Going to Komikebir, once a mixed village of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… Sevgul Uludag Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436 On the 31st of May 2013 Friday morning, we set out for Komikebir in order to show a possible burial site to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay. With me is also Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia whose father and brother are `missing` from Galatia. We have been working on the Karpaz area for many years now – Karpaz is actually a very difficult area – it is still sort of cut off from the rest of the island – more isolated and a bit far away from the current discussions in daily life. It has its own pace, Karpaz and finding witnesses from this area always needs hard work. For the witnesses to speak to me it takes guts since particularly in Galatia, they are stigmatized if their identities are compromised. Some of the witnesses had bad experiences: Gossip were circulated in coffee shops in the village that they were `traitors`, `sold out to the Greek Cypriots` and so on… Actually this is not a `unique` thing only for Galatia or Karpaz – wherever there had been a `pure` Turkish Cypriot or `pure` Greek Cypriot village, life has proved to get difficult for the witnesses who try to speak up. On the contrary formerly mixed villages where Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived together tend to be more relaxed, more confident and much less `dangerous` for my readers who speak to tell the stories of what happened in 1963 or 1974. In the former mixed villages of Cyprus, people got used to living with each other and helping each other… There are many stories of how a Greek Cypriot midwife would help the birth of Turkish Cypriot babies or how Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots would celebrate weddings or the religious holidays of each other. During the Bayram, Greek Cypriots would show respect to the Turkish Cypriots and they would be offered ekmek kadeyifi and the same would happen for `Paska` (`Easter`) when Greek Cypriots would offer `pilavouna` to their Turkish Cypriot neighbours. In mixed villages, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots would work side by side in the fields, tending each other's children or if a woman would give birth, the neighbour would cook and take care of the kids. Recently there was the Potamia Festival and there an exhibition of old photographs of living together in Potamia was opened. Ibrahim Aziz from Potamia had gathered these historical pictures in a book – it showed Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots working in building of roads together back in 1933 or the joint football club where they played football together… Christina's father Pavlos Solomi would even help during the burials of the Turkish Cypriots – when a Turkish Cypriot would die of old age in Komikebir, Pavlos Solomi would voluntarily go to help dig the grave together with his Turkish Cypriot friends. Christina would grow up playing with Turkish Cypriot kids and speaking a few words of Turkish, just as her Turkish Cypriot friends would speak a few words Greek… They would make up `communities` the co-villagers and would get along fine, until `politics` or those from outside the village with power would intervene to disrupt the peaceful life… Occasionally there may be a few crazy youngsters trying to create trouble but otherwise life would flow with its own problems, its own difficulties and villagers would struggle in poverty, trying to make a living and take bread home for their families. The Turkish Cypriot `mammou` Huriye from Kuchuk Kaymakli (Omorphita area) would also be a healer for pains or cracks in the bones for the villagers from both communities. In the same way, Mirofora, another `mammou`, would help deliver babies from both communities in many villages, including Kaymakli. She would go around the villages, first with her donkey, later on with a Lambretta, not fearing anything but doing her job she had been trained for… Mirofora would help deliver the babies of Musa's wife – Musa being a famous and colourful figure in Kaymakli, a yogurt maker, an amigo of the Kaymakli football team… Mirofora would tell me the stories from her younger years, showing me her photo on the Lambretta and her diploma of midwifery… Particularly if the village was not split into two distinct parts and where people lived in mixed neighbourhoods, the relationship would be more than `neighbours` but rather like `relatives`. In Lefkonico, long before I was born, the mammou Areti would be going round the villages while my grandmother Faika whose house was just next to Areti's house, would take care of the kids of Areti. By coincidence, I would meet Areti's son last year in Pyrgos while holidaying there and I would be touched by the stories he would tell me about Lefkonico, my grandmother and my grandfather, about my father who would write letters to him while he had gone to study… Areti would prepare some curtains and tablecloths and sheets as `dowry` for my father when he got married with my mother and I would still keep these wonderful handiwork from Lefkonico, reflecting how close my family and Areti's family used to live in my father's village. In those times, people did not have the mentality of today, poisoned by politicians and propaganda and the whole education systems and the media… In those times, Areti and Faika would help each other and children would sleep in each other's homes or run in and grab a piece of bread and a handful of olives to go out and eat while playing. No one would question that. All doors and all windows would be open to let the air in, to let the sunshine in, to let children in, the children of own and of the neighbours… There would be many instances when the leadership of Turkish Cypriots or of Greek Cypriots would send messengers to disrupt life in these mixed villages but in many cases, the villagers would stand together, the mukhtars would stand together and defend each other. In Vitsada, the Greek Cypriot mukhtar would defend the Turkish Cypriots against Greek Cypriots coming from outside to attack, in Strongylos, the mukhtar Poyrazis would save the lives of Turkish Cypriots both in 1963 and 1974… In Lapathos village, the mukhtar Andreas would have the guts as well as the wisdom and cleverness to stop anyone touching his Turkish Cypriot villagers. In Muttayiaga, the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar would help Greek Cypriot refugees in 1974 fleeing from the northern part, not because someone asked anything of him but because he would be kind enough to think and feel the misery of the refugees and the villagers would contribute by donating sheep, goats, blankets, food, some basic needs of the refugees. In many instances in mixed villages, there would be no problem amongst the villagers and life would only change through intervention and directives from outside. In many mixed villages where Turkish Cypriots had been a minority within the village, Turkish Cypriot leadership would order them to go to a bigger, `pure` Turkish Cypriot village for `security` reasons. In Kollosi, an order would come to move the villagers to Episkopi and the Greek Cypriot mukhtar would beg the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar not to leave. The Turkish Cypriot mukhtar would say, `We know that no harm will come to us from you, from our Greek Cypriot villagers. But what if some Greek Cypriot groups would come from outside and try to do something against us? Will you be able to stop them? Perhaps you would be powerless in face of such danger so we have to leave…` In 1963-64 in Palekythro too, the Greek Cypriot mukhtar would visit the Turkish Cypriot mukhtar and ask him not to leave. The Turkish Cypriots of Palekythro had been told by Turkish Cypriot leadership that `Turkish planes will bomb Palekythro so you better leave!` So the villagers, not having much choice would leave and become refugees in different villages, losing their homes and their land… No one would leave their houses, their mandras, the place they had been born willingly – but even unwillingly, in lack of safety, they would leave and become refugees in their own country. In some cases like in Kutrafas, as soon as the Turkish Cypriots would leave, some Greek Cypriots would demolish their houses in the next few days in order to ensure that they would not come back! But these would not be the ordinary villagers tending their own work and their daily lives – these would be groups with a political aim, with an agenda… Same thing would happen in Lefkonico: Many Turkish Cypriot houses would be demolished in 1964-65 in order to make sure that they would not return… In mixed villages, ordinary villagers would not attack each other – in Komikebir after 1974, some Turkish Cypriot young villagers would do things in order to take "revenge" of 1963 because their families had suffered – not in the hands of Greek Cypriots of Komikebir but the suffering came from other Greek Cypriots – they must have kept the bitterness inside them and at the first opportunity, they would do things to hurt their co-villagers, like the family of Christina… We drive through Vatyli to see the excavations going on there and then go to Komikebir, Christina's village. Next to the cemetery there are two wells – one of them had been filled twice by a Turkish Cypriot from the village. When villagers asked him why all of a sudden he was filling the well with earth, he would say `In order to prevent animals from falling in, I had to fill this well…` Recently one of my readers in Galatia village where Christina's father and brother were held as prisoners of war told me the story he heard: According to this reader, one of his villagers told him that Christina's father and brother were sent back to Komikebir and killed there and buried in a well. We don't know if this story is true or not but the filling of the well had created a lot of suspicion in the village in those days… We are showing this possible burial site to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the second time: We had shown it some years ago… They need to investigate and perhaps check why this well had been filled and whether any `missing persons` are buried in the well… As we approach the well, three white owls, disturbed by the sound of our footsteps fly out of the well – the Turkish Cypriot who had claimed that he was filling this well so that animals don't fall in did not fill it up full – it is half filled so still animals can fall in! We observe the beautiful flight of the white owls, one after the other, perching on trees nearby and eyeing us from where there are… `Is this a sign?!...` Christina says to me… As we travel back to Nicosia, Christina tells me stories from Komikebir, stories from her childhood, stories she heard from her mother and I listen, amazed at how life was once upon a time in this mixed village called Komikebir… With the partition of the island, we have lost all the good qualities and all the good relationships established in mixed villages and re-creation of such relations now would be more difficult, almost impossible… But this should not stop us from working for peace and peaceful relations on this island – on the contrary we have good examples from the past and we know exactly how these good examples were destroyed. We can learn from all of these in order to build a better future where people would trust each other like Areti the mammou from Lefkonico trusted my grandmother Faika in the past… 13.6.2013 Photo: From the book of Ibrahim Aziz a photo from 1933 showing TC and GC workers in roadworks in Potamia... (*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 30th of June, 2013 Sunday. |
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