Stories from Peristerona, Kyrenia, Athienou…

Stories from Peristerona, Kyrenia, Athienou…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

`We were at a place and he had been sitting next to me… I did not know him… He was around 72 years old, born in 1943… He could speak Turkish… So we conversed in Turkish…` one of my readers told me last night… He had taken notes and brought these to me:
`This guy was from Peristerona as he said… He told me that Peristerona was a mixed village and they had very good and friendly relations with Turkish Cypriots. He told me the following: `We had never been afraid of each other and we never believed that such things would happen… But I lived through one thing that was very painful` he told me… I asked him what it was and he told me that it was like a rock sitting on his heart… Back in 1963-64 there were some Greek Cypriot `patriots` in an organization but we stayed away from them… We knew who they were. We knew that such an organization would not last too long… That's why they did not like us… One day they had brought a Turkish Cypriot family to the village, there was a woman, one or two kids and the husband of the woman… The woman was crying out loud… Their hands were tied… They were taken to the spot behind the coffee shop in the centre of the village… I had heard gun shots and
heard that there was killing there… We heard that they buried some people behind the coffee shop… They told the villagers that if they speak about this, their end would be no different so we never said anything to anyone… I had a wife and kids… I never spoke about this to anyone… But my heart is deeply hurt… I apologize from God for this…` So these were the things he told me and I took notes to give to you for investigation…`
`But as far as I know` I tell my reader, `there is only one young Turkish Cypriot woman, Ilkay, who is `missing` from Peristerona… The remains of other `missing` have been found if I am not mistaken… Still we need to investigate every single thing to differentiate fantasy from fact… Perhaps we can try to find some friends from Peristerona to see if they remember such a thing…`
I thank my reader for sharing this information to investigate…
Another reader sends me a note:
`I heard this two years ago but now I remember to write about it to you and I am enclosing a google map so you can see…
There is a shooting range in Kyrenia and this place before 1974 was a military unit of the Greek Cypriots, they were the artillery unit if I remember correctly… I heard that here some Greek Cypriots had been buried… The local Kyrenians and those from Templos should know about this. I am talking about the new ring road going from Kyrenia to Karavas, just the north of this is a university… The place I am talking about is about 400 meters towards the east…
There is this person called….. but he is no longer alive but his son is alive… If you find the son, they might have more detailed information about this…`
I thank my reader for this and for the map he has sent me…
Another reader from Kyrenia writes to me to say what he used to hear from his father about the `Hirondelle Junction` in Kyrenia…
`My father used to tell me how he had seen a Greek Cypriot tank burnt down and 4-5 dead Greek or Greek Cypriot soldiers behind this tank… It is quite well known in Kyrenia that there were mass killings more than once next to the wall of the English cemetery…
If those who had been killed were thrown in the streams, no one is able to find them… But if they buried them there, perhaps their remains can be found… From what my father used to tell me, the possibility of a burial site there is very high…`
Another reader comes to sit and speak with me about something I didn't know:
"You know the Turkish Cypriot village ……?` he asks, giving me the name of the village…
`Yes I do… They found the remains of some young Greek Cypriot soldiers there, buried in a well…`
`I know… But do you know what actually happened in that village?` he asks…
`Tell me` I say to him…
`Well, some Greek Cypriot soldiers based in Athienou attacked this Turkish Cypriot village and took some prisoners of war – among the prisoners were also families, civilian I mean and of course women… From what my parents and uncles have told me, they kept them in a house for some days… This was 1974… I heard that they raped some of the women… So you see, you can understand why some people from that particular village turned sort of `violent` afterwards… They were trying to take `revenge` but of course, from the `wrong` people! Those who came from Athienou – I don't know if they were from Athienou or just happened to serve there – got away and nothing happened to them while other innocent youngsters paid for the price of those rapes…`
Rape during wartime is something so deeply hidden in both communities, it is extremely difficult to understand why this or that group of people would all of a sudden turned so `violent` - when you know that in certain villages there were rapes, you begin to `understand` - definitely not accept but understand – why they all of a sudden had gone `crazy`…
No one has ever spoken to me about the rapes in that particular village… So when one relative of a `missing person` whose brother had been found in the well in that village, asks for help to get back perhaps the golden cross that his brother had on him when he had been killed and to ask these villagers for help, this is when I come across the hidden story of rape in this particular village.
My reader who had been trying to help me only explains to me the rapes and despite his efforts, cannot get his villagers to cooperate…
The sister of the young `missing` Greek Cypriot whose remains were found in a well had explained to me that there had been nothing on them – that they were stripped of their rings, watches, golden crosses and if she could get back the golden cross of her brother, this would mean so much to her…
Unfortunately I would encounter a wall of silence instead of cooperation and when we look underneath this silence, we find out that it is the rapes that have caused this silence…
There are many things that we do not talk about as Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots as well as other communities of this land – we are not willing to talk about what went on, how the silence of the many helped the few well organized, well trained, well equipped to get their way that would lead all the way to the partition of our island… The few `patriots` who had protection on their own sides, managed to lead the events, with the help of outsiders to the point of almost no return… Not only that but the partition of the minds, the silent walls, the ignoring of the other, the suspicions, the fears, the concerns… All of these we need to deal with because it is the only way forward… Otherwise silent suspicions would be fed with fears and this would hinder the reconciliation of our communities on this island…

26.9.2015

Photo: A series of paintings by Turkish Cypriot artist Nilgun Guney about `missing persons`…

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 25th of October 2015, Sunday.

Stories from St. Hilarion, Famagusta, Limassol…

Stories from St. Hilarion, Famagusta, Limassol…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

One of my readers come to visit me at the newspaper where I work and we sit down to talk… We had visited him years ago together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and he had drawn up a map of `gamini` and where the remains of some Greek Cypriot `missing` were buried at St. Hilarion. Now he comes to say that if the CMP can get permission to go into this area at St. Hilarion, he is ready to accompany them and show them the exact location of the `gamini` and the burial place of the remains of some `missing` persons.
He had been serving there at the St. Hilarion military camp when he had accidentally come across the remains of some `missing` Greek Cypriots. It had been a `gamini` where soldiers were using as a place to throw trash… As he ordered some soldiers to cleanse out the trash, there came out the remains of the `missing` Greek Cypriots who had been buried in the `gamini`. This accidental find ended up him having the soldiers remove the remains and bury further up... He had provided with detailed information about this incident to the officials of the CMP when we visited him and had drawn up a detailed map…
`You know` he says, `using this map, they accidentally found another `gamini` where the remains of some other `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried, much further down… Actually the map served quite well but in a completely different way! A `gamini` in Boghazi was found because of that map… Some people looking at that map found that `gamini` and incidentally some other `missing` were buried there but the `gamini` on the map is actually not that one, but the one in the military camp… This is a humanitarian task and I am ready to show this place that I have provided the drawing to the CMP… I consider this as a humanitarian duty… To go and show I mean… Because just as Turkish Cypriots want the remains of their own `missing` persons to be found, the Greek Cypriot relatives also have the same right… Now it is time for humanity to speak up… Those who know any information should also speak up…`
Another reader writes me a note:
`During my lyceum education at the Namik Kemal Lyceum in Famagusta, our teachers used to tell us that in the front garden, under the pine trees, some Greek Cypriot soldiers killed in the war in 1974 had been buried there and used to say `If you dig one meter deep, you can see the bones…` These were I believe sincere confessions… But due do our age, we did not really take these confessions seriously at the time… But I believe that there are people who had been buried there… Now I feel much better that I gave this information to you…`
Another reader has other information about a `missing` Turkish Cypriot…
He had called me a few years ago and told me a story about a `missing` Turkish Cypriot from the area of Limassol.
In 1974 he had been serving as a soldier in Limassol…
`One day, there came some very angry Greek Cypriot soldiers in a landrover` he said, `at the back of the car was a rope… Apparently they had tied a wounded Turkish Cypriot soldier behind the landrover and on the way to Limassol the rope broke and the body of the Turkish Cypriot soldier remained wherever the rope broke… They had been extremely agitated and angry since they had attacked a village around Limassol and there, had lost 3 or 4 of their friends… They had also killed some Turkish Cypriot soldiers during this fight but one remained alive but wounded… It was this guy they took and tied to the back of the car… I did not know who these soldiers were but if you like you can make some investigation to see whether you could find which unit they were serving since we know which village they attacked at the time…`
I actually know which `missing` Turkish Cypriot he is talking about and despite the search for him, his remains have not been found yet… The brother of this `missing` Turkish Cypriot calls me all the time to see if there is anything new… There was some digging at a possible burial site but no remains were found – perhaps they had removed the remains to another place or perhaps as this reader is relating what he heard, they actually tied him at the back of the landrover… Difficult to believe – could be true, could not be true, no one knows except those present who took this young wounded boy from where he was and he `disappeared` from the earth…
He also tells me about an elderly Greek Cypriot who had been involved in the murders of Turkish Cypriots from Tochni and Zygi…
`He is very old now and he is very sorry for what they did…` he says…
`Isn't it a bit too late to feel sorry for what they did?` I ask him…
`He says they were young and they did it… But now he feels sorry…`
We agree to meet with him to talk more in detail and to see how we can go about to do more investigations…
Another reader from another village calls about a Turkish Cypriot `missing person`…
`It was in 1974… Our village had come under attack from Greek Cypriot soldiers… Half of our village was occupied by Greek Cypriot soldiers… Our village moved to another Turkish Cypriot village… Only some Turkish Cypriot soldiers remained in half of the village… One day an officer was laying down as a Turkish Cypriot came to that military post and said to the officer `What are you doing, laying down like a woman there? Get up and let's go and fight the Greek Cypriots! They occupied our village!`
The officer was really pissed off but did not say anything, he just said, `Ok, let's go…` But after a few meters, shot this Turkish Cypriot at the back… I can give you a name who were present and were witnesses to this shooting. Everyone was shocked! The officer after this incident left the village very quickly…`
I thank this reader and promise to call the name he gave me to find out more details about this `missing` Turkish Cypriot…
As we go along, people remember an incident that happened that they had been witness to or what they heard from their parents… The `missing` Turkish Cypriot supposedly shot by the officer, my reader heard from his father and says the whole village knows but they keep silent, afraid not to get into any sort of trouble…
There is information everywhere, if you are ready to investigate… There is no `cut` from information flow – so long as you have an open mind and an open line of communication with people, they would always tell you things that they have never told others before… The idea is to open a door for truth to come out, the door that would be safe enough where truth can come out… The door that would allow people to speak up without necessarily disclosing their identity… And this we provide to our readers and that's how we find out things we never knew before that were kept hidden for almost half a century under covers…
Any of you can call me and tell me your stories – with or without your name – at my mobile number 99 966518. The more we know, the more we will be able to clear our path towards our common future on this island…

20.9.2015

Photo: Burying the victims of the massacre of Tochni...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 18th of October 2015, Sunday.

Little Andreas teaching us a lesson of humanity…

Little Andreas teaching us a lesson of humanity…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

The story of the six month old Andreas found in a mass grave at Trachoni together with his mother, three aunts and his grandmother really scorches the hearts of my readers… I had been there when baby Andreas had been found in a mass grave in Trachoni – we were coming back from showing a possible burial site to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and had stopped at Trachoni where exhumations were continuing…
The archaeologists who had been working there were devastated because of the finding of the remains of little Andreas…
Having translated the article of Vassos Vasiliou from Phileleftheros last week about the planned funeral of little Andreas and his family, my readers find out that he had been buried with his pacifier… It is a great shock to learn the details of his killing and quite unacceptable for my Turkish Cypriot readers at the YENIDUZEN newspaper… I receive many messages, telling me how their heart revolted to such news…
One of my readers in his note to me says:
`Dear Sevgul, I was devastated with this news today… It is impossible to be human and not feel sad with such news… How could we become so violent? Didn't that soldier have any wits or any conscience? Wasn't he human? Didn't he have a commander to tell him that what he is doing is wrong? How can these be done to innocent people?...`
Another reader sends another note:
`War is the dirtiest game of the grown-ups… Children die in this game where even the winners lose…`
And another reader thanks me for sharing the story of little Andreas… He lives in Trachoni and he is shocked to find out that such terrible crimes have happened in this village… `What terrible crimes have happened in Trachoni… Thanks Sevgul for telling us` he writes…
Sami Ozuslu, one of the journalists in YENIDUZEN and the director of SIM TV writes an article about little Andreas… The title of his article is `Lament to the six month old baby…` He says:
`Your name was Andreas, you little baby…
That's what the newspapers said…
If you lived, you would have been 41 years old now…
Who knows how you would turn out.
Would you be tall or short?
Would your eyes be green or brown?
We don't know any of this…
You never lived!...
***
They say you had your pacifier in your mouth.
You under the soil with your mother and your aunts… All of you together there… In darkness… No one knew… No one could know… For a whole 40 years you had been `missing`. They even made you `missing`! Our humanity is `missing`… We are all `missing`…
***
Andreas you had only been six months old…
Maybe in that short life of yours you only said `Aghuuu`…
You might have cried a lot, when you had been hungry or when you had a tummy ache…
But you could not utter any other word in this life…
They did not allow you, they did not let you to say your words…
Probably they could not look at your face as they were burying you in the `mass grave…`
Probably they couldn't look in your face…
How can any `human` look at the innocent face of a baby as they become its murderer?
And now we cannot look at your face Andreas…
***
Who knows what sort of a human being you would turn out to be if you had lived…
What sort of games would you play as a child?
Lingiri or the long donkey?
In those times these were the most popular games Andreas…
And pirilli…
You would have probably liked all of it…
And you would like the balls…
And you would like the spinner…
They did not allow you to live your childhood…
***
How many girls would you make fall in love with you in your youth?
And how many times would Eros would knock on the door of your heart?
How would you recover from your adolesence full of tension with acne on your face?
With whom would you be friends and with whom would you have rifts during breaks at school?
Would you like mathematics or literature?
Would you go and study at the university or would you be a farmer in the village?
Would you aim to be rich in life or would you run after your ideals, wherever your heart would take you to?
Would you get married and have kids?
Would you love kids?
They did not allow you to love Andreas!...
***
Your name was Andreas, you little baby…
Your name could have been Ali or Ayshe or Panayiotis…
What difference does a name make?
Which baby knows its name with its pacifier in its mouth?
Which baby is aware about where it's born, which colour it is, its nationality, religion, beliefs?
And which baby deserves to die with its pacifier in its mouth, without having said `Mama`, without crawling, without taking its first step, without its first teeth coming out and without getting to know its environment?
Which conscience can give its okay for such a murder, which heart can survive such pain?
***
Your name was Andreas, you little baby…
The baby who could not grow up…
The baby who was not allowed to grow up…
That there was not even a photo of yours left behind…
Thank God that you don't have a photo Andreas…
If there was, how would we look at your face?
Thanks heavens that you don't have a photograph!`
Cyprus has become a mass grave for babies, youngsters, men and women, old people… The violence of humans on this land has had no limits: They have killed even six month old babies without a flinch…
As we sit down under cloudy skies with our group `Together We Can`, the bi-communal group of relatives of `missing persons` and victims of war, the subject turns eventually towards little Andreas…
One of our members, Erbay Akansoy, whose relatives were killed in Maratha in 1974 says, `Some people have said to me that babies were also killed in Maratha… But it is not appropriate to try to make a comparison like this… A baby has been killed. There is no pretext to killing a baby… The person who killed the baby is a killer… That's it…`
What he means actually is not to try to make `comparisons` and try to `measure out` or `weigh` the devastation…
A baby has died… A baby was killed… A six month old baby who could not live and grow and sit with us now, be amongst us to enjoy life…
And whoever killed the baby is a baby killer… Whether in Cyprus or Afghanistan or Iraq or Northern Ireland, whether in Trachoni or Maratha, a baby killer is a killer. No excuse. No pretext.
When Christina from our group had posted something on Facebook about Maratha recently, one Greek Cypriot reacted and claimed that `They were to blame because they did something…`
So Christina answered this person, `Who did? These children and babies? What could they do?`
Little Andreas and all the other little babies who have been killed in Cyprus are creating waves when news is coming out about the details of their death: They open a path for us to become human again, to try to feel the devastation of war, to try to see how inhuman things get when there is a war and to try to learn from this…
Little Andreas is teaching us a lesson of humanity because of his age…

3.10.2015

Photo: Digging at Trachoni in October 2011...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 11th of October 2015, Sunday.

*** The first grave monument for both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing persons` is built in Mari… Historical day for Mari…

*** The first grave monument for both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing persons` is built in Mari…

Historical day for Mari…

Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518


On the 5th of September 2015 Saturday in the afternoon we go to Mari, the village of Leyla Kiralp whose husband had been killed in the Tochni massacre and whose remains were found in Gerasa together with the other `missing` Turkish Cypriots on the same bus as him… Leyla's husband Ahmet had been from Zygi and were taken by some Greek Cypriot policemen from his house and `disappeared` along with two busloads of Turkish Cypriots from Zygi and Tochni… The remains of those `missing` Turkish Cypriots from one bus were found in Gerasa and the remains of those on the second bus were found in Pareklisia… The relatives of those on the second bus are still waiting for DNA identification but those on the first bus were identified with DNA tests and the remains were returned and buried by their relatives… Leyla had buried the remains of her husband in Famagusta, along with other relatives of `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Zygi…
Leyla wanted to build a monument-grave in memory not only of her husband Ahmet Mustafa but in memory of all Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing` persons in Mari. Why Mari? Because this is where Leyla is from and before 1974 Turkish Cypriots of Zygi did not have a cemetery of their own and used to bury their deceased in the Turkish Cypriot cemetery in Mari.
Leyla would set out with her own funds she has collected through the sale of her wonderful biographical book published in Turkish and Greek to finance the building of such a monument-grave. She would visit the Ministry of Interior and take the necessary permissions to do that. She would visit the Mukhtar of Mari, Ms. Maria Georgiou and tell her about her plans… The ministry would allocate her the space of one grave where she would build this symbolic monument-grave… She would work for six months with all the relevant authorities in order to ensure things to run smoothly. On the monument-grave is a photo of Ahmet Mustafa, his birth date and the date he went `missing`: 14.5.1949-14.8.1974. Underneath is written `In memory of all missing persons of the Cyprus tragedy…
You were not there but your absence has always remained inside us…`
In order to ensure safety during the opening of this monument-grave, Leyla has visited the police in Nicosia and Larnaka and was in contact with the Kaymakamis of Larnaka as well as with the mukhtar of Mari. Police takes measures during the opening and we stand next to the monument while all around us people who come with peace in their hearts, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, coming all the way from Paphos, Limassol, Famagusta, Kyrenia and Nicosia…
First Leyla speaks and tells her feelings on this important day:
"Thank you everyone for coming here today… I wanted to build a symbolic monument-grave in memory of all missing persons of the Cyprus tragedy with the income I got from the sales of my first book entitled `The White and Wet Handkerchief That We Shared…` I am peaceful that I have achieved that and thank everyone who supported me in this aim. I want to thank everyone who is working for the finding of our missing persons, to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and to my dear friend journalist Sevgul Uludag.
I am one of those who struggle voluntarily for peace and for the reunification of our country. When my first husband Ahmet Mustafa was taken from our house in Zygi on the 14th of August 1974 as a prisoner of war and executed, he had only been 25 years old… Just like the bitter fate of thousands of Cypriots who had been, like all of them without a gun and innocent. They gave us in a small box, his bones that were found after 40 years from his disappearance. It is impossible for me to tell you what I have gone through and what I felt during those 40 years. Even the most prominent poets cannot describe this pain. Doctors too cannot cure this pain. Only those who live with this pain know this pain…
Not only those `missing` persons but their relatives also suffer living in a whirlwind of deep trauma. And they pull their families in this trauma. I had got married a second time. But just like me, both my husband and my son lived through this trauma for many years… This trauma lasts long years and is passed from one generation to the next.
Our relatives had gone `missing` but the pain of their absence was always inside us… It was impossible to ever fill that absence…
I struggled with myself for many years. I tried to understand why our relatives had been killed. We were the victims of the war and we were the ones who suffered. What remained for us was to mourn… Those who enjoyed the interests they got after they set out this war were the ones rejoicing, not us…
I lived through dilemmas inside myself… Despite the fact that I lived through this tragedy, the only result I deducted from this is that we owe bringing peace to this country in order to stop such pain from being lived again in the future.
We can't forget what we have lived through but we can forgive those responsible… After struggling within myself for many years, I forgave those responsible for my tragedy and I called on them to question their consciences.
My first husband Ahmet Mustafa was from Zygi (Terazi) and I am from Mari (Tatlisu) village. We had met and got married in this village. Our marriage ended in less than a year due to war, with his death…
I wanted this monument-grave in memory of my first husband Ahmet Mustafa and in memory of all missing persons of the Cyprus tragedy to be in Mari. Because Mari is where I have been born and it is every single breath I take…
We did not lose only our loved ones after 1974. We also lost our homes, our land, our country. With pressure they built the illusion of `our side` and `their side` and wanted us to forget our houses, our towns and our villages. How can one forget the house that a grandfather had built with his own labour, how can one forget his or her past or his or her memories?
Dear friends, I am very emotional today… But I am happy that I see you here. You give me pride and strength. I ask all of you, particularly from my new villagers in Mari to protect this monument-grave.
Last but not least I hope that the remains of all `missing` Cypriots would be found soon and I embrace the relatives of `missing` with love. I thank also Christina Pavlou for being here on this emotional day with me, Maria Georgiou, the Mukhtar of Mari for her help, Ministry of Interior of the Republic of Cyprus for allowing me to build this monument…`
Next is Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia from Komikebir – both her father and brother are still `missing` and she speaks in the name of `Together We Can` - The Bicommunal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War… She says:
"I feel very privileged to be asked to say few words, in this symbolic gathering, here in the Turkish Cypriot Cemetery in Mari...
A Cenotaph is erected in memory of Ahmet whose life was cut short at the age of 25...
He was among a group of Turkish Cypriot men from Zygi, Tochni and Mari, who fell victims to acts of hatred and terrible revenge, by Greek Cypriot men in August 1974.
Today 41 years on, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, together, are paying an overdue tribute, not only to Ahmet, but also, to those who died, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
All of them were ordinary people with parents, brothers, wives and children…
They had the right to have dreams of a prosperous and peaceful life, with their families but they were not allowed to fulfil any of their dreams...
Today it's an occasion, to reflect on the turbulent years of our past, which led to the loss of innocent lives, causing deep pain and divisions amongst both of our communities.
We are standing here today, before Ahmet's Cenotaph, with resolute commitment...
To bury deeply fanaticism, ethnic hatred and nationalism...
To work for peace and better future for our children and grandchildren...
Together We Can!"
Next is the son of Leyla, Shevki Kiralp who says in summary:
"I believe that sooner or later we will realize that we are from the same land and will live in peace on this island. Today there is a friendly atmosphere where the two leaders and progressive circles are working for peace sincerely. I want to stress that politicians from both sides generally when they speak about missing persons they say `I hope that they are found…` but I do not hear of any steps taken for this or for the relatives of missing persons. I am sad to say that it is not sufficient to `wish` for the remains of the missing persons to be found. The politicians from both sides must work together to see how they will reinstate the relatives of missing persons who have gone through the greatest tragedy in Cyprus, they should develop common formulas and both sides must apologize from the relatives of missing persons and make more concerted efforts for the remains of missing persons to be found. This is their historical responsibility and their
debt vis a vis the Cyprus people and humanity…`
The academician Niyazi Kizilyurek also says a few words at the opening, pointing out that symbolically this is a very important monument-grave. And then I say a few words:
"Both Leyla and Christina are our heroes. Because despite the fact that they lived through hell, they managed to put aside their horrible pain and took a step forward. They make an effort not only for their own `missing` but for all the `missing` to be found. Not only Leyla and Christina but all those relatives of `missing` who work bicommunally in `Together We Can` voluntarily are showing us how we should be acting…
Today history is being written in Cyprus because this is the very first monument in Cyprus built in the memory of `missing persons` from both communities. Only if we listen to Leyla and Christina and those like them, can we really reach peace in Cyprus…`

Photo: From the opening of the monument in Mari...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 4th of October 2015, Sunday...

Stories from Trachonas, Omorphita, Dikomo…

Stories from Trachonas, Omorphita, Dikomo…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Last night a reader calls me since news about the exhumations behind the Nicosia Central Prison in the northern part of our capital has refreshed his memory…
`I don't know if this will be of any use to you` he says, `but I want to share what I know…`
He had been a policeman working in traffic back in 1974 and he had seen the collected bodies of `missing` Greek Cypriots – according to my reader, they were brought and they put them in an empty spot next to the Nicosia Traffic Police – at that time across a flour factory, at the very beginning of Ortakeuy in Nicosia.
`They were around 35-40 or 45-50 bodies` he says…
`We had made various complaints since these bodies had stayed for some days and they had been deteriorating… We had called the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality and they had come to put something over them, some spray or lime… They were all dressed in dark blue if I remember correctly, I think these were the uniforms of the reservist Greek Cypriots… After some days a person called ……. had come with his shiro and they were put on a truck and taken from there…`
I thank him for this…
Many of our readers from the very beginning, at repeated times had told their memories about how the `missing` Greek Cypriots ended up behind the Nicosia Central Prison, in a military area…
One reader had visited me and we had spoken for hours…
It was him who told me that this area was not only an area where they buried collectively in mass graves, some `missing` Greek Cypriots but it was also an area of executions. That they had brought some Greek Cypriot prisoners of war and had executed in the same area…
Some readers had told me that there had been some wells in the area and some were buried in wells but I could never find out where these wells might have been…
Some readers had come with us to show us the area and we had gone with Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, as well as Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal, the officials of the CMP.
Another reader of mine who had been a young Turkish Cypriot soldier in 1974, had told me how they had collected those Greek Cypriots killed in the area of Kaymakli (Omorphita) and had loaded them on garbage trucks that belonged to the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot municipality… There had been a group of Greek Cypriot soldiers who had been inside the church in Kaymakli (Omorphita) – 15 of them or around that number – who had been killed there… They were prisoners of war and they were executed in the church… There had been women in the church as well but they were taken away and sent back to the southern part of our island. According to my reader, the Greek Cypriots killed in the war that they were assigned to `collect` were not just soldiers but there had been a number of civilians as well... They had gone in houses in Omorphita and had collected dead bodies of civilians…
`The bodies were in bad shape and afterwards we all had boils on our skins, those of us who had to collect these bodies and load them on trucks` he had told me…
Apparently others collected other bodies from Trachonas and it is believed that they were eventually buried behind the Nicosia Central Prison in the northern part of our island… Some readers also said they might have been buried around Dikomo…
The area where remains of `missing` have been found is not Trachonas but the industrial area where I work at the premises of YENIDUZEN – the daily newspaper. This area is between Dikomo and Hamit Mandrez… But because the bodies were also collected from the Trachonas area, people have been making a mistake saying that the digging is in Trachonas. There is no digging in Trachonas now but there is also information from there – that while building a military hospital after 1974 in Trachonas, that remains had been found… Some of my readers who had served there, shared information about what they know: That some bones were under the canteen and some bones under the hospital… But this too is a military area and perhaps one day the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee can do excavations there when they get permission… In fact, the very first excavations when they had begun digging had started from this military hospital but with no results… There
has been also readers who shared information concerning Dikomo… Some of these places where my readers have shown, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee did exhumations and found some remains of some `missing` Greek Cypriots. But there is more work to be done in Dikomo – and again, it depends on when the CMP will get `permission` from the military to dig there as well… But all of this does not stop us from investigating and writing… This is an ongoing process and we will continue to work hard with the help of my readers from both sides of the dividing line in Cyprus.
Another reader contacted me and wrote to me about a possible burial site in Kyrenia…
`There is something that I have been hearing from my parents and always I had in mind to contact you and tell you` he says…
`At the entrance of Kyrenia near the English Cemetery, there is a place called……. (he gives a name) and in the southern part of this area I heard that they had killed a lot of Greek Cypriots in 1974. I was not there but my mother and father used to tell me that in this area there was a terrible stench… I will send you a google map so that you can see what I am talking about…`
He sends me the map as he promises… When I look at the map he has sent me I see that the whole area has been `developing` and has become full of buildings… There is only one place where he describes that is green…
I immediately contact Okan Oktay who is responsible for exhumations in the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and tell him about this area… When I describe him the place, he says that there has been no digging in that area. I will send the map to him as well as the other officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they can do investigations in this area to see if in fact there is a burial site where my reader is mentioning…
According to my reader there are also a chain of wells in this area going from north towards the south all the way to the new mosque that they built in Kyrenia…
The area that my reader is mentioning about a possible burial site is close to the Hirondelle junction while entering Kyrenia… There has always been information from my readers that there had been burial sites behind the Hirondelle…
I thank all my readers for their humanitarian and voluntary work with me and those who want to call me either with their names or without their names can do so – my phone number is 99 966518… Any information about our tragic past will help to heal the wounds of our divided country and bring us one more step closer to creating a better future…

4.9.2015

Photo: Archeologists digging behind the prison in Nicosia… Photo: TAK News Agency.

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 27th of September 2015, Sunday.

Stories from Koutrafas and remains found in the yard of a school in Lapithos…

Stories from Koutrafas and remains found in the yard of a school in Lapithos…

Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518

It was back in January 2007 when a Greek Cypriot reader had told me about the possible burial site of two Turkish Cypriots who had `disappeared` in 1964. Eight years ago, this Greek Cypriot reader had told me the following:
`Two Turkish Cypriots, both from Lefka, one of them middle aged and the other one a young guy are buried under the bridge in the village Koutrafas. Some villagers from Koutrafas told me that the houses of these `missing` Turkish Cypriots were in Lefka.
These two Turkish Cypriots were arrested in Morphou and had been taken to the police station there. And then they were taken from there and were moved to Koutrafas. There had been a very big and strong guy who was an `EOKA` man and he had taken them. According to the villagers, he had taken them under the bridge in Koutrafas, shot them and buried them under the bridge…`
Eight years ago, I had informed the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee of this information about Koutrafas and I had tried to find out who might have been taken and possibly buried there as my reader had claimed.
We had gone to Koutrafas on the 22nd of January 2007 together with Tony Angastiniotis – the film and documentary maker – and had looked at the bridge… It was a huge bridge…
I had felt very strange that day because I did not know anything about Koutrafas… Tony would tell me the stories from Koutrafas…
It had been a mixed village until 1963 though the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived in separate parts of the village. When violence broke out in December 1963, at some point following those days, the Turkish Cypriots of Koutrafas not feeling safe there had fled to a neighbouring Turkish Cypriot village.
They had actually been very poor according to the stories and some Greek Cypriots of Koutrafas would immediately go looting their houses.
After a few days, the Turkish Cypriots would return to Koutrafas and they would be in shock to find out that their houses were gone! In order to make sure that the Turkish Cypriots would NOT return to Koutrafas, some `wise guys` among the Greek Cypriots of Koutrafas would demolish their houses with bulldozers… So when Turkish Cypriots went back they would find nothing to return to!
Tony would take me there and show me the area where Turkish Cypriots used to live before 1963. The only proof was the stones laid out during the building of the houses on the ground. There were no walls, no doors, no windows, no buildings at all! It was simply flat land!
Tony would show me where a house had been and where the kitchen or the toilet might have been…
He would show me where the Turkish Cypriot school used to be but there was nothing to show that a building existed there except the stones on the ground showing the outline of the building that once was…
It was winter so everything was green and pretty and it was open fields and open land but no proof that people lived here except for the stones that Tony would point out to me…
`If you take aerial photos, only from the sky you can see the exact layout of the Turkish Cypriots' houses in Koutrafas` he would tell me…
Eight years later, I would find out that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun excavations under the bridge in Koutrafas looking for the two Turkish Cypriot `missing` from 1964 and it would all bring back these memories of that day we had spent in Koutrafas…
We had been following together with Tony the lead to this information – we needed to find a certain priest from a village from this area and we would go to different villages asking about him but finally in the village Kannavia we would give up since Tony's car was almost on fire – the engine had become very hot… We had stopped at different villages and people would tell us to go to the next village because the priest had gone to do this or that and we would move and try to find him without success. According to the villagers he might have some idea about what might have happened in 1964… In the end as it was visible that we might actually burn the car in our futile attempt to catch the priest we had stopped and gone back to Nicosia.
From the fields where once used to be the houses of Turkish Cypriots in Koutrafas, I would pick up some stones to bring home as a memory from this day… The Turkish Cypriot part of Koutrafas had become a `ghost village` and it would leave a mark on my heart…
Now I am happy that after eight years from the time we had given the information that two Turkish Cypriots might be buried under the bridge in Koutrafas, excavations have been started by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee under the bridge… After some time I find out that they had found nothing during digging under the bridge. I hope that the remains of the two Turkish Cypriots `missing` from 1964 will be found to be returned to their families for a proper burial, if any of you can provide more information if you know what had happened here…
At that time I had made an investigation about who they might have been and had found out details and had informed the CMP. One of them had been a baker but also was carrying oranges and potatoes to different parts of the island… The young guy he had taken with him to help him carry oranges to Famagusta. The baker used to bring potatoes to Koutrafas, bread to Dikomo and oranges to Famagusta… So he was well known in the area, as well as Koutrafas. He had loaded oranges and had taken them to Famagusta and on his way back had stopped in Nicosia. He and the young boy accompanying him had disappeared on their way back from Nicosia to Lefka.
I had also found the relatives of the two `missing` Turkish Cypriots and had interviewed them… The relatives were their brothers… The brother of one Turkish Cypriot `missing` has died a few years ago, the one I had interviewed… The brother of the other Turkish Cypriot `missing` emigrated to Australia some years ago… Although for the ones who are `missing` time does stop at the age when they `disappeared`, for their relatives time does not stop and flows into the future without waiting for us to move! So if the remains are in fact found under the bridge in Koutrafas and later identified through DNA and if it is the two Turkish Cypriot `missing` persons that we think they are, some of the relatives to take back their remains is no longer there… Sure they might have other relatives but the time has been working against those relatives who remain behind waiting for concrete results. In the case of the two Turkish Cypriots `missing` 51 years have
gone by as in the case of many Greek Cypriot `missing` 41 years have passed… Time does not wait for us, time just goes on and on while some of the relatives die still waiting for results and some of them emigrate or have emigrated to other far off places like Australia…
But let us end this article on a good note: There is good news from behind the prison in Nicosia in the northern part of the city where remains of some `missing persons` have been found… This was the 12th time that they had been digging in the area and finally they have found the burial site… My readers over the years had insisted that there were mass burials here and had given details about where the bodies were collected from and put in trucks… One reader of mine was responsible after the war of collecting bodies killed in the war from the Kaymakli (Omorphita) area and he had described me in detail about what he had seen and I had written about his recollections. Another reader had insisted that behind the prison – the prison did not exist in 1974, it was built after – some Greek Cypriots had been shot and buried. He had insisted that it was not just a mass grave but also a place for some executions.
The other good news comes from Lapithos where back in June this year we had shown the possible burial site of two `missing` Greek Cypriots with the help of one of my readers. The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun excavations there last week and started finding the remains of at least one `missing` person just as my reader had described, inside the yard of the lyceum in Lapithos… To think that all these years, children have been playing around and attending school while two `missing` Greek Cypriots were laying down under the soil next to the wall is a bit eerie. The whole country is strange when you think of it, Koutrafas is strange, Tochni is strange, Karpasia is strange, Lapithos is strange, Chatoz is strange – wherever there are killings and blood, it attaches its memory to the land and even if the majority of our communities pretend not to see except their own and not the other's pain and suffering, it still continues to exist when
human remains come out of the yards of schools or out of the industrial area or in the avli of a house… No matter how hard they try to hide, truth would always find a way to come out to stare at us stark in the face to remind us of the violence that existed on this land 40 or 50 years ago… It is up to us to make sense of all this as time goes on and does not stop for us to wait for us to `comprehend` the actual meaning of this eeriness…


3.9.2015


Photo: View from Koutrafas where there used to be the Turkish Cypriot part of the village...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 20th of September 2015 Sunday.

The `heritage` of Karasavva…

The `heritage` of Karasavva…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Τel: 99 966518

I had started investigating a group of `missing` Greek Cypriots from Trikomo more than five years ago…
The daughter of Karasavva, Pepa had called me and we had spoken and then after a while I had met her husband, Tasos Georgiou in the house of Sevilay Berk whose parents had been `missing` from Trikomo as well…
Tasos had told me about the suspicions they had about the possible burial site and I had called a Turkish Cypriot reader living in Trikomo and we had gone with him back in 2010 to check the area…
And then I had asked the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to come with us to show them the possible burial site of four `missing` Greek Cypriots from Trikomo… This was an empty plot of land – the house there had been demolished after 1974…
It was across the Panagia Church in Trikomo – the family had a bakery across where the house had been and although the bakery is still there and working last time I had looked, the house had been demolished…
The house was the house of Anastasis Karasavva Sitarenos… He was laying down in bed since he had not been well and his wife Kakoullou was there, as well as his brother Lambros, Agamemnon Sotiriou and his wife Maria and Meletta Dimitriou…
On the 17th of August 1974 as the Turkish tanks entered the village they would stop in front of this house – Turkish Cypriot soldiers were accompanying the Turkish soldiers. They would ask them to get out of the house and put their hands up… They would put their hands up but after a while would get tired and put their hands down… They would be shot and killed and two hand grenades would also be thrown at the house…
Karasavva would survive perhaps because he had been laying down on his bed and they might have thought he was dead. But he would survive to tell the story… He would be taken to the Turkish Cypriot hospital in Nicosia for treatment and on the 24th of August 1974 would be sent to the southern part of our island together with other wounded Greek Cypriots. Lambros would also survive…
Three years would pass from the time we had shown the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, until exhumations would begin in Trikomo for the four `missing` Greek Cypriots and they would find the remains in the place we had shown them in 2013: Three women and a man buried in the yard as was described to us… Now they are still waiting for the DNA identification…
On the 28th of June 2015, together with Sevilay Berk and her husband Mustafa and her daughter Beste – an opera singer – I would go with my husband to the get together of Trikomo people to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the football club Anagennisi (Sylloghos Anagennisi) at the invitation of Tasos Georgiou. We would go to Aradippou and there we would meet people from Trikomo, Sevilay's friends and old neighbours from Trikomo Pervolia like Dimitris Shallis…
We would see the daughters of Papaioakim, the `missing` priest of Trikomo…
We would sit to listen to the speeches and eat and talk… The club would honour those who have served voluntarily for many years and all around would be a form of happiness of being together…
They have also prepared a book for the 75th anniversary of the Anagennisi Club and there, they have put the photographs of the `missing` of Trikomo: Both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots – the photos and stories of Sevilay's mother and father, Shefika and Huseyin Ahmet Kamber are also in this book… It is people like Tasos Georgiou, the son in law of Karasavva, who have made this happen… Tasos and people like him from Trikomo know that the pain of the `missing` is not `unique` to only one group but it is a common human pain for all Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot relatives of `missing` persons…
We are sitting at a long table and talking and soon I realize that I am actually talking to the son of Karasavva, Phanos Karasavva.
And soon I am shocked to learn that Karasavva also known as `Vrakas` had built the most beautiful house in my mahalle, the house of Zeka Bey from Platanisso, the famous judge very well known in Cyprus.
The story of `Vrakas`, that is Anastasis Karasavva Sitarenos is quite interesting for me and I learn details from his son Phanos and his granddaughter Katerina…
`Vrakas` was born in Trikomo in 1900 and died in Limassol in 1984…
His parents were Elias and Vasiliki and they had three boys and a girl.
His two brothers had got married very young and had left Cyprus, one to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the other one to the USA.
Vrakas had got married to Kyriaki (Koullou) and they had four daughters and three sons.
The `specialty` of Karasavvas was that he was a very famous builder and one of the biggest contractors in Cyprus between 1925 and 1974.
He was building schools for Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots and also storage houses and houses…
He had built schools for Turkish Cypriots in Korovia, Galinoporni, Pergamos and other places…
He had also built the house of Zeka Bey in Nicosia which is on the street where I live!
He had built high schools in Strovolos, Famagusta and Nicosia.
He had built storage houses in Boghazi, Karpasia, Lysi, Derinia – he had built the cinema `Nicolaides` in Trikomo as well as private houses in many villages in Famagusta and Nicosia.
He had been a very calm, honest and peaceful person and was very well respected by both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots…
According to his granddaughter Katerina `As well as the people they worked with him, they have been so pleased they have met and worked with him. Some of them they became famous house constructors, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots…`
He was a very tall man, 1.90 and according to his son Phanos, he liked to eat fish and over the weekends he would meet with several friends in the taverns, eating and drinking and dancing a little bit.
`We built a lot of schools in Nicosia and Famagusta`, Phanos remembers… `As well as in the Turkish Cypriot villages in Karpasia… We built the cooperative stores in Lysi and elsewhere…`
`Vrakas` would take his young son Phanos with him to work… Phanos remembers that Turkish Cypriots also worked for his father and sometimes his father would ask Phanos to ask one of the Turkish Cypriot workers to sing a song for them while working…
Phanos remembers some Turkish words from those days…
He too moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) for work but now is back in Cyprus…
I feel happy and honoured to meet the family of Karasavva who had been a remarkable person and who contributed with his skills in building schools, homes and storage houses… He had been a peaceful person but `war` does not `differentiate` between `good` and `bad` and in overwhelming cases, it is always the `good` and the `peaceful` who suffer because of the war, the innocent wife of Karasavva being killed, along with other innocent people… And all those who paved the way and triggered `the war` somehow have `survived` without a scratch!
I am happy that I have at least contributed with the help of my readers in finding some of the `missing persons` of Trikomo, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… And this humanitarian effort connects me with their lives, helping me to build friendships as Karasavva would want us to… After all, his `heritage` was the friendships he built and his family has continued this tradition by inviting me and Sevilay and our families to this event…

13.8.2015


Photo: Anastasis and Kyriaki Karasavva…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of September 2015 Sunday.