Stories from my readers…

Stories from my readers…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

A Turkish Cypriot reader calls in the evening telling me that he has a Greek Cypriot friend who had been around 10 years old in 1974… As a child, this friend of his had witnessed the burial of four `missing` Greek Cypriots in Varosha…
`Can we go there so he can show?` he asks…
`I think first you should take him and see if the possible burial site he is mentioning is within the closed, fenced area of Varosha or if it is outside… If it is within the open area of Varosha no problem…`
`Okay, I will do that soonest…`
`And then, we take it from there… But I also have to tell you this: They had killed and buried some Greek Cypriots in the gardens of Perdjana but later emptied this area… I wrote about that many times… There was some information that they had reburied them somewhere in the gardens of Namik Kemal Lyceum – there was some digging by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee but nothing came out – I don't know if they were digging the exact area or not…`
`Now you say that` my reader remembers, `when I attended the Namik Kemal Lyceum in 1975, our teachers wouldn't allow us to go and play football at the football field behind the Lyceum… When we asked the reason why, some of our teachers told us that they had buried some Greek Cypriots there and that it was shallow burials and that bones might come out if we went and kicked around… I remember that the football field at some point had been fenced… And some time later, they put loads of soil on top of the field… Maybe this was a possible burial site?`
`Maybe… Let's try to investigate and see…` I say to my reader… `Another place they were mentioning was the parking lot of the Anit Gazinosu outside the walled city… Supposedly they buried some people under the parking lot – from the emptied mass grave of Varosha… They did some digging somewhere around there but not at the parking lot. I think they found the remains of a single `missing` person under a tree…`
I say goodbye to my reader and we agree to meet after he goes with his Greek Cypriot friend to check around Varosha the possible burial site…
A Greek Cypriot reader calls and tells me that he is working on finding the possible burial site of some `missing` Turkish Cypriots… I wish him luck and we will call each other again…
I meet another reader in London who has some information about Avraam Sophokli from Gardana (Sakarya) Neapolis in Famagusta. Back in 2008, that is seven years ago I had investigated the disappearance of Avraam Sophokli and I had written about him in POLITIS in November 2008:
`It was the morning of 6th of May, 1964 when Hasan Mustafa Barbacholli was stopped by two Greek Cypriot policemen from the Salamis police station. Barbacholli was a young man of 22 of Famagusta, was on his way to the Sakarya (Gardana) area…
The two policemen asked to see the insurance of the car and as Hasan was showing these papers, one of the policemen shot and killed him…
Meanwhile Avraam Sophokli of Sakarya (Gardana)-Neapolis (Yenishehir) had gone to his work in Famagusta on the 5th of May, 1964 in the evening. He was a worker but in the past month, they had told him that he would be working at night for a short period, as a night-watchman. This would be his last night on this earth because in the morning, as he finished his job and was trying to go home, he would be kidnapped in Sakarya (Gardana) and then killed by some Turkish Cypriot fighters, as a `revenge` of the killing of Hasan Mustafa Barbacholli. He would be one of the `missing` persons of 1964.`
A Turkish Cypriot reader, who was a friend of the son of Avraam Sophokli would call me and show me some possible burial sites… I would also meet the son of Avraam Sophokli and interview him about his father's disappearance… I would also meet the wife of Barbacholli and interview her…
I would arrange back in 2008 to go to Sakarya (Gardana) area of Famagusta to show to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee some possible burial sites for the `missing` Avraam Sophokli. They would dig the floor of one house but would not find any remains… The other places we had shown, they have not excavated yet as far as I know…
So my reader in London tells me of a possible burial site close to the house where the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had excavations…
`He is buried in the garage of ……` he says.
`We actually showed this place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee as a possible burial site` I tell my reader from London, `but they haven't dug yet as far as I know…`
`He was actually killed in the house where they dug – this was a military post for Turkish Cypriot soldiers… But he was later buried in that garage not far from this house…` my reader tells me…
He has also questions for me:
`In 1974, they had brought three busloads of Greek Cypriot prisoners at the football field of Magusa Turk Gucu (MTG) Football Club… I want to know what happened to them…`
He has some information about a restaurant in Protaras, that some Turkish Cypriots `missing` from 1964 had been buried under the restaurant and cement was put on top… I would have to investigate that as well to see if it is true or not…
Another reader calls me to tell me how he heard one Turkish Cypriot talking about killing 20 Greek Cypriot prisoners of war from the Pavlides garage… He gives me the name of this guy…
`It was maybe 10 years ago and we were sitting and he was telling us stories, this guy…` he says… `That one day they ordered him to take 20 Greek Cypriots from among the prisoners of war kept at the Pavlides Garage in Nicosia… He was supposed to take them to Ledra Palace for some sort of prisoner exchange but he told us that he never took them there… That he took them to the Pentataktilos where there are some quarries and he killed them there… I thought you should investigate this…`
I thank this reader – more to investigate…
Another reader writes me a note about Samanbahcha… Samanbahcha area in Nicosia belonged to Evkaf and these were tiny houses built for poor persons around a hundred years ago. According to my reader, in the renovation of these houses, in one of the wells the remains of a `missing person` had been found – he still had his cross on his neck… The well was closed and cement put on top… These tiny houses had tiny gardens behind each house and a toilet well each… I would have to investigate more to see what to make out with this information…
Another reader tells me about how her father had buried a Greek Cypriot `missing` soldier in Lapithos in a well…
`When we moved to Lapithos after 1974, my father saw a Greek Cypriot soldier lying dead under one of the trees. He buried him where he had found him… But after some time the garden was given to someone to do some sort of work there so my father got worried that this shallow grave might be disturbed. He opened the grave and took the remains out and buried him further up in a well…`
Her father is no longer alive but her mother is… I would have to go and visit her mother and see if we can locate the well…
I have my work cut out for me for the next several weeks: Investigate, investigate, investigate… I thank all my readers for doing this: Giving me the humanitarian task of working more for those who have been killed and who have no voice – my readers are the voice for those killed, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… Together we do everything humanely possible to find out and to heal the wounds of those living left behind…

6.6.2015

Photo: View from Varosha

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 28th of June 2015, Sunday.

The call of the cuckoo bird…

The call of the cuckoo bird…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Readers call, readers write, readers come and see me… Information flows for me to follow up, to check, to dust 40 or 50 year old `cold cases` of `missing persons` and other untold stories… It boils back to sleepless nights, speaking on the phone with other readers from the areas mentioned to me, trying to make head and tail of what I have in my lap… It all boils back to thinking a lot, even in my sleep and sometimes I would wake up and understand something that I have not before… It all boils back to investigating more, writing more, hoping that others would contribute with little information I come across to build the bigger picture and to understand what actually went on during those days of conflict back in the 60s and 70s…
I go to Poland to the Karnity Castle with my husband and my son to look at the lake, to walk in the deer park, to listen to hundreds of birds singing and one song sticks out: That of the cuckoo bird…
The cuckoo bird captures my heart, captures time, captures my soul… Time passes, time runs out for some of us but life continues… I sit and look at the lake with ever changing colours, clouds reflected on water, the forest around me, so quiet except for the birds and the call of the deer and boars… I walk with the four year old granddaughter of our friend who owns the castle to see the llama sitting in the park… Our friend's granddaughter, Elena calls the llama `Stephanik` and couple of times a day she goes to check on him… `Stephanik` looks at us with romantic eyes and makes funny sounds… It is a big animal with a soft heart – the elegance and natural kindness in animals is something that our species have lost over time as humans become more and more greedy and more and more egocentric… I have filled my luggage with books so I sit and read all day long – the weather is cool, not like Cyprus… I put on a thick sweater to go out and
when the sun appears, I feel happy and grateful…
I listen to the call of the cuckoo bird in the vast silence surrounding the Castle Karnity… I learn while there, of the death of two of my friends… One of them, Louise Diamond was our facilitator in `Conflict Resolution` in the 90s – she had started the conflict resolution process in Cyprus… Professor Dubb had begun a group back in the 80s but it was Louise who would build something that would have an impact on the larger society… She had beat cancer by taking out all poisons from her life – not just physical but things that had poisoned her psychology – and continued to live and work with conflict areas, trying to bring together different sides in conflict… Years later, cancer would come to visit her again and this time would stick with her, not leaving her alone… Louise would tell us that Cyprus is a `conflict habituated system` and in time I would understand perfectly well what she had meant… That the conflict has its residence in
Cyprus, that it is within the system and if you ensure one side to say `yes`, the other side of the conflict would manage to say `no` because you have not tackled the system itself, the source of the alleged conflict… An expired conflict, an imaginary conflict with roots so deep in our conscience and in culture and in stereotypes in our daily lives that we would only be seeing the tip of the iceberg… How to tackle the needs and concerns and fears – all human – that lie beneath the iceberg? Instead of confronting each other, how to ask questions and how to learn to listen because in our culture we never listen, we just get our answer ready before the question even finishes… How to learn personal stories and what this or that person has gone through… How to speak in our own name only, not generalising, avoiding speaking in the name of others… How to represent only ourself… How to reword what the person sitting next to us has just said to
us in order to see if we got it right, if actually that was what he or she meant… Communication skills…
We would build from scratch the `Conflict Resolution Trainers' Group` and meet endless hours separately in our own `sides` and when there would be `permission` to `cross` to Ledra Palace Hotel, we would meet there… After Louise, Benjamin Broome would come to Cyprus from Johns Hopkins University to help us tackle the sources of `the conflict` and to build a shared vision for the future with the help of a computer programme called Interactive Management Programme… The computer programme would shorten the time we would be spending in answering questions like `what aggravates the conflict more? This factor or that factor?`… We would go on to build our own groups – from 30 Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot conflict resolution trainers – the original group that worked with Louise Diamond and Benjamin Broome – our number would grow to 3 thousand, meeting at Ledra Palace, so much so that it would be difficult to find rooms to meet… All of this,
long before the checkpoints had opened – then the Turkish Cypriot authorities would `ban` our meetings at Ledra Palace back in 1997 and most of these groups would stop except some of us who would continue to go and try to meet at the Pyla village…
I would use all I had learnt from the conflict resolution process in Cyprus in order to bring together Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women and some years later together with Katie Economidou, we would create `Hands Across the Divide`, the first joint NGO of Cypriot women – Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… We would have to register it in London with the help of our friend, the writer Cynthia Cockburn and she would even write a book about us called `The Line`…
Others from our group would use their conflict resolution skills in creating other groups – Nikos Anastasiou, together with some Turkish Cypriot friends like Ekrem Varoghlou, Sarper Ince and Ulus Irkad, would get villagers who used to live in the same village but had never met since 1974 because of the partition – they would arrange meetings of villagers around Pyla in a park… Nikos would work with youth groups, bringing them together in Pyla…
My friend Katie with a beautiful voice – she sings and gives concerts for charity organisations all the time – would go out and form the original bi-communal chorus for peace…
Mustafa Damdelen would go out and form the original group of business leaders and work with them…
Katie Cleridou would form the first bicommunal desk in DYSI – something unheard of on those days – and she would come under harsh attack…
Fatma Azgin would bring educators and teachers together and work with them about how they saw as the sources of the conflict and to build a shared vision together…
Yiannis Laouris would go out and continue to work with computers and build his own youth groups…
Harris Anastasiou would team up with Birol Yeshilada in Portland, Oregon to teach at the Portland University to American students about Cyprus, Turkey and Greece and once a year would take his students to Cyprus to see on the ground what is actually happening…
Almost all from our group would go out into the larger society and build their own groups according to their own personal interests or contacts or beliefs…
We would all come under harsh attack... Hate campaigns would be waged against us but we would survive…
I would use everything I had learnt during the conflict resolution process when I would start tackling the humanitarian issue of `missing persons`… Listening, empathising, trying to understand what the other says, trying to go beneath the iceberg to learn the untold stories of our land in agony…
When Louise would be visited by cancer for the second time, Fatma Azgin would want to try to go and visit her or try to bring her to Cyprus so our original group of trainers could get together with her… We would not be able to manage that… The cuckoo bird would remind me that time had stopped for Louise, that at one point or another time would stop for each and every one of us but that life would continue… Others will come, others will live, others will die…
I learn about the death of another friend, Koullis Miltiadou with whom we had been working together at the Cypriots' Voice group… He had helped me to identify a possible burial site in Kaymakli (Omorphita) finding a witness – this was in the buffer zone so I would arrange and we would go together with Xenophon Kallis and some others from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee – the UN would `accompany` us… Digging would start and stop – someone would tell the archaeologists that there might be mines there and despite grave efforts to show there are no mines in the area, digging would stop… Koullis a kind hearted friend whose vision was peace on the island would die in his sleep at the age of 68… I would learn of this shocking news while in Poland…
The call of the cuckoo bird will remain with me forever, sitting in front of the lake, trying to digest the news of the end of time for Louise and Koullis… May they rest in peace: They have spent their entire lives serving humanity and peace… They are the unknown heroes of this land that humans tend to ignore… But in my heart I salute them and will carry their memory with me always…

5.6.2015

Photo – The cuckoo bird...

• Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of June 2015 Sunday.

Notes from London…

Notes from London…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

A thirteen year old refugee girl from Famagusta whom I had never met, never spoken, never exchanged e-mails offers me the keys to her house. She had been 13 years old in 1974 when she left Cyprus with her family to go and live in London… Olia is 54 years old now, that little refugee girl and it touches my heart when she gives us her beautiful house and goes to stay with a friend a few doors down… Her roots go back both to Komi Kebir and to Famagusta – as we talk, we discover that we might have run across each other since her house had been two streets behind Euripides Street in Varosha, where my great uncle Ahmet lived. She shows me photos and google maps – we speak about Varosha, that distinct smell of flowers and the sea where we have not been able to find anywhere else on earth… I would go and stay with my great uncle Ahmet and my auntie Fattush my summer holidays and we would go to the beach and I would be tanning and swimming and smelling
the sea and the suntan oil of coconut… I would get a nice tan and in the evening I would sit on the balcony and listen to John Vickers playing songs at RIK… I had a small red transistor radio and my ear would be glued to the radio, singing along songs like `Yes it's gotta be a long, lonely summer…` (`Sealed with a kiss`)… In those days my mother had bought me a lovely shirt in lavender and had taken out the buttons and instead had sewn buttons with colourful flowers on them and I would wear my shirt in the evening, having washed my long hair, sitting on the balcony and singing along with the radio… Those had been happy days, wonderful days of the sun and the sea and the music and being young, my eyes full of stars, dreaming of a different world, everything opening up and looking forward to life that I would grab with all my passion… My mother taught me to love nature, to love all creatures of the earth, to love all flowers and trees, to
love people… Sometimes she would stay too with us in Varosha and we would go to visit relatives in the walled city, meeting cousins and laughing at things… Those days would be full of laughter and fun and curiosity about everything connected with life…
My auntie Fattush would make jam from apricots that we would eat in the morning, my great uncle Ahmet would have jars of octopus that he, himself caught – the reason why he had built this house in Varosha had been his love for the sea… Throughout his life he would be a champion swimmer, an octopus hunter, collecting hundreds of seashells from the bottom of the sea… In the morning we would go to the beach on his bicycle and come back for lunch and the house would be full of lovely smells of cooking of my auntie… My auntie would polish the wooden floors and I would sit in bamboo chairs at the sofa and dream my dreams about the future… Seashells would be everywhere in the house: Climbing the wooden steps upstairs from the front door, I would see seashells on the way up and in my great uncle's room with Morris armchairs, there would be the best pieces on display on shelves of glass…
Sometimes we would walk the streets of Varosha and look at the colourful life, shop windows, cars and pedestrians and bicycles passing by… Varosha would smell of flowers from citrus trees and the sea breeze would always remind us of the beauty of this earth… Varosha would be full of hotels and full of tourists and you would hear many languages on the beach – I would practice my English and my great uncle Ahmet would always chat with tourists, sometimes inviting them to his house for dinner – delicacies of octopus and other sea food…
Olia's house in London is like a sanctuary for me: It is away from traffic and noise and it's at Finchley, in a very quiet area and it is like a doll's house… In her tiny kitchen, we would sit together with my dear friend Christina from Komi Kebir, with whom I have come to London to attend a ceremony honouring me for my work organized by the Komi Kebir Association UK and the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK… Christina whose father and brother are still `missing` from Galatia where they had last been seen, is a wonderful woman with a huge heart – so Olia, myself and Christina would sit at the tiny kitchen sharing our hearts, our memories, our lives, our hopes and dreams and the obstacles we encounter on the way… It is like a sisterhood in this quiet tiny house in Finchley and I would wear my pyjamas and read my book when they are not there, all alone except the birds in the garden… Birds are living in the chestnut tree and
they would come to the tiny garden full of flowers and plants and would eat the nuts that Olia had thrown for the squirrels so they can come down and I can see them… Olia tells me that occasionally foxes come too, to doze off under the shade of the trees… This house would cure me and refresh me and get me ready for more struggles and more work…
On Saturday the 16th of May 2015, we go to the Cypriot Community Centre where the event would take place… Already some relatives of `missing persons` are waiting for me and we sit down and talk… Soon the room would be packed with hundreds of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots: The Turkish Cypriot Democracy Association also helps to organize this evening devoted to `missing persons` and my work and then there is no space to sit, to stand and some people have to go back because the room is packed… Christina and Olia got 14 yellow roses in memory of 14 `missing` persons from Komi Kebir and these are put in vases in the room to remind us of their memory…
Eleni Tryfonos who is the head of the Komi Kebir Association UK is like a thunderstorm: When she organizes something she would never take `no` as an answer and would storm out to get a `yes`! She has so much energy, such a vivid woman from Komi Kebir that it is simply amazing just to sit and watch her at work… She has put all her energy for the success of this event… She speaks and Mr. Neoklis Neokleous as the head of the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK speaks… Their speeches touch my heart… Mr. Neoklis, in his speech says:
`This special event has been organised today to honour one of Cyprus best. A most courageous peace-journalist and human-rights-activist, Sevgul Uludag.
We honour Sevgul for what she has done for the relatives of the missing persons. This is because most of the information that the investigatory committee in Cyprus has used to locate graves and proceed to identification came from Sevgul. Given to her by ordinary Turkish and Greek Cypriots who trusted her.
For the G/C missing, she has achieved what UN resolutions, ECHR judgements and over 40 years of campaigning failed to achieve. Bring closure to any of the missing persons' cases.
Of course the fate and whereabouts for the majority of the missing is still unknown and the campaign will continue.
For the T/C missing, Sevgul went against the imposition of silence by the T/C leadership and gave their families a platform and an opportunity to tell their stories and claim their right to know as well.
To-date, thanks to Sevgul and the other guest of honour, Christina Pavlou Solomi-Patsia, as well as other good people of Cyprus, some present here today, many families of the missing, from both communities, have discovered the fate of their loved ones and have been able to bury their dead with dignity.
Christina's brother and father are still missing but she is supporting Sevgul's efforts to find others.
We also honour Sevgul for being the champion of reunification of Cyprus and its people. Bringing people close across the divide. I was happy to be present at an event she organised in Nicosia, honouring ordinary T/C and G/C for putting their lives in danger to save the lives of people from the other community.
We honour also Sevgul because through her "untold stories" series she is teaching us our good as well our grim history. She is filling books, paper articles and internet blogs with individual and family experiences of Cypriots who suffered due to murderous actions of extremists from the opposite community. And of people who became the victims of extremism in their own community.
Let these stories be a warning for all the Cypriots. As we hopefully move towards a free united Cyprus. We vouch that these experiences will never be repeated. Let's learn from the terrible mistakes of the past and move forward to a peaceful future, coexisting with acceptance and respect for each other, irrespective of ethnicity, religion or politics. Let's show the world that we don't need any protectors or guarantors.
Dear Sevgul, we are grateful for all you are doing for all of us Cypriots, we wish you well, and hope that the vision you very clearly articulate for a free, united, peaceful Cyprus will soon become a reality.`
Then I make my presentation about `missing persons` and Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia also speaks and almost everyone who came to listen to us are crying… Afterwards we are presented with plaques and then a lot of relatives of `missing persons` come to meet with us and talk with us and enquire information and help for their `missing`… Some readers with the help of Mr. Neoklis come to see me to give me information about some possible burial sites in Cyprus…
I thank my dear friend Christina and Eleni Tryfonos and Mr. Neokis Neokleous for arranging such a meaningful event and I thank Olia as well for working hard to make this happen and offering her beautiful house to us during our stay in London with Christina…

22.5.2015

Photo: With the President of the the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK, Mr. Neoklis Neokleous, presenting to me a commemorative plaque honouring my work for `missing persons`...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 14th of June 2015, Sunday.

Telling stories of butterflies who lost their wings…

Telling stories of butterflies who lost their wings…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I travel to Larnaka, Limassol, Oroklini, Nicosia, Pallariotissa, London to speak and to tell the stories of `missing persons` and victims of our `conflict`… I go with EDON to Pallariotissa, to Larnaka, to Limassol and we will continue with Paphos to speak to youth about what it is that I and my friends from the bi-communal initiative of relatives of `missing persons` and victims of war, `Together We Can` are doing… I go to speak about the humanity of my Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot readers, how they speak to me, how they show possible burial sites, how they open the way for the truth to come out… I go to speak of the pain and a life in paralysis of relatives of `missing persons`, how they have waited all these years, clothes ready, house ready, everything ready for the loved one to return who never has… I go to speak about these butterflies who lost their wings, who cannot fly, who cannot live, who cannot really continue their lives but sit
and wait in agony for news, for any news about what happened to their loved ones… I go to speak about 1963 and 1974, about how people had been kidnapped from their homes, from the roads, from the fields, from their working places, from their offices and how they have been executed in cold blood to end up at the bottom of a well or in a field or under a rubbish damp or in an abandoned farm yard… I go to speak about how women and very young girls had been chosen for rape, how everyone else were killed afterwards to cover up these rapes… The rapes in Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa by some teams of EOKA-B and the rapes in Palekythro by some Turkish Cypriots from Epiho and Mora… I go to speak about the rapes in Assia and Aphania and Karpaz area and how rapes have always been used as a systematic tool by both some Turkish Cypriots and some Greek Cypriots… I go to speak about mass graves, I show photographs of these mass graves in Neachorio Kythrea,
Galatia, Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa, Palekythro, Masari, Paralimni, Gerasa, Pareklisia… I show photographs of burial sites in Kythrea, Dikomo, Polemi, Polis, Trikomo, Koutsovendi, Chatoz, Livadia next to Komi Kebir, Epiho, Lyssi, Sinda and all the other places where we have found, with the help of my readers, remains of `missing persons`…
I go to speak and to listen and to answer questions…
I don't go to television shows, I rarely speak to the press, I just like to speak at such gatherings where people will feel both the evil and humanity existing side by side on this island. Where their hearts and minds would open up to this knowledge, where I can tell the stories and I can listen and where relatives of `missing persons` can speak and talk about their own feelings and how it feels to work together to end the agony and how it makes sense to connect the dots in order to understand what actually happened on this island…
I go to a lyceum in Nicosia to speak to a class of young students of 16 years old. With the initiative of their history teacher they have gone to make a joint project on `missing persons`, each gathering an aspect of the `missing` and also my work on `missing`. They made a small booklet with their findings, binding it and even creating a cover drawing themselves… They have also created a billboard with photographs and articles about my work and about `missing persons`. It is a Turkish Cypriot lyceum of high standards and I feel touched with the effort of their teacher and the students themselves… Some of them have some relatives `missing` and one of them tells me that they will have a funeral soon… The remains of their relative have been found in Machera and now it is time for the funeral… It is the funeral of the `missing` Fahri Ahmet Hudaverdi from Pervolia, Larnaka who had gone to Nicosia to sell vegetables – with him was Abdullah Hashim who
was married to his sister Munevver… There had been rumours that they were kept at Livadhia – there had been rumours that a team from Larnaka known for their ruthless activity had kidnapped them – they had kidnapped others and the black Mercedes that some from this team had been driving had stopped and `searched` other Turkish Cypriots travelling around Larnaka… One of those in the black Mercedes was from Mazotos and would also be involved during the coup in 1974…
There were other rumours that Fahri Ahmet Hudaverdi and Abdullah Hashim had been taken to the Kofinou police station at the time of their disappearance but all remained just `rumours`… Until his remains have been found in Machera – here the remains of seven `missing` Turkish Cypriots from 1964 have been found…
Fahri Ahmet Hudaverdi was from Pervolia, he had been a rising star… His father had been from Kalavassos but Fahri Ahmet had settled in Pervolia, Larnaka. His father's name was Ahmet Hudaverdi, also known as `Shinyari`… Fahri Ahmet had fields and was planting okra, artichokes, watermelon and melon and other vegetables… He was a farmer and had around 10-15 workers and sometimes 20-25 workers working in his fields… He had won the bid for providing vegetables to TURDIK and he would always be taking vegetables that he grew to Nicosia… He had six children, three boys and three girls… He had been married to Melek Hanim from Agios Theodoros near Kofinou…
When things started getting rough among the two main communities of our island back in 1963, he would carry his family to Agios Theodoros in order to ensure their safety… He had a car, a blue van with which he carried his vegetables to Nicosia. He had gone to Nicosia and on his way back, there were rumours that he had been kidnapped together with Abdullah Hashim around Lympia-Koshi… There were rumours that they had been taken to Larnaka for questioning and that they remained there only for a night…
He had actually been arrested twice before but his Greek Cypriot friends had saved him… You might think, `Why didn't he stay home then to be safe?` Would it have been easy to survive with six kids by staying at home? Most of those – particularly Turkish Cypriots – who `disappeared` from the roads had been either merchants or djambazis or those who got out of their village to travel to other places for work: They had no choice but try to survive, taking vital risks in order to bring some bread home for their kids…
When he had been kidnapped, Fahri Ahmet had a lot of money on him – some of those kidnapped and who `disappeared` had money because they were the `businessmen` of those times… Fahri Ahmet had bought 30-40 donums of land in a bid against Greek Cypriots of the village in those times – according to his son, this land has been used to build social housing for refugees in Pervolia… There had been some `jealousy` around Pervolia because Fahri Ahmet was a hardworking, well earning person and was buying considerable amounts of land which did not make some Greek Cypriot `nationalists` happy… According to his son Kemal who had spoken to me about the disappearance of his father, perhaps Fahri Ahmet was seen as a `threat` in Pervolia because people respected him and he was known for his generosity and helping other people in need – he was becoming quite influential in and around Pervolia… `Those who knew my father in Kiti and Pervolia felt sorry for
what happened to him`, Kemal Tutku had told me… He had gone to Kiti and Pervolia and had met his father's friends… `They did not approve of what had happened to my father – in these villages live left wing people who want peace on this island…` He has good friends in Kiti and Pervolia…
The six kids and the wife of Fahri Ahmet would remain in Agios Theodoros after his disappearance on the 4th of March 1964. Fahri Ahmet was only 33 and his wife was only 31 years old. They would first live with relatives, two or three kids sleeping in each bed… Later on they would be given a `refugee house` to live in…
Now Fahri Ahmet will have a real grave – from the Machera forest where his remains were found by the exhumation teams of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee – thanks to the efforts of Xenophon Kallis from the Committee for finding this burial site – he will be taken by his family to be buried in Agios Sergios where they live now… These butterflies who lost their wings because of the disappearance of their father will now find a little peace of mind… May he rest in peace and may we continue to tell their stories so that our youngsters will know what happened on this island…

12.5.2015

Photo: Fahri Ahmet Hudaverdi...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 7th of June 2015, Sunday.

The story of Tabakki…

The story of Tabakki…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Mehmet Arif Tabakki was a good man, a kind man, a well-respected man in the mixed village Alaminos… Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived in this village until 1974 and the Tabakki family always had good relations with their Greek Cypriot villagers. Sometimes they would partner in planting of fields, they would work together and share the burden of life as well as enjoying whatever gift the earth would bring to them…
The Tabakki family had such a good name in the village, also among the Greek Cypriots that some of them would feel very comfortable if the Tabakkis would be in the fields in order to send their daughters to work in the fields… They trusted he would protect their daughters like one of his own children.
Tabakki's wife Meyrem was also a hardworking Turkish Cypriot woman, well respected in the village by both communities.
An old Greek Cypriot in the coffee shop in Alaminos, Mr. Charalambos Dimitriou would tell me a story about Mehmet Arif Tabakki:
`At the beginning of the 1960s some Greek Cypriot youngsters had been arguing during elections about who to vote for… In the end they would go and ask Tabakki who to vote for and Tabakki would tell them who to vote for and they would vote like that!`
Tabakki had a lot of land in Alaminos and around – nowadays very valuable land…
Mehmet Arif Tabakki's son Ahmet was also a well-respected person in this village. Again in the coffee shop we hear a story about him:
`Before the 1963 events exploded up, there was a Greek Cypriot called Nenni with whom Ahmet Tabakki was a good friend and they worked together… Nenni, one day told Ahmet, `This country will not go for the better… I am going to go to Australia` and left his own fields in the care of his friend Ahmet Tabakki…
But all good stories on this island generally end with a tragedy and Alaminos and the story of Tabakki would be no different…
On the 20th of July 1974 as Mehmet Arif Tabakki saw a group of Greek Cypriot soldiers attacking the village, he would take his family to the orange grove he owned and he would go and check what was happening. At the orange grove there had been a `motor house` so the family would stay there while the 84 year old Tabakki would say `I will go to Kofinou to inform the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces there about what is happening here…` and he would set out to go following the river… Most probably shots would be fired from the nearby church, killing Mehmet Arif Tabakki by the river bank… His family would remain for three days in the motor home of the orange grove until someone who knew them would come out and tell them to stop hiding and come back to the river…
Meanwhile around 13 Turkish Cypriots of the village would be taken as prisoners of war and would be made to stand in front of a wall and executed in cold blood… The Tabakki family, coming back to the village would see the bits and pieces of parts of brains and blood on that wall… And then the Tabakki family would leave to go to Kofinou…
Mehmet Arif Tabakki's body would remain by the river bank for 10 or 15 days more, at the exact place where he had been shot dead… And then someone would burn his body…
Meanwhile some Turkish Cypriots who had remained in Alaminos would inform the Tabakki family in Kofinou that Mehmet Arif Tabakki had been shot and killed and then burned by the side of the river. When hearing this tragic and devastating news, the son of Mehmet, Ahmet Tabakki would take his own son Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been 12 years old with him to go back to Alaminos… The wife of Mehmet Arif Tabakki, Meryem would also come with them… They would go on his tractor to the side of the river.
`As we collected the bones of my grandfather, my grandmother Meryem was crying… My grandfather was wearing a checkered shirt in black, green and white and we would find bits and pieces of his shirt, swirled because of the fire… My grandmother Meryem would recognize this shirt… We had found pieces of his skull but did not find too much remains… We collected whatever bones we found and put them in a bag… Taking this bag we would go back to Kofinou with our tractor and while entering the cemetery we would use a back road since being on the main road those days would be dangerous…We would bury the remains in a grave we would dig – a grave of 70 centimetres deep… Then my father Ahmet would put two stones, one at each end and would write my grandfather's name on the stone… Mehmet Arif Tabakki would be the only Turkish Cypriot from Alaminos who would be buried in Kofinou…`
These were the words of Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been 12 years old at the time…
There were 15 `missing persons` from Alaminos… The remains of all 14 Turkish Cypriots `missing` from Kofinou had been found by Xenophon Kallis from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee except one: The remains of Mehmet Arif Tabakki… Kallis had told me that he knew that the `missing` Tabakki had been buried in Kofinou and I would try to help to find someone who knew where he had been buried. The son of Mehmet Arif Tabakki, Ahmet Tabakki had died but I would find the grandson, Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been the 12 year old kid present at the burial. I would convince him to come with me and show me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the burial site of his grandfather…
So we had gone to Kofinou and Alaminos on the 23rd of January 2012 Monday – exactly three years ago – in search of the burial site of his grandfather… We would go together with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Sosyal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Our first stop would be Kofinou…
`When we buried him, it didn't even cross our mind that we would leave and would never come back…` Mehmet Ozarifoglou explains to me…
`When the checkpoints opened we wanted to come with my father to find my grandfather's grave but quite a few Turkish Cypriots discouraged us from going… They said, `Greek Cypriots went with a shiro (bulldozer) to the Kofinou cemetery and destroyed all the graves!` and we believed them and did not go! But he would see today with his own eyes that these had been lies: When we find the cemetery he exclaims, `Oh my God! Everything is as we left it! Nothing has been touched!` and he can't believe his eyes – some Turkish Cypriots lied to them but in order to understand these lies, he had to come here to see with his own eyes…
We find the back door and climb up to try to find the grave of the `missing` Mehmet Arif Tabakki… Mehmet Ozarifoglou finds a few graves and says, `This might be the grave of my grandfather…`
Kallis had done research about the `missing` Mehmet Arif Tabakki in 1995 and he had found out that he had been buried in the Kofinou cemetery… We take photos of the possible grave and other graves around this one and leave the cemetery. We leave Kofinou to go to Alaminos to the spot where Tabakki had been killed.
At the exit of Kofinou on the road to Alaminos, on both sides of the road, the Tabakki family had lots of land and their own water wells…
We reach Alaminos – we see the spot where 13 Turkish Cypriot `missing` from Alaminos had been buried and exhumed – their remains were the first to be returned to their families and it was the first burial ceremony among the `missing` Turkish Cypriots…
Then we go to find the river… `My grandfather was shot just across the church` says Mehmet Ozarifoglou… We also see the house of the Tabakkis and the fig tree that Mehmet Arif Tabakki had planted with his own hands: The fig tree is still there… We stop to take photos of this tree… Then we find the river and the church…
A refugee from Rizokarpasso who came to Alaminos as a refugee tells us that once upon a time, while planting this field, his father had found a shoe and some bones inside the shoe… He had not taken that shoe… The remains most probably belonged to Mehmet Arif Tabakki…
Until mid-60s this river would flow both winter and summer and then it would only flow in winter time… The Greek Cypriot from Rizokarpasso would cut some fresh onions and gulumbra from his field and would offer to us… We would stop at the coffee shop of Despina from Agios Amvrosios…
There had been a two storey house here where 5-6 Turkish Cypriots were using as a military post but it has been demolished. They had killed five Greek Cypriots shooting from this military post… In Kofinou in the middle of the village, they have built some statues of these five Greek Cypriots who had been killed in Alaminos – we stop and I take their photographs…
Mehmet Ozarifoglou remembers:
`One of the Greek Cypriots who had been killed had been overweight – he was lying here on this corner, on the floor – we had seen him as we were leaving Kofinou at that time, he had been killed, lying dead…`
This had been the visit we made three years ago – now I receive news that the exhumation teams of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun digging in Alaminos in the place where Mehmet Arif Tabakki had been killed and that after this, they would move to Kofinou to the possible grave that we had shown to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
What great shame that a person as kind hearted and good as Mehmet Arif Tabakki from Alaminos has been killed like that… What great shame that people like him, innocent, nothing to do with any conflict – whether Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot – have been killed…
In Cyprus most good stories end with tragedies… We must do everything humanly possible to prevent these in our common future...

30.4.2015

Photo: Mehmet Ozarifoghlou by the side of the river at Alaminos...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 31st of May 2015, Sunday.


Statement from a reader

Mr. Tilemahos Ioannides from Polemi called me last week to say that "The relatives of those killed during the bombing of the Turkish airplanes from Polemi had nothing to do with the criminal killings of the old woman Aliye and her son from Evretou". He said that the relatives of those killed in the bombing, had nothing to do with those crimes that he did not approve of. "War is something else, but killing innocent people is criminal" he said. Mr. Ioannides said that he had been wounded during the 1964 conflict and was under treatment for six months in the hospital and he had lost his brother at the bombing but despite this, in 1974, when Arodes village was surrounded he did not allow any Greek Cypriot soldiers to go into the village and he did not allow anyone to touch Turkish Cypriot villagers from Arodes. We thank Mr. Tilemahos Ioannides for sharing this information with us.