Stories from Nissou and Kochatis…
Sevgul Uludag
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
One of my Greek Cypriot readers calls and has things to say…
`I am from Nissou` he says… Nissou is the village close to Nicosia, known to Turkish Cypriots as `Dizdarkeuy`.
`I wanted to let you know that back in 1963, when two young boys from Kochatis were taken and killed, my villagers in Nissou did not approve of this and they felt very sad` he says.
He is talking about two young men, Cemal Mustafa and Huseyin Ibrahim who were from Kochatis (Kochat in Turkish) village. Cemal was engaged and getting ready to be married soon and Huseyin was single.
On the 25th of December 1963, they had gone on their bicycles to Nissou to buy some cigarettes because they had run out of cigarettes due to the inter-communal troubles that began in Cyprus on the 21st of December… Those were days of darkness and no one moved unless necessary… When they were in Nissou, they were caught and killed and went `missing` - until today they are still `missing` and no one knows where they have been buried. And those who know, they don't speak up and their families are suffering like all the other relatives of `missing persons`.
`There was a guy in the village with a tractor` my Greek Cypriot reader says, `They had come to him and asked him to take his tractor and go and bury the two young Turkish Cypriots. But he refused to go and told them what he thought of this criminal act… One of those who took these young men was not from our village, his name was S. and you know how he died last year? He fell off a roof and died… He was one of those who would later on get involved with EOKA-B, so you can imagine what sort of person he was… Another person, a policeman from the area was also involved…`
`I know this policeman` I tell him, `he was also involved in the killing of the young shepherd Fikret from Agios Sozomenos and Osman Balligari, an old man from Louroudjina who was going to Dali-Potamia with his bicycle to buy cigarettes… He too died I think some time ago…`
The Turkish Cypriots of Kochatis village has been displaced and settled in Dikomo…
Once I was in a coffee shop in Dikomo and we had a lively conversation about `missing persons` - there was one person who kept quiet but I could feel his tension… Later he would get up and leave without a word. After he left, they told me that he was the brother of Cemal, the `missing` young boy from Kochatis.
On another occasion I tried to speak to him but he said, `What is there to speak about?...` He had so much bitterness inside him, you could see it in his eyes… He looked like his brother from the photographs I saw of Cemal Mustafa.
Cemal was engaged to a girl from Agios Sozomenos (Arpalik as the Turkish Cypriots call it) and was staying some times in Agios Sozomenos and sometimes in Kochatis. He was building a house in Kochatis, getting ready to be married with Aysel and when he went `missing`, Aysel was two months pregnant…
Cemal was one of nine brothers and sisters – he was a farmer…
After a few days, a Greek Cypriot from Nissou would go to Kochatis and inform the Turkish Cypriots secretly by whom Cemal and Huseyin were kidnapped. He warned the Turkish Cypriots that this policeman together with his `team` planned to kidnap more Turkish Cypriot youngsters from the village so they should leave Kochatis.
But they remained where they were in Kochatis..
The other boy kidnapped by the Greek Cypriot policeman and his `team` at the entrance of Nissou was only 19 years old – Huseyin Ibrahim. He was a builder, single, not yet married. He was one of eight children in his family.
These were the two young Turkish Cypriots that my reader from Nissou was talking about…
`I will ask around the old people` he told me, `to see if anyone remembers anything and if I find out, I will call you…`
Some Turkish Cypriots would retaliate and kill an 80 year old Greek Cypriot from Mathiatis and shoot two Greek Cypriot brothers from Agia Varvara. Some Greek Cypriots would retaliate and would shoot an old Turkish Cypriot with his donkey, wounding him… Some three Turkish Cypriots would fall into an ambush and would almost get killed, luckily they would escape… One retaliation after another and yet all those killed or wounded or who went `missing` would be the poor, ordinary citizens, the innocent ones who had nothing to do with the conflict. Those who suffered from this conflict were the innocent ones…
It has been half a century since these two young men went `missing` and their relatives are still waiting for their remains to be found… Many in their families died and those who remain are suffering silently, waiting an endless wait like all relatives of `missing persons`.
What is important is that a police officer was involved; someone in charge in this area and no one ever questioned him or held him accountable for the alleged crimes. The Turkish Cypriot relatives of Cemal and Huseyin even gave the names of those involved in the kidnapping and killing of their relatives but nothing happened. Silence… Everything was swept under the carpet. The same thing happened with those involved in killing Greek Cypriots. Greek Cypriot relatives also submitted names of those responsible for their `missing` but nothing happened. Silence… Everything was swept under the carpet.
In such small villages like Nissou or in faraway Komi Kepir, everyone knew but everyone kept silent. Komi Kepir too has `missing persons` and there are names who collected them from their homes and they would go `missing`. No one would question them. Nothing. Silence…
The picture on both sides is the same: The authorities in both sides protected and rewarded those who were involved in such crimes. These are crimes against humanity because these people who were taken from the roads or from their homes were not in combat in a war – they were unarmed civilians and kidnapping and killing an unarmed civilian is a crime. There can be no pretext to this. We can't have double standards for `human rights`, say a different set of rights for Europe and for Cyprus or for Rwanda or for former Yugoslavia and Cyprus. What is the big deal with Cyprus that it should be able to sweep everything under the carpet and pretend that everything is okay? What about the relatives who have a right to know and who have a right to get back the remains? Some might argue that going after them is a bit risky since it might stop the process for the search of the `missing`. Perhaps they are right. But we must know that in future, we need to face our own recent history and without doing that, we will never be able to achieve any sort of solution or understanding or peace on this land. There are many ways to do that and one of the most reasonable would be like a process they had in South Africa, a `Truth and Reconciliation Commission`. There, they called on those involved and said `Come and admit… If you admit, in front of the public what you did, you will be pardoned. You will not go to jail. But if you don't admit and there are witnesses about what you did, you will go to jail…`
The two main communities of this island, that is the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities would have to decide TOGETHER, not separately how they want to handle the crimes of the recent past. Will they pardon the perpetrators? Will they ask them to come out and admit publicly? Will they send them to prison? What sort of mechanism can they create to handle the crimes of the recent past? Whatever our two communities decide, there should be a platform where these crimes of the past can be handled together. Going to the European Human Rights Court separately as Turkish Cypriots against Greek Cypriots or Greek Cypriots against Turkish Cypriots or Turkey for me does not bring any reconciliation to our communities. Unless we do this together, it will not bring peace of mind and peace of heart and peace of spirit to the island…
28.7.2013
Photo: Cemal Mustafa and Huseyin Ibrahim, `missing` since 1963 from Nissou...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 18th of August, 2013 Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment