Stories from Trachonas, Omorphita, Dikomo…

Stories from Trachonas, Omorphita, Dikomo…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Last night a reader calls me since news about the exhumations behind the Nicosia Central Prison in the northern part of our capital has refreshed his memory…
`I don't know if this will be of any use to you` he says, `but I want to share what I know…`
He had been a policeman working in traffic back in 1974 and he had seen the collected bodies of `missing` Greek Cypriots – according to my reader, they were brought and they put them in an empty spot next to the Nicosia Traffic Police – at that time across a flour factory, at the very beginning of Ortakeuy in Nicosia.
`They were around 35-40 or 45-50 bodies` he says…
`We had made various complaints since these bodies had stayed for some days and they had been deteriorating… We had called the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality and they had come to put something over them, some spray or lime… They were all dressed in dark blue if I remember correctly, I think these were the uniforms of the reservist Greek Cypriots… After some days a person called ……. had come with his shiro and they were put on a truck and taken from there…`
I thank him for this…
Many of our readers from the very beginning, at repeated times had told their memories about how the `missing` Greek Cypriots ended up behind the Nicosia Central Prison, in a military area…
One reader had visited me and we had spoken for hours…
It was him who told me that this area was not only an area where they buried collectively in mass graves, some `missing` Greek Cypriots but it was also an area of executions. That they had brought some Greek Cypriot prisoners of war and had executed in the same area…
Some readers had told me that there had been some wells in the area and some were buried in wells but I could never find out where these wells might have been…
Some readers had come with us to show us the area and we had gone with Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, as well as Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal, the officials of the CMP.
Another reader of mine who had been a young Turkish Cypriot soldier in 1974, had told me how they had collected those Greek Cypriots killed in the area of Kaymakli (Omorphita) and had loaded them on garbage trucks that belonged to the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot municipality… There had been a group of Greek Cypriot soldiers who had been inside the church in Kaymakli (Omorphita) – 15 of them or around that number – who had been killed there… They were prisoners of war and they were executed in the church… There had been women in the church as well but they were taken away and sent back to the southern part of our island. According to my reader, the Greek Cypriots killed in the war that they were assigned to `collect` were not just soldiers but there had been a number of civilians as well... They had gone in houses in Omorphita and had collected dead bodies of civilians…
`The bodies were in bad shape and afterwards we all had boils on our skins, those of us who had to collect these bodies and load them on trucks` he had told me…
Apparently others collected other bodies from Trachonas and it is believed that they were eventually buried behind the Nicosia Central Prison in the northern part of our island… Some readers also said they might have been buried around Dikomo…
The area where remains of `missing` have been found is not Trachonas but the industrial area where I work at the premises of YENIDUZEN – the daily newspaper. This area is between Dikomo and Hamit Mandrez… But because the bodies were also collected from the Trachonas area, people have been making a mistake saying that the digging is in Trachonas. There is no digging in Trachonas now but there is also information from there – that while building a military hospital after 1974 in Trachonas, that remains had been found… Some of my readers who had served there, shared information about what they know: That some bones were under the canteen and some bones under the hospital… But this too is a military area and perhaps one day the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee can do excavations there when they get permission… In fact, the very first excavations when they had begun digging had started from this military hospital but with no results… There
has been also readers who shared information concerning Dikomo… Some of these places where my readers have shown, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee did exhumations and found some remains of some `missing` Greek Cypriots. But there is more work to be done in Dikomo – and again, it depends on when the CMP will get `permission` from the military to dig there as well… But all of this does not stop us from investigating and writing… This is an ongoing process and we will continue to work hard with the help of my readers from both sides of the dividing line in Cyprus.
Another reader contacted me and wrote to me about a possible burial site in Kyrenia…
`There is something that I have been hearing from my parents and always I had in mind to contact you and tell you` he says…
`At the entrance of Kyrenia near the English Cemetery, there is a place called……. (he gives a name) and in the southern part of this area I heard that they had killed a lot of Greek Cypriots in 1974. I was not there but my mother and father used to tell me that in this area there was a terrible stench… I will send you a google map so that you can see what I am talking about…`
He sends me the map as he promises… When I look at the map he has sent me I see that the whole area has been `developing` and has become full of buildings… There is only one place where he describes that is green…
I immediately contact Okan Oktay who is responsible for exhumations in the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and tell him about this area… When I describe him the place, he says that there has been no digging in that area. I will send the map to him as well as the other officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they can do investigations in this area to see if in fact there is a burial site where my reader is mentioning…
According to my reader there are also a chain of wells in this area going from north towards the south all the way to the new mosque that they built in Kyrenia…
The area that my reader is mentioning about a possible burial site is close to the Hirondelle junction while entering Kyrenia… There has always been information from my readers that there had been burial sites behind the Hirondelle…
I thank all my readers for their humanitarian and voluntary work with me and those who want to call me either with their names or without their names can do so – my phone number is 99 966518… Any information about our tragic past will help to heal the wounds of our divided country and bring us one more step closer to creating a better future…

4.9.2015

Photo: Archeologists digging behind the prison in Nicosia… Photo: TAK News Agency.

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 27th of September 2015, Sunday.

Stories from Koutrafas and remains found in the yard of a school in Lapithos…

Stories from Koutrafas and remains found in the yard of a school in Lapithos…

Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518

It was back in January 2007 when a Greek Cypriot reader had told me about the possible burial site of two Turkish Cypriots who had `disappeared` in 1964. Eight years ago, this Greek Cypriot reader had told me the following:
`Two Turkish Cypriots, both from Lefka, one of them middle aged and the other one a young guy are buried under the bridge in the village Koutrafas. Some villagers from Koutrafas told me that the houses of these `missing` Turkish Cypriots were in Lefka.
These two Turkish Cypriots were arrested in Morphou and had been taken to the police station there. And then they were taken from there and were moved to Koutrafas. There had been a very big and strong guy who was an `EOKA` man and he had taken them. According to the villagers, he had taken them under the bridge in Koutrafas, shot them and buried them under the bridge…`
Eight years ago, I had informed the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee of this information about Koutrafas and I had tried to find out who might have been taken and possibly buried there as my reader had claimed.
We had gone to Koutrafas on the 22nd of January 2007 together with Tony Angastiniotis – the film and documentary maker – and had looked at the bridge… It was a huge bridge…
I had felt very strange that day because I did not know anything about Koutrafas… Tony would tell me the stories from Koutrafas…
It had been a mixed village until 1963 though the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived in separate parts of the village. When violence broke out in December 1963, at some point following those days, the Turkish Cypriots of Koutrafas not feeling safe there had fled to a neighbouring Turkish Cypriot village.
They had actually been very poor according to the stories and some Greek Cypriots of Koutrafas would immediately go looting their houses.
After a few days, the Turkish Cypriots would return to Koutrafas and they would be in shock to find out that their houses were gone! In order to make sure that the Turkish Cypriots would NOT return to Koutrafas, some `wise guys` among the Greek Cypriots of Koutrafas would demolish their houses with bulldozers… So when Turkish Cypriots went back they would find nothing to return to!
Tony would take me there and show me the area where Turkish Cypriots used to live before 1963. The only proof was the stones laid out during the building of the houses on the ground. There were no walls, no doors, no windows, no buildings at all! It was simply flat land!
Tony would show me where a house had been and where the kitchen or the toilet might have been…
He would show me where the Turkish Cypriot school used to be but there was nothing to show that a building existed there except the stones on the ground showing the outline of the building that once was…
It was winter so everything was green and pretty and it was open fields and open land but no proof that people lived here except for the stones that Tony would point out to me…
`If you take aerial photos, only from the sky you can see the exact layout of the Turkish Cypriots' houses in Koutrafas` he would tell me…
Eight years later, I would find out that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun excavations under the bridge in Koutrafas looking for the two Turkish Cypriot `missing` from 1964 and it would all bring back these memories of that day we had spent in Koutrafas…
We had been following together with Tony the lead to this information – we needed to find a certain priest from a village from this area and we would go to different villages asking about him but finally in the village Kannavia we would give up since Tony's car was almost on fire – the engine had become very hot… We had stopped at different villages and people would tell us to go to the next village because the priest had gone to do this or that and we would move and try to find him without success. According to the villagers he might have some idea about what might have happened in 1964… In the end as it was visible that we might actually burn the car in our futile attempt to catch the priest we had stopped and gone back to Nicosia.
From the fields where once used to be the houses of Turkish Cypriots in Koutrafas, I would pick up some stones to bring home as a memory from this day… The Turkish Cypriot part of Koutrafas had become a `ghost village` and it would leave a mark on my heart…
Now I am happy that after eight years from the time we had given the information that two Turkish Cypriots might be buried under the bridge in Koutrafas, excavations have been started by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee under the bridge… After some time I find out that they had found nothing during digging under the bridge. I hope that the remains of the two Turkish Cypriots `missing` from 1964 will be found to be returned to their families for a proper burial, if any of you can provide more information if you know what had happened here…
At that time I had made an investigation about who they might have been and had found out details and had informed the CMP. One of them had been a baker but also was carrying oranges and potatoes to different parts of the island… The young guy he had taken with him to help him carry oranges to Famagusta. The baker used to bring potatoes to Koutrafas, bread to Dikomo and oranges to Famagusta… So he was well known in the area, as well as Koutrafas. He had loaded oranges and had taken them to Famagusta and on his way back had stopped in Nicosia. He and the young boy accompanying him had disappeared on their way back from Nicosia to Lefka.
I had also found the relatives of the two `missing` Turkish Cypriots and had interviewed them… The relatives were their brothers… The brother of one Turkish Cypriot `missing` has died a few years ago, the one I had interviewed… The brother of the other Turkish Cypriot `missing` emigrated to Australia some years ago… Although for the ones who are `missing` time does stop at the age when they `disappeared`, for their relatives time does not stop and flows into the future without waiting for us to move! So if the remains are in fact found under the bridge in Koutrafas and later identified through DNA and if it is the two Turkish Cypriot `missing` persons that we think they are, some of the relatives to take back their remains is no longer there… Sure they might have other relatives but the time has been working against those relatives who remain behind waiting for concrete results. In the case of the two Turkish Cypriots `missing` 51 years have
gone by as in the case of many Greek Cypriot `missing` 41 years have passed… Time does not wait for us, time just goes on and on while some of the relatives die still waiting for results and some of them emigrate or have emigrated to other far off places like Australia…
But let us end this article on a good note: There is good news from behind the prison in Nicosia in the northern part of the city where remains of some `missing persons` have been found… This was the 12th time that they had been digging in the area and finally they have found the burial site… My readers over the years had insisted that there were mass burials here and had given details about where the bodies were collected from and put in trucks… One reader of mine was responsible after the war of collecting bodies killed in the war from the Kaymakli (Omorphita) area and he had described me in detail about what he had seen and I had written about his recollections. Another reader had insisted that behind the prison – the prison did not exist in 1974, it was built after – some Greek Cypriots had been shot and buried. He had insisted that it was not just a mass grave but also a place for some executions.
The other good news comes from Lapithos where back in June this year we had shown the possible burial site of two `missing` Greek Cypriots with the help of one of my readers. The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun excavations there last week and started finding the remains of at least one `missing` person just as my reader had described, inside the yard of the lyceum in Lapithos… To think that all these years, children have been playing around and attending school while two `missing` Greek Cypriots were laying down under the soil next to the wall is a bit eerie. The whole country is strange when you think of it, Koutrafas is strange, Tochni is strange, Karpasia is strange, Lapithos is strange, Chatoz is strange – wherever there are killings and blood, it attaches its memory to the land and even if the majority of our communities pretend not to see except their own and not the other's pain and suffering, it still continues to exist when
human remains come out of the yards of schools or out of the industrial area or in the avli of a house… No matter how hard they try to hide, truth would always find a way to come out to stare at us stark in the face to remind us of the violence that existed on this land 40 or 50 years ago… It is up to us to make sense of all this as time goes on and does not stop for us to wait for us to `comprehend` the actual meaning of this eeriness…


3.9.2015


Photo: View from Koutrafas where there used to be the Turkish Cypriot part of the village...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 20th of September 2015 Sunday.

The `heritage` of Karasavva…

The `heritage` of Karasavva…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Τel: 99 966518

I had started investigating a group of `missing` Greek Cypriots from Trikomo more than five years ago…
The daughter of Karasavva, Pepa had called me and we had spoken and then after a while I had met her husband, Tasos Georgiou in the house of Sevilay Berk whose parents had been `missing` from Trikomo as well…
Tasos had told me about the suspicions they had about the possible burial site and I had called a Turkish Cypriot reader living in Trikomo and we had gone with him back in 2010 to check the area…
And then I had asked the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to come with us to show them the possible burial site of four `missing` Greek Cypriots from Trikomo… This was an empty plot of land – the house there had been demolished after 1974…
It was across the Panagia Church in Trikomo – the family had a bakery across where the house had been and although the bakery is still there and working last time I had looked, the house had been demolished…
The house was the house of Anastasis Karasavva Sitarenos… He was laying down in bed since he had not been well and his wife Kakoullou was there, as well as his brother Lambros, Agamemnon Sotiriou and his wife Maria and Meletta Dimitriou…
On the 17th of August 1974 as the Turkish tanks entered the village they would stop in front of this house – Turkish Cypriot soldiers were accompanying the Turkish soldiers. They would ask them to get out of the house and put their hands up… They would put their hands up but after a while would get tired and put their hands down… They would be shot and killed and two hand grenades would also be thrown at the house…
Karasavva would survive perhaps because he had been laying down on his bed and they might have thought he was dead. But he would survive to tell the story… He would be taken to the Turkish Cypriot hospital in Nicosia for treatment and on the 24th of August 1974 would be sent to the southern part of our island together with other wounded Greek Cypriots. Lambros would also survive…
Three years would pass from the time we had shown the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, until exhumations would begin in Trikomo for the four `missing` Greek Cypriots and they would find the remains in the place we had shown them in 2013: Three women and a man buried in the yard as was described to us… Now they are still waiting for the DNA identification…
On the 28th of June 2015, together with Sevilay Berk and her husband Mustafa and her daughter Beste – an opera singer – I would go with my husband to the get together of Trikomo people to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the football club Anagennisi (Sylloghos Anagennisi) at the invitation of Tasos Georgiou. We would go to Aradippou and there we would meet people from Trikomo, Sevilay's friends and old neighbours from Trikomo Pervolia like Dimitris Shallis…
We would see the daughters of Papaioakim, the `missing` priest of Trikomo…
We would sit to listen to the speeches and eat and talk… The club would honour those who have served voluntarily for many years and all around would be a form of happiness of being together…
They have also prepared a book for the 75th anniversary of the Anagennisi Club and there, they have put the photographs of the `missing` of Trikomo: Both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots – the photos and stories of Sevilay's mother and father, Shefika and Huseyin Ahmet Kamber are also in this book… It is people like Tasos Georgiou, the son in law of Karasavva, who have made this happen… Tasos and people like him from Trikomo know that the pain of the `missing` is not `unique` to only one group but it is a common human pain for all Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot relatives of `missing` persons…
We are sitting at a long table and talking and soon I realize that I am actually talking to the son of Karasavva, Phanos Karasavva.
And soon I am shocked to learn that Karasavva also known as `Vrakas` had built the most beautiful house in my mahalle, the house of Zeka Bey from Platanisso, the famous judge very well known in Cyprus.
The story of `Vrakas`, that is Anastasis Karasavva Sitarenos is quite interesting for me and I learn details from his son Phanos and his granddaughter Katerina…
`Vrakas` was born in Trikomo in 1900 and died in Limassol in 1984…
His parents were Elias and Vasiliki and they had three boys and a girl.
His two brothers had got married very young and had left Cyprus, one to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the other one to the USA.
Vrakas had got married to Kyriaki (Koullou) and they had four daughters and three sons.
The `specialty` of Karasavvas was that he was a very famous builder and one of the biggest contractors in Cyprus between 1925 and 1974.
He was building schools for Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots and also storage houses and houses…
He had built schools for Turkish Cypriots in Korovia, Galinoporni, Pergamos and other places…
He had also built the house of Zeka Bey in Nicosia which is on the street where I live!
He had built high schools in Strovolos, Famagusta and Nicosia.
He had built storage houses in Boghazi, Karpasia, Lysi, Derinia – he had built the cinema `Nicolaides` in Trikomo as well as private houses in many villages in Famagusta and Nicosia.
He had been a very calm, honest and peaceful person and was very well respected by both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots…
According to his granddaughter Katerina `As well as the people they worked with him, they have been so pleased they have met and worked with him. Some of them they became famous house constructors, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots…`
He was a very tall man, 1.90 and according to his son Phanos, he liked to eat fish and over the weekends he would meet with several friends in the taverns, eating and drinking and dancing a little bit.
`We built a lot of schools in Nicosia and Famagusta`, Phanos remembers… `As well as in the Turkish Cypriot villages in Karpasia… We built the cooperative stores in Lysi and elsewhere…`
`Vrakas` would take his young son Phanos with him to work… Phanos remembers that Turkish Cypriots also worked for his father and sometimes his father would ask Phanos to ask one of the Turkish Cypriot workers to sing a song for them while working…
Phanos remembers some Turkish words from those days…
He too moved to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) for work but now is back in Cyprus…
I feel happy and honoured to meet the family of Karasavva who had been a remarkable person and who contributed with his skills in building schools, homes and storage houses… He had been a peaceful person but `war` does not `differentiate` between `good` and `bad` and in overwhelming cases, it is always the `good` and the `peaceful` who suffer because of the war, the innocent wife of Karasavva being killed, along with other innocent people… And all those who paved the way and triggered `the war` somehow have `survived` without a scratch!
I am happy that I have at least contributed with the help of my readers in finding some of the `missing persons` of Trikomo, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… And this humanitarian effort connects me with their lives, helping me to build friendships as Karasavva would want us to… After all, his `heritage` was the friendships he built and his family has continued this tradition by inviting me and Sevilay and our families to this event…

13.8.2015


Photo: Anastasis and Kyriaki Karasavva…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of September 2015 Sunday.

Facing our bitter past for a better future…

Facing our bitter past for a better future…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Τel: 99 966518

We get our garlic and onions, our potatoes, our tomatoes and cucumbers, our melon, our milk and honey, our books and our candle to go and stay at the Journalists' Village in Pervolia, Larnaka… No, it is not `holidays` for me but as most of the times in my life, work… We have been getting together with Greek Cypriot youth with the organisation of EDON Youth at PEO Pervolia premises and this is the third camp where we will participate to speak to youth about `missing persons`…
And the next day there is a funeral of a `missing person` from Vatyli and I will attend this to lay some flowers and say goodbye to him, his remains have been found with the help of my Turkish Cypriot readers… The funeral is in Kalo Chorio, not far from Pervolia…
That's why it is very convenient to stay in Pervolia and do my work as well as get a chance to stay here, in this lovely and natural place, away from crowds, away from the city, watching the swallows early evening and cooking fish or chicken and eating by the moonlight, next to the sea… It is a fresh breath of air, away from Nicosia, away from conspiracies and corruption, away from the gossip and envy and hatred… We will wait for the cats to come to feed them in the evening and sometimes, if we are lucky, the hedgehogs will come as well… We will sit and read our books, my husband and I and light our candle and look at the moon coming out of the sea and the stars, so bright and so many in the night sky…
We will smell the jasmine and there will always be a small breeze carrying the smell of the sea nearby… We will relax and collect figs from the tree and eat them after breakfast or lunch – we will call friends in the area to see if we can meet or at night we will go to Kiti or Pervolia village to sit outside and eat and simply enjoy life for a few days…
On Saturday I go to PEO's premises in Pervolia – Andreas Sizinos comes, the son of the `turkoboullo` (`rural constable`) of Gypsou who had been `missing` and whose remains were found in Chatoz village. Andreas Sizinos lost both his father and one brother in 1974 – he knows the value of life – he had a difficult and tough life and he has 8 stents in his veins going to his heart. But if you meet him, you think he has absolutely no worries – life is too precious to let yourself go, life is too precious to immerse yourself only in sadness, life is too precious so that's why Andreas Sizinos tries to enjoy life, as well as working hard…
Next comes Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia from Komi Kepir who has lost her father and her brother in Galatia in 1974… She has a huge heart full of love and she comes on this day all the way from Dora village to speak to youngsters about her life, about her loss, about her feelings… She has three kids, her mother Panayiota lives in a small refugee house in Agios Athanasios and she lives in Limassol… She built a house together with her husband – he is from Kontea – in Dora and all the time when she was doing this, she was thinking of Komi Kepir. It is very painful for her to go back and see her village although she does that and she is very active in the Komi Kepir group, organizing events at the church in the village which has been renovated recently. They will have a big activity on the 26th of September and everyone, including the Komi Kepir people living in London are looking forward to that. Christina is like a bee, she is not afraid of
work, she cooks, she cleans, she organizes, she takes photos, she tends her fantastic flowers, she has a way with nature that is very rare in people – she talks to her flowers and her plants and they bloom and they smile back at her… Her children installed a programme for her so she can look at the stars and know which star she is looking at because the skies in Dora is even more full of stars – the darkness and the height helps her to embrace the stars even more while in Dora…
But on this hot day in August, despite her sorrow she has come all the way from Dora to Pervolia because she knows it's important to share our learnings, our feelings, our truths with the youth… August is always a painful month for her since this is the time that things happened – her father and brother went `missing` while they were being kept as prisoners of war at Galatia, a Turkish Cypriot village not far from Komi Kepir. We have been searching for information about the burial site of her father and her brother and although all information points to the lake outside Galatia, despite repeated excavations and finding of remains, her father's and her brother's remains have not been found yet. Recently at a place where one other relative of a `missing person` had shown us, there had been digging and the remains of three `missing` persons have been found. We hope that they continue at the lake Galatia to perhaps find more remains…
In a little while Elias Demetriou from EDON and Erbay Akansoy arrive… The grandfather of Elias is still `missing` since 1974 and he knows, understands and feels what it means to have a `missing person` in your family. It is through his help and work that we have managed to organise a series of meetings, six so far with EDON Youth. This is the sixth meeting and Erbay whose whole family was killed at Maratha during the Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa massacre of EOKA-B in 1974 will be speaking to the youth. Erbay is young and he talks about how half of his family had been `absent`, `missing` and how he realized that from his father's side he had no uncles or aunts or grandmother or any other relatives since around 30 of them had been killed and buried in mass graves…
They all give messages of peace and reconciliation to the youth: Erbay says `I have never hated anyone in my entire life…` This is because he grew up with a father and a mother who never taught him to hate… This is incredible and it is like a miracle in Cyprus: Huseyin Rustem Akansoy, Erbay's father, who lost his mother, his brothers, his sisters and around 30 members of his family never hated Greek Cypriots since he learned that it was not the work of `the Greek Cypriots` but the work of a group of fascists, the EOKA-B gangs of Peristerona Pigi and the area and he learned to differentiate and not to generalize and not to hate… While others in his position who had lost family members – both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots - `hated` the other community, he refused to take up a gun and kill someone… He took a stand for peace and he helped create understanding about this most horrible situation we find ourselves in. He is the leader of our
group `Together We Can`, the only bi-communal association of relatives of `missing persons` and victims of war who work together for the truth, for peace and for understanding and for these things never ever to happen again… Him, together with Petros Souppouris who also lost almost all his family in the massacre of Palekythro in 1974 – a massacre done by some Turkish Cypriots from Epikho and another village – have been awarded the European Citizen's Prize two years ago for being who they are and for taking a stand and speaking up for peace and reconciliation. Even the European Parliament have recognized the value of their voluntary, humanitarian work but in Cyprus, they are `kept out of` anything `important`. No one would ask for their opinion while lots of `maskaras` would go on TV or write in newspapers and try to `control` public opinion… Our two main communities of the island and the people they have chosen have not been able to say a
`Bravo!` to Huseyin, to Petros, to Andreas, to Christina… These are the people with the real pain who have faced the worst nightmare and no one ever came forward – except Takis Hadjigeorgiou, the European Parliament MEP from AKEL who proposed Huseyin and Petros for the European Parliament Citizen's Prize – to say `Thank you` and a `Bravo` to them… Not that they do this to get a `Bravo` - they do it because they believe in it and think it is necessary to educate youth about the truth, the truth that is not taught in our schools on either side since each side wants to show itself as the `sole victim` of the conflict.
We speak to youth and answer their questions… We plan to do our seventh activity in Paphos in October with the organisation of EDON Youth… So far, EDON Youth has proven to have the most progressive attitude towards facing history and facing the truth… Apart from YKP Youth (the New Cyprus Party Youth) no other progressive youth organisation have started such a programme – we had done various workshops with YKP Youth with the help of IKME and BILBAN some years ago, bringing together Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot youth around these humanitarian issues but now, it is only EDON Youth leading the way…
On Sunday we say goodbye to Pervolia to go to Kalo Chorio for the funeral of Michalis Pekri, who had been killed by his own Turkish Cypriot friends back in 1974. When Pekri had left the village Vatyli they had shared his animals and when he came back, they did not want to give back his animals! So they would create stories about him and kill him and bury him in a well… My Turkish Cypriot readers from Vatyli helped me to find out the details of what had happened to him after he went `missing` and showed me his burial site… I would share this information with my readers, I would visit his wife and meet his children, I would share everything I knew, voluntarily with the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… After some years, they would dig the well and at a depth of 33 meters, they would find his remains… Today on the 9th of August 2015, his remains are being returned to his family for a proper burial… The church in Kalo Chorio is so packed, it is
difficult to move… My friend Angela, brings a bunch of white flowers that I have asked from her so I can lay them near the coffin of Michalis Pekri… Today is the day to say goodbye to him and not just `hope` but to work hard every single day so no one will ever have a fate like him or like the father and brother of Christina or the father of Andreas Sizinos or like the family of Huseyin and Petros… If we don't work to face our bitter past, we cannot ensure a better future…

10.8.2015

Photo: Andreas Sizinos talking to youth...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 6th of September 2015, Sunday.