Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
One of my Turkish Cypriot readers, while talking of another subject, all of a sudden has the urge to tell me something shocking… He must have kept it in him for half a century, without being able to tell anyone and now he has found the opportunity to talk about it…
He says:
`It was after the troubles between the two communities began in 1963-64 but I can't remember the exact date… It could have been around 1964-65... A Greek Cypriot had passed from the Greek Cypriot side to the Turkish Cypriot side of Nicosia from around Ottoman Bank – yes there was the Ottoman Bank once upon a time, near Lokmadji barricade, that is the beginning of the Ledra Street…
He was a well-built youth, maybe around 25 years old. He was tall and strong. There is the famous bicycle of our famous kebab house owner Anibal, you know with the front to put things, right? Well, he had one of those bicycles and I remember he always used to pass to the Turkish Cypriot side in Nicosia and would go around. I believe this kid was a baker or was working in a bakery…
That day he was wearing what we old people call `fanella`, that is what the men used to wear under their shirts, the white `fanella` because it was summer and it was hot…
He had come from the area where there are the Chappa buildings… He must have crossed from the Paphos Gate and turned right towards Lokmadji where there was the Ottoman Bank…
I remember that day that there was a fuss at the barricade… The commander responsible for the Lokmadji barricade was having a heated argument with the UNFICYP Commander… This UNFICYP Commander was a very tall guy, I think he was from India… The UN Commander was saying, `You put this barricade too far, you have to take it back` etc. and there was arguments between him and the Turkish Cypriot commander.
This young guy with the bicycle came at that moment, I remember him very well… He had big muscles on his arms and he was well-built…
While the scuffle at the Lokmadji barricade was continuing, some Turkish Cypriot soldiers caught this young guy and took him to the cellar of the Communal Chamber and killed him there.
They had killed him there, at the basement of the Communal Chamber… Later on they buried him at the Tekke Gardens in Nicosia… The body of this young Greek Cypriot `missing person` is also there…
If they ever dig the area of the Tekke Gardens one day, they will find the remains of this `missing` Greek Cypriot there… You know very well that both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing persons` were buried in the Gardens of the Tekke in Nicosia and I could never understand the `stubbornness` of the Turkish Cypriot side for not allowing to dig there… Why this stubbornness? Because sooner or later this place will be dug and the remains of some `missing` will be found in this area… Those who were buried here are not inside the cemetery – I heard from one of those who knew that they had been buried next to the wall of the cemetery… This must be investigated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and excavations must be done in that area…
Years later as I was speaking with my friend, the Turkish Cypriot commander who had been arguing with the UN Commander that day, he said to me, `You know what I feel sorry about most? That boy that others took away and killed in the basement of the Communal Chamber while I was arguing with the UN Commander… I feel most sorry for this kid…`
I want to tell you something else that I remember now… We had passed from Exometochi right after the war and there were so many dead bodies lying around… I believe they must have been buried there… Too many bodies and they were all deteriorated for staying out in the open for some days in that heat… Please investigate this as well…`
The Communal Chamber my reader is talking about had been where the late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash had his office. Because my sister's husband, Kutlu Adali - who would be killed later on in 1996 by sinister forces on this island – had been his private secretary, I used to go to these offices as a child and I remember very well that they had offices also responsible for education, for lottery etc. This was the seat of the Turkish Cypriot administration…
I could never understand why I would feel goose bumps while entering this building – ever… Now it starts making sense… You must know the feeling when you pass from somewhere or when you visit a place and you have an eerie feeling for no clear reason at all… Now it makes sense: There must have been some sort of bad energy left there due to this killing in the basement… And we don't know what else happened there…
I would go to the Communal Chamber to see my sister's husband and my sister at work – my sister Ilkay Adali was working in the finance department and was responsible for drawing the lottery… All the women civil servants, on certain days, would line up outside to draw balls from a revolving machine to declare the winning ticket and my sister, young and beautiful, would be one of the women civil servants making the draw…
Under the Communal Chamber (Kıbrıs Türk Cemaat Meclisi) were a variety of shops: There was a famous shoe-maker, Bahcheli – the grandfather of our journalist friend Simon Bahcheli – who would make shoes for my sister… There was two confectionaries – one of them the famous Tatlici Shukru and the other Sozer Confectionary… So as you approached this Communal Chamber, there would be the wonderful sweet smell of cakes that would hit you and you would want to stop and buy some marzipan or some other delicacy… The reason I constantly went to the Communal Chamber, more than anything else, was the bookshop at the entrance of this building: Ozker Yashın Bookshop… Ozker Yashin was the father of our famous poet, our friend Neshe Yashin and although I grew up in a library since the age of three – and I would leave no books unread in the library – I still had an account with the bookshop that my sister's husband Kutlu Adali had opened for me at
the Ozker Yashin Bookshop. I would go and buy books from there and at the end of the month, Kutlu Adali would be paying for this… In the end he gave up since he could not cope with me, as a child, getting so many books and devouring them! I would get the series Tintin from Herge who was my idol at the time and many other books… Adali loved books, he lived with books, he lived for books – he too had a huge library and he liked binding his own books in his free time. He made his own bookshelves and spent most of his wages on books, newspapers and magazines…
After my reader's information about the killing of a Greek Cypriot youngster in the basement of the Communal Chamber and burying him in the Gardens of the Tekke in Nicosia, I would consider myself lucky when I would come across some photos I had never seen of the Gardens of the Tekke… I would be on FACEBOOK when one famous photographer, Dervish Guryel would share some very old photos from the burials there… I would take these photos and notify the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… I would also speak with Mr. Dervish Guryel who would tell me that a guy he did not know from before, some days ago contacted him and gave him a bunch of photos as a gift… That these photos were taken by the Turkish Cypriot PIO in those days, back in 1963-64…
Why were these photos so striking? They were striking because it shows that the burials were not in the place where the cemetery is today at the Gardens of the Tekke…
We must do more investigations about the Gardens of Tekke and see what sort of progress we can get… These photos that I share with you today – that I also shared with my Turkish Cypriot readers when I printed them on my page in YENIDUZEN newspaper – is a step forward towards solving the puzzles in the Gardens of Tekke and bringing us a step closer to finding the burial sites of both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing persons` buried there…
I thank my reader for all his information about the young `missing` Greek Cypriot and I also thank Mr. Dervish Guryel for sharing these photos…
14.10.2015
Photo: The way Gardens of Tekke were… Photo: Courtesy of Mr. Derviş Güryel…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 1st of November 2015, Sunday.
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