Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
"Dear friends,
The issue of "Missing persons" have never been on the negotiating table in the bi-communal negotiations between two leaders in the past 50 years.
Leaders of the two communities only remembered the "Missing persons" during their speeches commemorating 21st of December or during 15-20 July with fake tears and nationalist words…
There are still "missing persons" whose remains have not been found after 50 years… Unfortunately, leaders have not shown enough sensitivity for their remains to be found…
What they do is simply "wishful thinking" for the remains to be found…
I am calling on the two leaders here to be active for the remains of "missing persons" to be found, for the compensation and repatriation of the relatives of "missing persons" both in concrete terms and in moral terms, for the forming of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in order to face the past.
Of course, issues of property and land are also important. But the value of the life of someone lost is no less valuable than the value of property…
And this is something important and sensitive and it is non-negotiable…
If we really want peace on this island, the leaders must form a bi-communal commission and apologize to both communities.
Our leaders are participating in a lot of social activities and have very nice photos from these activities.
But why are they refraining from meeting the relatives of "missing persons" from both communities and listen to their problems?
I too am a relative of a "missing person". I lost my first husband and my co-villagers. I used to feel anger at Greek Cypriots because of what I had suffered in 1974.
And this anger, more than the pain I felt was the cause of the deterioration of my health…
But life continued despite everything… And there came one day when I realized that when our bodies get sick, it has to struggle to overcome this sickness otherwise it would die or be crippled, with this consciousness, I managed to overcome the anger I had felt towards Greek Cypriots.
And I put love instead of anger. I put forgiveness. Forgiving does not mean that you forget what has happened or you approve what has happened. Forgiving does not change the past but helps us to walk with healthy steps towards the future.
Dear friends,
Once again I have to stress that peace is not possible without facing the truth, without apology, without forgiveness…
You may fly thousands of doves every day and plant thousands of olive trees… If your inside says something else and your mouth speaks something else, peace cannot be possible…
Thanking you all, I would like to end my speech with a poem of Yusuf Hayakoghlou:
If I was snow on these mountains
If I was a rebel wind
Would you come and seek me out
If I was an unknown grave…"
These were the words of Leyla Kıralp on the bi-communal event we had organized on the 11th of February 2016 Thursday evening on the buffer zone in Nicosia, at the Cyprus Dialogue Forum building…
Having done seven activities for youth about "missing persons" with EDON, this was the first bi-communal event we were organizing with EDON and CTP Youth as "Together We Can" – the Bicommunal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War.
The hall would be packed mainly with Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot youth and I would tell them real life murder and massacre stories from Tochni, Palekythro, Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa, Galatia and other places… I would show photographs where with the help of my readers, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, we had located the burial sites… Close to Agios Dometios, towards Goenyeli, a place where I worked for more than five years together with a reader and followed up for the place to be excavated - remains of 10 or 12 Greeks had been found and now waiting for DNA identification to be returned to their families for burial…
Livadhia and Paralimni, Lysi and Tseri, Pileri and Lapithos… So many stories, so much pain, so much unwritten history of our country…
So much pain that is common to both communities – the event we organized with EDON and CTP Youth as "Together We Can" is entitled "The Missing Persons – The Common Pain of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots"…
To realize that waiting for someone who has disappeared cannot be in Turkish or Greek… It is simply, human pain, not Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot pain…
Sevilay Berk would speak at the event telling the story of the disappearance of her mother and father and she being only 17-18 year old young girl, having to take care four brother and sisters left behind. Having to be a mother and a father to them… The youngest sibling being only 2 years old… And raising her voice to say, "What is it that we cannot share on this island? It is our island… We are all Cypriots… I want peace… I want you youngsters to defend peace…"
Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia speaking and telling the story of her father and brother taken from Komi Kepir and their disappearance from Galatia… The bloody lake… How their murders were connected with the terrible murders of EOKA-B who had created the Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa mass graves full of women and children and babies… How some Turkish Cypriots used this as a pretext to kill innocent Greek Cypriots…
She would ask the question: "Should I be angry with the ones who pulled the trigger to kill my father and my brother or should I be angry with the ones who did things that led to the pulling of the trigger that killed my father and my brother?"
She too would raise her voice for peace: "Enough killing on this island! Enough bloodshed! We want peace…"
Christos Efthymiou would speak and tell the story and the ideas of "Together We Can"… It is a very unique association of relatives of missing persons and victims of war that the leadership on both sides try to ignore… Because it does not "fit in" with either side – its character is bi-communal and all its activities are embracing both communities… It does not take the side of one or the other community but takes the side of both communities' needs and concerns in these issues…
As Dinos Agiomamitis pointed out afterwards in his reflections about the event on his Facebook page, "Christos Eftthymiou from the bicommunal committee of relatives of missing "TOGETHER WE CAN" summed up the meaning of the whole discussion with a compelling statement: "for the relatives of the missing there is no restitution, as they are discussing for the properties that there will be resettlement, exchange or compensation. For the relatives of the missing the only compensation is peace. For other families not to live what we have experienced."
Bravo to EDON, CTP Youth and the bicommunal committee of relatives of the missing TOGETHER WE CAN for organizing this event.
There are many things to be said so that the whole truth to be heard about everything that happened on our island and Workers' Democracy is giving this struggle consistently for many years can not but feel justified and welcomes such events."
I too thank EDON, particularly Elias Demetriou with whom I have been working to organize all these events, to CTP Youth, to our friends from "Together We Can"…
Immediately after this event, I get a call from someone who had come to follow…
"I am going to a meeting today and I will suggest that we do this event as well and invite you all to come and speak to our associations" he says…
"Of course… With pleasure…" I tell him…
Anyone who wants to listen to the stories and the ideas of our very unique group can invite us and we can come and talk…
One thing that touched my heart during the event was when at the end one of those who followed it would suggest that this group should be advising the Bi-Communal Technical Committee on Education that has just been formed…
I thank all who made this happen and definitely we plan to continue to roam Cyprus to speak about our unspeakable truths…
13.2.2016
Photo: Relatives of "missing persons" speaking at the event…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of February 2016, Sunday.
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