79… But there remains the hands and the feet and other bones, the ribs for instance… I realize now that I can help two families of two `missing persons` by telling you about this burial site…They were two Greek Cypriot soldiers, from the way they dressed this was what I understood…`
I thank humanity from Lapithos for this… I will go and visit him and he will show me the burial site…
Humanity from another village invites me to dinner and we sit and eat and talk… His wife and wonderful daughter and daughter in law have cooked many things – I cannot eat too much – I am simply mesmerized by their humanity… He tells me about a place in Tseri, a small stream called Almiros…
`In 1964 a Greek Cypriot from Latsia was killed by some Turkish Cypriots around the Paphos Gate in Nicosia. As `revenge` some Greek Cypriots from Latsia would kidnap one or two buses going to Paphos from Nicosia and those inside the bus were taken to Tseri and killed and buried next to the stream Almiros. We only heard about it after some time but we don't know the exact location of the burial… But if the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee can investigate the area around Almiros, perhaps they can find something…`
The bus he is talking about had been kidnapped on the 30th of April 1964 from Latsia. The people `missing` from the bus going to Paphos were Mehmet Sinan, Pembe Mehmet Sinan, Mehmet Ahmet, Kamil Mehmet and Fezile Ali – two women and three men… With the help of humanity perhaps we will be able to find their remains to return to their families who have been waiting for the last 51 years to hear news of them…
Another human face calls me from Limassol… She has been reading my articles in POLITIS and one in particular refreshed her memories…
`There was something we used to talk about at home, a tragic story that my father had witnessed in Paralimni… Both my mother and father used to talk about this with sadness.
My father used to work at night in 1964 and had actually seen those Turkish Cypriots taken to Paralimni to be executed. By accident he had been a witness to this. He died years ago… I always used to ask my mother where they might have been buried, those Turkish Cypriots kidnapped from Famagusta and taken to Paralimni to be killed. My mother always used to tell me that it is impossible to find them now, they had been buried next to a very high building in Paralimni… When I read last week in POLITIS in your article that a Greek Cypriot reader showed a burial site to you and you showed it to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they started digging and found the remains of three `missing` Turkish Cypriots in Paralimni, I felt relief… I hope that the remains of the other `missing` Turkish Cypriots would also be found in Paralimni…. Please continue what you are doing because this is good both for Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots…`
Yes, evil resides in Cyprus but so does humanity… Let us encourage humanity so that it shows its face more often so that we can all smile and have faith in a better future on this land…

20.2.2015

Photo: Digging of the well in Paralimni that one of my Greek Cypriot readers have shown...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 15th of March, 2015 Sunday.

The striking similarity of the lives of Maria and Ayshe…

The striking similarity of the lives of Maria and Ayshe…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

I go to two funerals, one in Dromolaxia, one in Gaziveran. I go to the burial ceremony of Kyriacos Constanti Hadjisoteri who had been `missing` since 1974 and to Ozer Ekrem Emin who was `missing` since 1963. They were both innocent, they were both kidnapped and `disappeared`. They were killed and both were buried in wells: Ozer Ekrem Emin in a well in Kokkinotrimitia, Kyriacos Constanti Hadjisoteri in a well in Livadia in Karpaz.
Both had a wife and three children each. Both of them had a daughter each and two sons each…
Ayshe from Gaziveran was six months pregnant to her daughter and three months after her husband went `missing` she gave birth to Sherife, the daughter. Her sons Huseyin and Raif were small kids, one seven, the other five and a half… Ayshe's life from 1963 onwards would stretch out before her as a life of misery and waiting…
Maria had three kids when her husband was kidnapped from their house in Komikebir – Takis, Costakis and Salomi… She too would have a life of misery and suffering just like Ayshe who had passed from the same path 11 years before her… She too would wait and wait and wait for the return of her husband…
But both women would have a similar fate… I would realize this during the funerals… Their life would not be enough to see the day that the remains of their husbands had been found: Maria would pass away in 2001 and Ayshe would pass away in 2002. Kyriacos would be buried in the same grave as Maria and Ozer Ekrem would be buried in a grave next to Ayshe…
They would finally unite in a graveyard…
The weather was cold and dark clouds had gathered in Gaziveran, a Turkish Cypriot village close to Prastio and Morphou as we had gone to the mosque for the funeral.
I had been a bit worried about both funerals: that of Kyriacos on the 7th of February in Dromolaxia and that of Ekrem on the 9th of February in Gaziveran. The wife of Kyriacos had died, his kids had gone to England and they were coming back for the funeral… The wife of Ekrem had died and his kids had moved away from Gaziveran to other towns and they were coming to Gaziveran for the funeral… I had been worried in case not too many people would show up but I was wrong: People from Komikebir would come all the way from Limassol and other places to attend the funeral… People from Gaziveran and other places came to the funeral of Ekrem… In their last journey, there would be a lot of their villagers and friends to be there…
Huseyin, the son of Ekrem would stand next to the open grave where they would lay the remains of his father and make a short speech… He was holding the two wedding bands in his hand… He would throw the wedding bands of his mother and father in the open grave and cry: `Now they are uniting after so many years of waiting…`
They had dug a grave right next to the grave of Ayshe and we would stand in the rain watching the burial…
Ekrem had been a policeman at Peristerona and he had many Greek Cypriot friends – Ekrem always dressed up and looked very smart and played the saz and had a nice voice and sang songs… They would eat and drink and he would play and sing… I heard these stories from his good Greek Cypriot friends, stories about him, stories of happiness and tragedy… His son Huseyin still can't believe how one of his Greek Cypriot friends could take him away and fetch him to Kokkinotrimitia where he would be killed together with his sergeant Ahmet Osman and other Turkish Cypriots to be thrown in the chain of wells there… Huseyin the son would make the funeral speech in Gaziveran and would have difficulty speaking – so full of emotion, so many tears for so many years… The skies would open up and we would have a strong shower of rain – it would be as though the earth would hear his cry and would send its tears on the grave… We would all be soaked under the
rain, sharing the pain of this family…
The grandson of Kyriacos from Komikebir, carrying the same name as his grandfather - also Kyriacos - would make the funeral speech in the church in Dromolaxia… He came to Cyprus to attend the funeral and he would speak about his memories with his grandfather… How they would go to work in the fields together, how his grandfather would allow him to drive the tractor despite his small age, how he saw his grandfather for the last time, how he insisted to stay in Komikebir and not leave because he had nothing to fear, he hadn't done anything wrong…
We would lay the coffin of Kyriacos in the grave of his wife…
Both Maria and Ayshe would now lay with their `missing` husbands for whom they had waited for… This would be `the end`, `the final chapter`, `the closure`…
The striking similarity of the lives of Maria and Ayshe and their kids stay with me after the funerals for many days…
I keep thinking how their `missing` husbands would finally be buried with them… With a decade apart, both had similar pain, similar experiences… Almost identical lives… Identical pain, identical wait, identical suffering… Why is it that we cannot see that the mass majority in this island, either Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot have had identical suffering and instead we try to `victimize` ourselves? Why is it that this vital piece of information is kept from our children at school, what do they learn if they don't learn this? And can you call this `learning`?
We lead `separate lives` on this island and we are kept `unaware` about how the experiences throughout our lives had been very similar…
The `partition` of this island is not only the biggest `crime` but also has led to the change of mentality where people simply do not see each other and make each other `invisible` despite so many similarities and so many similar experiences…
The story of the lives of Maria and Ayshe should be taught in all schools, both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot… Groups of children should visit their graves in Dromolaxia and Gaziveran and meet their children to hear and see how our lives in Cyprus had been very similar and how our suffering is common…
Instead of the `big words` of politicians about `the Cyprus problem`, we should hear of stories like Maria's and Ayshe's and so many others so that we can perhaps see how our fate on this island is also common…

14.2.2015

Photo: The son and grandchildren of Kyriacos at the grave of Maria...

(*) Article published in POLITIS on the 8th of March 2015, Sunday.