In the gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke… Sevgul Uludag Τel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436 One late afternoon, together with one of my readers who grew up in old Nicosia, we go to the Tekke Bahchesi area to look at the possible burial sites he remembers from both 1963 and 1974… Mevlevi Tekke was a religious centre of the Mevlevi sect, the followers of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi – his followers, the whirling dervishes in long white robes would have performances to religious music, whirling and dancing… Mevlana, a mystic of Islam advocated unlimited tolerance, love, goodness and positive thinking… `Come, come, whoever you are, Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire, Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times, Come, and come yet again. Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.…` he had written… `In tolerance be like the Sea In compassion and grace be like the Sun In modesty and humility be like the Earth In generosity and helping others be like a river In concealing others faults be like the night In anger and fury be like the dead…` he said… The Mevlevi sect was common among Turkish Cypriots until late 50s and the Tekke Bahcesi (The gardens of the Tekke) were right behind the religious centre, a huge garden that gradually turned into a cemetery and in some parts shops would be built. During the intercommunal fighting of December 1963, it proved impossible for Turkish Cypriots to get out of the walled city of Nicosia in order to bury the ones killed during the conflict at the normal cemetery they had close to Dikomo. Therefore, they started burying those killed in 1963 at the Tekke Bahchesi, behind the Mevlevi Tekke. In this place that eventually turned into a military cemetery, some `missing` Turkish Cypriots were buried in February 1964 and until today you can see those graves with inscriptions on them saying `Unknown` or `Ayvasil` with a number. Ayvasil or Ayios Vasilios village was where a massacre of Turkish Cypriots had taken place – all those killed there had been civilian Turkish Cypriots: Those who could not escape the village like a grandmother with her small granddaughter, an old man who came to the village to bring eggs to his family and such… The rest of the village had managed to escape to become refugees, living in miserable conditions for many years to come. In February 1964, there were exhumations in this village, with the insistence of the Red Cross, under the presence of armed British soldiers, opening mass graves in the yard of the Turkish Cypriot cemetery of the village… Instead of the 10 or 11 Turkish Cypriots killed in the village, there came out 21 or 22 bodies from the mass graves… The Turkish Cypriot authorities, instead of trying to identify who the rest of those buried in mass graves were, they would bury them in the makeshift cemetery at Tekke Bahchesi, giving them numbers such as `Ayvasil 1`, `Ayvasil 2` etc. Families would not be notified or could not be notified and until today, despite repeated calls by the relatives of Turkish Cypriot missing persons, there has been no exhumations in this cemetery. It is believed that the people who were found in mass graves in Ayios Vasilios were Turkish Cypriots killed in the Nicosia General Hospital by some Greek Cypriots, as well as those killed in various parts in Nicosia and brought to the morgue of the hospital. In fact, the Greek Cypriot authorities at the hospital did try to identify them and even sent a notification to the Turkish Cypriot authorities in the first week of January 1964. They sent them news with a list of names and descriptions of 21 Turkish Cypriots in the morgue of the hospital, saying that these were Turkish Cypriots killed in Nicosia and that the Turkish Cypriot authorities should pick up the dead bodies from the hospital. The Turkish Cypriot authorities in those days could not or would not pick up these bodies so the Greek Cypriot authorities sent these bodies to Ayios Vasilios to be buried in mass graves. Perhaps they were not aware that already there had been a massacre in the village and some civilian Turkish Cypriots killed and buried in a mass grave… So when the Red Cross insisted that these mass graves be opened, they found around 21 or 22 bodies of Turkish Cypriots, most of them unidentified and took them to be buried at the Tekke. Some of those buried there are some of the Turkish Cypriot missing persons from 1963. But it was not only Turkish Cypriot missing persons buried here – Greek Cypriots killed in 1963-64 had also been buried here since there was no other place they could be buried that would be safe enough to carry out such burials for those who were burying them. I discovered through testimonies that at least three Greek Cypriots, `missing` from 1963 were buried here and I have their names. But there had been more burials not in the cemetery itself but around it – one Turkish Cypriot who took part in one of those burials of Greek Cypriots showed us where they had buried some Greek Cypriots late at night and we showed this place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. But there was more information a few weeks ago by one of my Turkish Cypriot readers… He publishes some photos of the Tekke Bahchesi and as we start speaking with him, he starts telling me the stories from his childhood around this area. He and his family, as well as those living around the Tekke were witnesses to the burials of Greek Cypriots at the Tekke Bahchesi, outside the cemetery, both in 1963 and 1974. He even gives me the name of the Turkish Cypriot butcher who buried them to help us to get more details. So we meet one late afternoon and go behind the Tekke. He knows each tree and each stone in this area since as a child he grew up playing in this section of our walled city… `Look` he says, `these trees just outside the cemetery were there but a sort of a fence was passing from right behind them – the burial took place in this area…` We try to imagine how the old layout might have been just behind the cemetery and we try to follow leads… `People were buried here both in 1963 and in 1974 – these people buried were Greek Cypriots. They were buried with a bulldozer…` I thank this reader for taking his time and coming with me and showing me this place. In the following weeks, I take the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee here, to show them what my reader has shown me: Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay look at what I show them and we take pictures and coordinates from here. While we are there, some curious Turkish Cypriots come by to see what we are doing in the parking lot behind the cemetery. They too, have things to say, names to give about who might know better, where the exact burial sites in this parking lot might be. Taking the names and information, we thank them as well… Tekke's Gardens in old times were quite different from what it is now. Now there are no gardens, only buildings and during the construction of a coffee shop next to the cemetery, there had been rumors that some human bones were found. The cemetery itself did not look like as it looks now… Time has changed our geography and it is only in the memory of those who remember, the old appearance, the way it looked 50 years ago… Time has changed not only the geography but the culture as well – 50 years ago the whirling dervishes were still here, celebrating life with music and dancing. The Tekke was a place for the poor to come to have something to eat, the Tekke also had an orphanage and helped children in need… Now the Tekke is just a museum and behind it are all shops… The teaching of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the world famous mystic, the Sufi who embraced all with his poetry has disappeared from the face of Cyprus, after centuries of impact and only sanctuaries like the Tekke remained made of stone… Tekke Bahchesi, once where his words of love and tolerance had meaning now holds the `missing` bodies of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, buried together, resting in their final sleep… 23.12.2012 Photo: A grave marked as `Unknown` in the Tekke Cemetery (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of January 2013, Sunday. |
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