The people who can build the infrastructure for peace…

The people who can build the infrastructure for peace…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

The per capita pain of our friends in the photo is immeasurable... all of them have suffered - all of them relatives of "missing" and victims of massacres... Christos Efthymiou, leader of our association "Together We Can" (bi-communal initiative of relatives of missing persons) whose brother is "missing" is standing next to Christos Neocleous whose brother is also "missing" - they are chatting with Huseyin Rustem Akansoy who is also in our association and whose whole family was massacred at Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa... Next to him is Kutlay Erk whose father was taken from the General Hospital in Nicosia in 1963 and remained "missing" for almost half a century... Ayshe Guler, one of our correspondents of YENIDUZEN newspaper took this photo at the event of CMP entitled "In Search of Our Missing" on the 12th of April 2014 Saturday morning at the Goethe Institute on the Green Line in Nicosia...
There were other relatives of `missing` persons who came to this full day event, among them more relatives of `missing` who cooperate and who don't let the rivers of blood that ran between our two main communities come between them… There was Sevilay Berk with her husband Mustafa – Sevilay's mother and father were `missing` from Pervolia, Trikomo since May 1964 and we found their remains with the help of one of my readers and another Greek Cypriot relative who has a `missing` son from Synchari – Shefika and Huseyin Kamber, the milkman of the area had been kidnapped, put in the prison in the police station of Trikomo and kept there for some time. Sevilay had gone together with the UN looking for her parents to the Trikomo Police Station –while the police told her that `They would do everything to find them`, it was in fact the police who kept them there until they were taken at some point and killed and their bodies thrown in a well just
outside Trikomo, next to a warehouse for keeping wheat… Sevilay, the eldest daughter had remained with four younger siblings, the youngest being barely two years old… Sevilay was a young girl of barely 17 and had to take care of the kids, having to become both a mother and a father to them – after a few months her aunt's son from Avgolida would come and they would pack a few furniture in a car and leave Pervolia, their sun brick house… They would tie their cows near the school and would try to take care of their small flock but over time this wouldn't work out… The 16 year old Ayla would try to take care of the cows but then she would move in with an aunt and get married at an early age and start living in Famagusta.
The other sister, Nurten had been 14 years old at the time of the disappearance of her parents and she would continue to study and later on get a scholarship and would study in Ankara to become a pharmacist. The 12 year old brother Turgut with the help of Sevilay would graduate from high school and would continue his studies in Izmir – Smyrna – to become an economist.
The youngest sibling was barely 2 years old – there was a family from Pyla who wanted to adopt her and she moved to Pyla to live with her new parents, a bright kid who would go on to study optics and later on psychiatry in London – she would get married in London and continue her life there…
All of these written in a few paragraphs are easy to say but it was Sevilay who devoted her whole life to her siblings and who took care of them and who made sure that they would all be educated… `My mother left us a very good heritage and that was good family manners` she says… `We used that capital to stay together and to survive, with my struggle we are always together, I still take care of them and I am very happy to do that…`
From time to time they would hear that children of those killed during the conflict would be given some aid, say while they are getting married and she would go to enquire and ask for help but they would send her away since they knew no one…
She comes to the event with her wonderful husband Mustafa who worked for many years in the printing house of Dr. Fazil Kuchuk as a typesetter – her wonderful, understanding husband who always gave her full support in her plight for her own `missing` parents, as well as for all the other `missing` persons – both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot. Her close friend Maria Georgiadou is also at the event – our Maria from Kythrea whose mother, father, sister and brother are `missing` is one of the leaders of `Together We Can` association, working together with relatives of `missing` and victims of war, both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot. Maria has a huge human heart that has space for everyone – she has so much love for nature and humans that she can fit the whole world in her heart… She works tirelessly for not only the `missing` of her village Kythrea but for all… Taking care of her house, of her own children, of her own grandchildren and
nowadays she has extra work as she takes care of little Christie, a toddler, the daughter of one of her grandchildren! Making jam and lemonade, cooking apple pie and pineapple tarts, she embraces life with so much love, her devoted husband George next to her… She and Sevilay are very close friends and so are their husbands George and Mustafa… Maria comes to the event with Xenia – Xenia is the wife of her `missing` brother and next to Xenia is her granddaughter…
Ali Esendaghli from Petrofani from our group is also here – he too lost his father and five-six relatives in Petrofani, old people who had remained in the village and who had been executed – some of them were bedridden – and buried in a water well outside the village… He too is one of the pioneers in this bi-communal association and who helps to find the remains of other `missing persons` whether they are Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot…
Spyros Hadjinicolaou is also here with his young wife, pregnant and expecting to have a baby in the coming summer months… Spyros, a young lawyer, the son of the judge from Gialousa who had been killed and buried in the lake of Galatia… Spyros who spoke up for peace and reconciliation at the funeral of his father when we found his remains in the lake… Spyros who dared to speak up when others who did not lose precious loved ones remained silent… Despite his own tragedy of losing his father who remained `missing` for almost 40 years, he would manage to stand up for something better: Peace and reconciliation on this island…
Other relatives of `missing` I know or whom I meet for the first time also come and find me and we try to work out the puzzles with `missing` pieces for the past 40 and 50 years… I introduce them to Murat Soysal, the Turkish Cypriot assistant and Xenophon Kallis, the Greek Cypriot assistant at the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they have a chance of dialogue about their precious `missing` ones…
Later on as I publish the photo of Huseyin with Christos Efthymiou and Christos Neocleous and Kutlay on the Facebook, friends make comments…
One of them says:
`This photo is like the remnants from an old Greek tragedy… These are stains that will always remain there – we will get our lessons from these but the stains will always remain with all the Cypriots, we will never be able to clean up these stains…`
Another friend writes:
`Thank you Sevgul Uludag for your tireless work to help heal all Cypriots, so we may move on... Friends, please take notice. This kind of pain and suffering of having a missing relative knows no religion, ethnicity or gender…`
Letty Roy Rivera who also has a `missing` son in Mexico and who is leading relatives of `missing persons` in Mexico writes:
`Sevgul Uludag, you inspire me. Yes, together we can. Greetings from México…`
Kutlay Erk, who is in the photo, also writes:
`This wound not heal without finding all `missing` persons. I was 11 years old when my father went `missing` and now I am expecting grandchildren. Still I feel the pain. With my deepest love and best regards to the relatives of `missing` persons and all those who are in solidarity with them…`
These are the people who should be at the negotiations table – the relatives of `missing` persons who work together for many years to heal the wounds of our country… These are the people our two main communities should listen to, the UN, the US, the EU `experts` at the `negotiations` should listen to at the `negotiations` table because they can only lead our communities towards peace since they know what sort of destruction war has done to them from their own very tragic personal stories… These are the people who can build the infrastructure for peace on this island and such an infrastructure is much more important than any petrol or gas, any `negotiations` for land, anything `material` - the infrastructure for peace is something we will build if we don't want any more tragedies on the island… And it is only those who believe that `Together we can`, can do this…

21.4.2014

Photo: Christos Efthymiou, Christos Neocleous, Huseyin Rustem Akansoy and Kutlay Erk - per capita pain in this photo is immeasurable...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 11th of May 2014, Sunday.

In a tiny refugee house…

In a tiny refugee house…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

In a tiny refugee house at Agios Athanasios in Limassol, flowers are blooming… In a tiny refugee house, we sit in the tiny garden on the front porch, created by Maro – myself, my husband, my best friend Christina, Maro and her husband Demetrios Santis…
In a tiny refugee house, Maro has created both in the front and the backyard a heaven with flowers – flowers I remember from my childhood, red flowers, white flowers, flowers of fuchsia colour… Flowers tell you the story of what sort of dreams Maro must have when she puts her head on her pillow at night… Flowers tell you of the story of how so much love for plants can only bring you happiness and kindness from this couple… They show how human they are and no matter where you throw people as refugees that they will continue to dream of the place they were born in…
Living in a tiny refugee house, walls covered with photographs from the past, they too have survived amongst so many other refugees…
Christina, my friend from Komi Kepir remembers them well but had never spoken to them before until I asked her to… They live in the street behind her mother's house… Christina used to walk every morning on this street to catch the bus to school and she used to see them but had never spoken to them…
We travel from Nicosia to Limassol to go together with Christina to visit Demetrios and Maro, my readers… Demetrios had been calling me and sending me messages for many years but I never had a chance to visit him – it took me around five years to come to this tiny refugee house to meet and have coffee with him and his wife Maro…
When I sit on the front porch among the flowers, I feel at home here and I want to show as many Turkish Cypriots as possible this refugee area, Agios Athanasios… In general Turkish Cypriots have chosen not to see what sort of suffering the Greek Cypriots have gone through – through propaganda by the regime in the northern part of the island, Turkish Cypriots have been led to believe that the `Greek Cypriots lost nothing` - when checkpoints opened back in 2003 and Turkish Cypriots crossed to the southern part of the island, all they would `see` would be the richness and the glitter… Many times, I would talk about these refugee houses and the lives of Greek Cypriot refugees to Turkish Cypriot friends in order to dismantle this `illusion` about Greek Cypriots… Here again, sitting on the porch I feel embarrassed even though it is not my personal fault that Demetrios and Maro were forced to become refugees… Even though the Turkish Cypriots were
forced on many occasions to become refugees in their own land in 1963 and then in 1974, the propaganda has not really allowed them to empathize with Greek Cypriots in similar situations… There are always exceptions to the rule and I am talking in general terms…
I learn from Demetrios Santis that his mother Maria Kasapgeorgi had been from Trimiti Kyrenia and during the times of great drought in Cyprus her father had emigrated to Turkey to work and they had settled in Tasucu, once upon a time known as Kilindriya… There her father had met her mother Eleni from Alaya (now called Alanya) and had married there… When Maria Kasapgeorgi was 14 they were forced to come back to Cyprus back in 1922 due to `population exchange agreement` among Turkey and Greece.
The father of Demetrios was a teacher from Akanthou, Michalis Santis.
The mother of Maro Anna Andoni is also from Akanthou, her father Andonis Kikas from Paralimni…
`You can't forget the place where you were born` says Demetrios…
`I remember Akanthou, the cinema, the church… But because my father was a teacher, we moved all over Cyprus… Every two years we had to load everything on a car and move elsewhere… My father wanted me to be a teacher but I said no because of this reason! Moving every two years from place to place, packing all your things and loading on a car every two years? No thank you! Instead I studied economics in London…`
After the checkpoints opened in 2003, he would go back to see Akanthou and would want to visit the church, the biggest of the area but they would find the church locked and they would not be allowed to enter…
But Demetrios and Maro were not living in Akanthou, they were living in Varosha… They had a two storey house among 30 skala of orange groves… Not one or two donums, 30 skalas! The reason why Maro created a lovely garden on both front and back porches of this tiny refugee house is clear now: She is cherishing the smell of those trees, the 30 skalas of orange and tangerine groves that disappeared…
`The smell from the trees when they blossomed!` says Maro…
`We went back and we were shocked to find not even a single tree! All the trees had been cut! Not a single one! There was a Turkish Cypriot from Larnaka who was living in our house and she closed the door and did not allow us to go in! We went through the back because I wanted to show my daughter her room – she could not remember how the room looked – there were stairs at the back but these too had been destroyed… Sometime later, we went back again, this time another Turkish Cypriot was living in the house and she was nice and opened the door and let us in… They had changed everything about the house, new doors, new kitchen… There was nothing left from what we had in that house…`
She shows me the photos of her house in Varosha… But photo or not, it is engraved in her heart and she will always cherish it the way it had been, not as it is now…
And Demetrios says he wants very much to go and see Tasucu where her mother's family had a house on a hill… Tasucu is right across Kyrenia, only 40 miles away and there are ferryboats from Kyrenia going to Tasucu… Demetrios thinks it only takes an hour to get there but we tell him that it takes about four or five hours by ferryboat…
`When there is a solution, I want to go there together` he says… His mother's family had a house up on the hill close to the port of Tasucu…
`One can never forget or stop loving the place where he or she was born` he says cherishing Akanthou and Famagusta Varosha because both places are in his heart, as well as Tasucu where his mother came from…
`We will go, of course` my husband tells him… `We will go together…`
One of my friends, Leyla Kiralp, recently in an interview with RIK said `It is clear that our communities are much more progressive than the politicians… Politicians lag behind…`
Here on this porch her words are reflected – what is it that they don't want us to share on this island? The smell of the orange groves, the lemon trees, the tangerine? The smell of jasmine? The sun? The sea? The hills of Ayia Marina from where you can see the Bay of Morphou? The breeze of the sea on the balcony of my friend Christina in her house in Limassol? The beauties of Dora? What is it that they do not want us to share?
Here in this tiny refugee house, we share everything – our memories, our pain, our joys of seeing children grow, our dreams… Maro got me a present, a small bag to put toiletries but I will put my tape recorder and tapes and my diary in this bag to continue to collect and share memories of Cypriots from all walks of life who might speak Greek or Turkish, Cypriots who were forced to become refugees but never lost the love to the place they were born in, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots and Armenian or Maronite Cypriots who have stories and dreams to share… I will take the bag with me wherever I go and it will tie me to this tiny refugee house, wherever I go… In this tiny refugee house, there is 30 skalas of orange groves, smell of jasmine and orange and tangerine blossoms, dreams of Akanthou and Varosha… In this tiny refugee house, there is peace and understanding and respect for each other… What other formula would you need for peace on
this island?

12.4.2014

Photo: In a tiny refugee house together with Demetrios and Maro...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 4th of May 2014, Sunday.