Sevgul Uludag
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We sit in the shade of two old almond trees in midday – we can see the sea further down the road and a small breeze comes to greet us…
In this village in Karpaz called `Koma tou Yialou` we sit with a reader who has opened his house for us…
His wife makes coffee and offers us figs – black and white – that ripened under the sun, sweet, tasty, cold from the fridge, so refreshing in this heat that we feel grateful to the earth for offering us such good fruits that grow on our soil…
My reader's wife shows me a little turkey, barely one month old…
`When I try to feed her, she tries to bite my ring` she says… `They love anything shiny…`
The little chick looks curiously at us and after a while my reader's wife takes her back to the hen house.
Two turkeys, one white and one black, makes a tour around our car – they run, round and round, round and round and my reader tells us that they will do this at least 20 times…
`They are chasing their reflection on the car` the wife of my reader explains…
`And then they will come to the front and when they see their faces on the front of the car, they will start touching it with their beaks!`
They do exactly as we've been told and we sit in silence watching the amazing race of the turkeys, both males… The female bird is on her eggs, the wife of my reader explains to me…
`She chooses when to lay on her eggs… You can't force them to lay on eggs…`
After a while the two big male turkeys, one black, one white, get bored and leave us to go and check on the female turkey…
The cycle of the village life takes its course…
My reader, some years ago was in London… He had gone to the opening of a Cypriot restaurant where there were Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… He happened to sit with a Turkish Cypriot from the village Galatia at the same table… As they started speaking, talking about Galatia and Koma tou Yialou, the guy from Galatia started telling him the story some `missing` persons from Koma tou Yialou…
`On the road to the limani (little port) of Koma tou Yialou, there are some olive trees` he explained to my reader… `That's where they were killed and buried…`
They were a group of four Greek Cypriots, taken from the coffee shop in retaliation to the EOKA-B killings of Tochni and Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa according to the stories we have been hearing from those who had been present… A car had come, someone in military uniform had got out of the car with its radio on and in anger had shouted at the Greek Cypriots, speaking in very fluent Greek saying `Look what your people have done to ours! Listen to the news on Bayrak and hear what happened in Tochni! You will pay for this!`
The mother of one they tried to take had begged him not to take her son away:
`He is too young, he is only 16!` she had said but the angry Turkish Cypriot who had presented himself coming from Aloa and who had been around 45 years old at that time had said:
`I too had a wife and children… No one had mercy on them!` and had refused to leave the young boy alone… This person had come to the village that day, on the 20th of August 1974 - he had been together with some Turkish soldiers in two Turkish tanks that had come to the village that day…
It was the 20th of August 1974…
They had drank some water and cokes from the coffee shop, breaking the empty bottles… Anger was raging – perhaps it was the day when the mass murder of Turkish Cypriots taken from Tochni by some Greek Cypriots had become news on the radio…
He had taken four Greek Cypriots from Koma tou Yialou… The red Alpha Romeo car belonging to a Greek Cypriot but taken over by some Turkish Cypriots left, returning after 10 minutes without them… They have been `missing` since then and we had been looking for their possible burial sites in and around Koma tou Yialou…
One other reader had described a place to me, I had gone and checked and then shown it to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and when there was digging in that area, remains of two `missing` persons were found. But we were not sure if they had been from this group of four `missing` persons or some others…
Now a new possible burial site that I need to see: We go with my reader to look at the olive trees… There are very few old olive trees as he points them out to me…
`Look, here, here and here… Those further back are new trees…`
This is the road that goes to the fishermen's little harbour and to the empty hotel standing on the beach…
We drive down the road and check if there are other old olive trees… Close to the school we find a few other old trees…
The whole place is very close to the area we had shown and where remains of two `missing persons` had been found: It is the same `mahalle` so to say…
The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee is on holidays until the 18th of August 2014 – so after that date, I will try to arrange to come with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials of the Committee to show them this possible burial site so that they can investigate further and if they decide, they can try to dig under the old olive trees…
More than five years ago, I had gone to visit one of the relatives of `missing` from Koma tou Yialou in Larnaka and had met his sisters who had been so sad… They only wanted to know the truth about their brother… Their mother and father would never speak about him…
`We had loved him too much` his sister had told me, `maybe because we were going to lose him, we had loved him so much…`
`We have never forgotten our village` had told me…
They had heard rumours that they might have been buried in a riverbed between Koma tou Yialou and Galatia so we need to investigate that as well… As we leave the village, thanking my reader, I see a river at the exit of the village with some eucalyptus trees. Could this be the riverbed they had heard about? We need to investigate that as well…
As soon as the holidays of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee is over, I arrange to go with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials to show them the olive trees that are a possible burial site… The road has been expanded after 1974 so perhaps they would need to check on the side of the road as well if there would be digging here… We go with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay and I show them the olive trees in order to investigate further…
One of the relatives of the `missing` from Koma tou Yialou had told me that at the time their relatives went `missing`, there had been a Turkish Cypriot policeman from Larnaka in charge of the village so perhaps if he is still alive, the Committee could start new investigations by finding him if they have not done that already in the past…
People don't `disappear` into thin air – there must have been people who had seen what had happened – if there is a will to find out, there is always a way as my readers have proven over and over again by helping out in a very humanitarian way in order to heal the terrible wounds that our country suffers…
8.8.2014
Photo: The old olive trees in Koma tou Yialou...
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 31st of August 2014, Sunday.
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