Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
It's always a bit tricky to cross the checkpoints with your car since you never know what sort of queues you would encounter so we start early to go to Dali with my husband in order not to miss the funeral of `missing` Michalakis Solomontos, `missing` since 1964 whose remains were found in Hamit Mandrez…
He had been only 33 years old when he went `missing`, married with three children and his wife Egli was pregnant to the fourth child. Mihalakis Solomontos was an innocent person, an ordinary hard worker in a factory making sausages in Athienou – he was from Dali, the legendary village of friendship amongst Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, he had been married with Egli from Ayia Varvara village from nearby… The eldest son was Christakis, six years old, his daughter Stavroulla 5 years old, his youngest son Andros only 3 years old… His wife would give birth to Giorgos five months after he had gone `missing`.
He had gone to Nicosia on the 25th of June 1964 with his new car, a white Morris with number plates CC694. He had passed from his wife's village Agia Varvara in order to take little Christakis with him to Nicosia but the grandfather had said, `Leave him with us and you can pick him up on your way back` so little Christakis had remained with the grandparents… He didn't know that this had been the last time he would see his father alive… Only after 50 years, almost on the day he disappeared, he would come back to Dali, in a small coffin to be buried where he had been born…
He had lost his way taking a wrong turn and had got captured by some Turkish Cypriots… He would be tortured and killed and buried in an isolated area in Hamit Mandrez, a small village on the outskirts of Nicosia… In this area, during the exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the remains of 16 `missing persons` would be discovered all buried separately, at different times: Five of them had been `missing` from 1963-64, one of them Michalakis Solomontos…
This area was used for many years for shooting practice of the army for the reservists and for the regulars, it was such an isolated place that even today no one would hear or know if you would disappear here… I had heard from my readers that this had been the area in the late 50s and during 60s used by paramilitary Turkish Cypriot groups for `punishing` those Turkish Cypriots who opposed them, taking them around here and beating them up and there had been some killings in this area according to the information my readers had shared. A Turkish Cypriot, Alpay, who had been in these paramilitary groups when had conflicts with them had been killed in his cell in the police and then buried here but when his friends protested was taken out and buried in the Nicosia cemetery…
So this was the area where the remains of 16 `missing` persons had been uncovered and now started being returned to their relatives for burial ceremonies… We are early for the funeral and there is not a soul in the church so I call Christakis to tell him we arrived… He sends a friend of his to take us to his house… In the house, there is the small coffin of Michalakis Solomontos – I go in with my husband to meet his wife Egli, now bedridden, not able to move from where she is… I hold her hand but there is no need speak to her because there are no words to describe what is happening today… I feel sad just looking at her, not even being able to imagine what sort of horror she must have gone through all these years…
Michalakis Solomontos has gone out of the house exactly 50 years ago and for 50 years this woman has waited and waited for any news from her husband… Only now he comes back to his village, half a century later, in a small wooden coffin to be buried in the soil where he had been born… He never had a chance to see his sons and his daughter grow up, he never had a chance to see and hold his baby boy, born after five months from the date he disappeared, he never had a chance to grow old… This kind hearted man who had saved some Turkish Cypriots from certain death from some gangs coming to Dali from Lympia, this innocent man who had nothing to do with the conflict and whom everyone loved has died under torture – they did not even `waste` bullets and killed them and then buried them in Hamit Mandrez…
When I start thinking back about those years, I have a gallery of photos of those who might have been involved in those tortures and killings: All of them had strange deaths or their wives suffering from strange illnesses, the son of one of them in fact died under torture many years later because he had had a rift with some shady groups, all of them, all of them punished in one way or another by the earth… Although this is in no way any `consolation`, it's just `facts` that I know of…
In the church in Dali, fully packed, some other Turkish Cypriots have also come to put flowers on the small coffin… I too have brought flowers to lay at the basis of his coffin and say goodbye to him… We hear a very emotional speech from Christos Stylianides, MEP who had been a school mate of Christakis, sharing his tears with us and all the hurt… He shares his memories and says `Nationalism and hatred is no way out…` We hear from Leontios Kallenos, the Mayor of Dali… But the most meaningful speech comes from Christakis, saying his last goodbyes to his father…He says:
"Father…
I don't remember, my brothers/sister and I, when we last uttered this word…
Yet these days we address you all the time… father…
because not only do we feel you,
but you are also with us.
The years of trying to find you…, finally came to fruition.
Even in this way… of discovering your torturous… unjust death.
Finding you is the Truth, Peace and Relief for us… It is a life mission.
Today is a day of vindication for you father… A day which came 50 years late…
We have mixed and alternating feelings of sadness and joy.
Joy that you are with us father…
Sadness because our heroine mother, who brought us up and stood beside us as a mother and father…,
for health reasons, she is unable to also be physically present today with us.
Spiritually and mentally she is with us… because I saw the tears in her eyes when I told her:
"Mum dad was found"
Our father Michalis Solomontos at the age of 33 years became another victim of division, of rivalry and the cultivation of hatred in those times… The victim of blind revenge and retaliation…
But at the same time father you are also a hero of reconciliation and love… Your sacrifice did not go wasted…
Proof is the presence here together of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriot friends, to pay their common respect but also mutual apology for the mistakes and the passions of that generation…
Farewell our dear father… we found you and we lose you again… but from today you are closer to us…
May your memory live for ever…
We thank all those that helped us in the efforts to find our father…, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.
Special thanks to our friend journalist Sevgul, who is with us today, for her truly invaluable help.
Finally I thank all of you for your presence here… I would be very happy to welcome you all at my house after the cemetery."
22.6.2014
Photo: Missing Michalakis Solomontos returning to his village in a small coffin after half a century...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of June 2014, Sunday.
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