Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
One of my readers writes to me about a "missing" Turkish Cypriot from 1963, Suleyman Aspiri from Larnaka whose burial site we have been looking for… I had done quite a bit of investigation about Suleyman Aspiri ten years ago and had published my findings but my reader has more to add… He writes:
`I remember how Uncle Suleyman whom the Larnaca people used to call `Suleyman the Shoemaker` was shot… I was around nine years old then and Uncle Suleyman was a very close friend of my father… I believe that his grave is just outside the Larnaka Turkish Cypriot cemetery – from the front towards right, five meters further…
He had been shot by TMT and as a child I had seen what had happened.
Three years after he had been buried there they would pour cement over his grave and build some barracks for the Turkish Cypriot soldiers over it.
What had happened was quite unjust. It had to do with people who slung mud against each other, who gave `information` about each other in order to make a career or get a higher position within the TMT. It was a murder caused by such people…
Until 1974, the barracks were there but as I went to visit last year, there are no longer any barracks or anything, it's been cleaned completely. But still from the remains of the cement we can still find where he had been buried.
Above the cemetery on the hill, the hills overlooking the Artemis road, there used to be Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot military posts facing each other. And the barracks were down below, on the corner of the cemetery.
Uncle Suleyman had two shops near the Aylazaro Church – one selling toys and facing across another shop selling shoes. He had been born in Tochni but had been living in Limassol or in Zygi. He is known as `Kunturaci Suleyman` ("Suleyman the Shoemaker").
He had gone as a soldier to the Second World War and had been in prison. Upon his return to the country he had been divorced from his wife in Limassol and had come to Larnaka to live. He would get married with Auntie Fatma. But he would not have any kids with Fatma. From his previous wife, he had had a son who now lives in Morphou.
At some point in his life Uncle Suleyman had got to know some people from the underground. From then on it was said that he was dealing with guns illegally. People were saying that he was providing guns for the TMT as well…
In 1963 at midnight he went to his shop, he bore a hole at the back of the shop, took the guns there and gave those guns to the TMT in Larnaka. These were revolver type of guns.
I believe there had been a ceasefire on the 28th of December 1963.
I was playing with my brother next to our house in the area called "The road to Tuzhane", on the road leading to the back of the cemetery. We saw the Vauxhall car of Uncle Suleyman… It was an old, green car but someone else was driving it… Uncle Suleyman was on the back seat with his black and white striped pyjamas, his hands tied behind him, half leaning and next to him was someone with a gun… We ran to inform my father and my father immediately got his bicycle to go after them. Unfortunately, whatever he did or said, he could not convince them. They shot him outside the cemetery on the corner. Afterwards they would spread rumours that he had been selling guns to the Greek Cypriots. When I think back now with my wisdom of today, if he was running guns, of course he had to have Greek Cypriot contacts to do that! That is if you did not have Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot contacts, if you did not cooperate with the police and customs' officers, you could not provide guns illegally! TMT already knew that…
I am now abroad but when I come to Cyprus in March, I will show you his possible burial site…"
I thank this reader who has shared what he knows about the "missing" Turkish Cypriot from 1963, Suleyman Aspiri… I had done investigations about him ten years ago and had found his brother Yashar Aspiri and he had told me the story of his "missing" brother.
We would even go in 2009 to show to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, the area outside the Larnaka Turkish Cypriot cemetery where some "missing" Turkish Cypriots might have been buried.
Although presumably killed by TMT, Suleyman Aspiri is on the official list of the Turkish Cypriot Missing Persons. And he is not the only one on that list… There have been others as I would discover during my investigations…
One other person on that official list of `Missing Turkish Cypriots` is Behri Lambiro who is presumably also killed by TMT. I had done investigations about him also, ten years ago…
The same reader who spoke to me about Suleyman Aspiri, would also share what he knew about Behri Lambiro:
"Behri Lambiro was the father of my classmate Caner Behri. When I had been a child, he used to be a bus driver from Larnaka to Nicosia. He used to work with his brother Ismail Lambiro.
He had schizophrenia. I will never forget one trip – I had been a child, around five years old and we were travelling between Larnaka and Nicosia. After passing Koshi on the road leading to Louroudjina, he had taken two Greek Cypriots with beards on the bus… This must have been 1959… The women on the bus started complaining as we were travelling. The women were saying that they might be from EOKA and "What if they pull guns on us, what if their friends are waiting further up to cut the road" and things like that and they were complaining so much that this made Uncle Behri go nuts… He got up as he was driving and pulled out a small knife from his pocket and started knifing the rear-view mirror.
"There is police in this country and politsia, there is king and queen…" and constantly he was knifing the mirror… Close to Nicosia somewhere, British land rovers slowed the bus down and stopped him. They took him to the hospital. He underwent treatment for a long time. He used to use some medicine and when he was using his medicine, he was just a normal person, not harming anyone or anything.
When the intercommunal fighting began in December 1963 and as the roads closed and barricades and enclaves and closed areas created, we had been shut down in the Turkish Cypriot area of Larnaka… Uncle Behri had run out of his medicine and he got on his bicycle and went through what we used to call "The Place Between Two Stones" just across the mosque to the Greek Cypriot side to buy his medicine.
Greek Cypriots would arrest him and after three days we would see Uncle Behri on TV from our neighbour's television set. He was sitting on a chair in front of a curtain. You could make out the silhouettes of some guys with hats – either police or military – from behind the curtain.
Uncle Behri was calling on the Turkish Cypriots saying "What we were told were lies, that the TMT was an underground organisation in order to destroy the Republic of Cyprus…"
And then they gave him his medicine. Three or four days later Uncle Behri came on his bicycle to the Turkish Cypriot side of Larnaka.
They were already waiting for him next to the mosque… The castle, the road there, they shot him on the road. Neither his family, nor anyone said anything…
He was already a sick person; he had only gone to get the medicine he needed. The Greek Cypriots had used him in this way in order to provide him with his medicine. No one listened to what Uncle Behri had said and did what he said they should do – no one went to the Greek Cypriot side at his word like that on TV… And as a result of all of this, he had been killed in the middle of the road…
And this was a murder of the underground organisation or the murder of some people who acted in the name of the underground organisation. It was an inhuman murder. These are people who stole our childhood, our youth… I would never say "HELALI" to them…
The way this developed and the way it happened according to the conditions back then, I believe that Uncle Behri is buried inside the Larnaka Castle. I believe that he is buried right in front of the area where the Turkish Cypriot soldiers in the Castle at that time used to use as "Hamam". If you search right in front of the area called "Hamam" perhaps you might find his remains… Please inform the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee about this and when I come to Cyprus, I will go with you to show you this area…"
I thank this reader for sharing the untold stories of our land…
I hope with his help we can find the remains of these two Turkish Cypriot "missing" persons, Suleyman Aspiri and Behri Lambiro, killed in cold blood, in a very inhumane way and buried and "disappeared" from the face of the earth…
We will continue our investigations about them and continue our search for their possible burial sites so that both our souls and their souls can rest…
5.3.3016
Photo: Behri Lambiro…
(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 10th of April 2016, Sunday.
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