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.
No comments:
Post a Comment