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.
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