Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
How many times we climbed this slope, higher and higher, to reach St. Hilarion?
How many times we came here?
We were here in the hot days of summer, we were here in the cold days of winter, we were here in springtime and autumn…
We were here, not out of fun but for the `missing persons` from the area…
We came so many times, with different witnesses, collecting information, showing possible burial sites…
St. Hilarion area, as a whole has been a tough area since it is a military zone as a whole so you cannot simply enter a military camp to show a possible burial site…
Now with the election of Mr. Mustafa Akinci to the leadership position of Turkish Cypriots, there has been a shift concerning possible burial sites in military zones and this is a very positive development, although it is not enough since half a century passed from the day people `disappeared` - if we look at 1963, 53 years have gone by, if we look at 1974, 42 years have gone by and many parents have passed away, waiting for any news from their loved ones… Wives died, children died waiting for news from their `missing` father… Halil Ziya Desteban who is `missing` from 1964 had seven kids at that time, now he only has three kids alive, four of his kids died, his wife died and out of the three kids, one of them is struggling to survive with cancer… So many tragic stories and allowing the passage of time for so long is actually unforgivable and unacceptable… That is why we insist and we come again and again, to show again and again, to try to get information again and again…
One of my friends said, `In fact what you do is quite contradictory in itself because what you do requires so much patience but at the same time, what you do requires so much curiosity… You combine the two and this is amazing for me…`
Of course she had no idea how much it hurt inside my heart and how I felt like drowning from time to time but I would have to pick up all my pieces and continue if I wanted to get some concrete results…
That is why we are here once again to speak to the same witness we had spoken to six years ago…
Last year in these pages, I had written the story of the possible burial site of seven or eight `missing` Greek Cypriots in the area of St. Hilarion, inside a military camp area… I had said:
"One of my readers come to visit me at the newspaper where I work and we sit down to talk… We had visited him years ago together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and he had drawn up a map of `gamini` and where the remains of some Greek Cypriot `missing` were buried at St. Hilarion. Now he comes to say that if the CMP can get permission to go into this area at St. Hilarion, he is ready to accompany them and show them the exact location of the `gamini` and the burial place of the remains of some `missing` persons.
He had been serving there at the St. Hilarion military camp when he had accidentally come across the remains of some `missing` Greek Cypriots. It had been a `gamini` where soldiers were using as a place to throw trash… As he ordered some soldiers to cleanse out the trash, there came out the remains of the `missing` Greek Cypriots who had been buried in the `gamini`. This accidental find ended up him having the soldiers remove the remains and bury further up... He had provided with detailed information about this incident to the officials of the CMP when we visited him and had drawn up a detailed map…
`You know` he says, `using this map, they accidentally found another `gamini` where the remains of some other `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried, much further down… Actually the map served quite well but in a completely different way! A `gamini` in Boghazi was found because of that map… Some people looking at that map found that `gamini` and incidentally some other `missing` were buried there but the `gamini` on the map is actually not that one, but the one in the military camp… This is a humanitarian task and I am ready to show this place that I have provided the drawing to the CMP… I consider this as a humanitarian duty… To go and show I mean… Because just as Turkish Cypriots want the remains of their own `missing` persons to be found, the Greek Cypriot relatives also have the same right… Now it is time for humanity to speak up… Those who know any information should also speak up…`…"
We have learned that the place he indicated six years ago as a possible burial site has not been marked on the list of military areas to be dug… So that is why we come once again to speak to him… We go with Xenophon Kallis, the Assistant to the Greek Cypriot Member of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and Okan Oktay, the anthropologist in charge of Exhumations of the CMP on the 11th of May 2016, Wednesday to visit this reader of mine…
He greets us and reminds us that he had drawn a map, had provided names who had been there… This had been six years ago…
Once again he draws another map and promises to send me coordinates of the gamini (kiln) which was emptied and the secondary burial site of the remains of `missing persons` they had come across in the camp while he had been doing his military service at St. Hilarion…
`You know, all those remains, they were scattered… There was a whole skeleton but the rest of the bones looked as though they were collected from here and there and then buried inside the gamini` he explains… This was back in 1984-85… So many years have passed since then but he remembers clearly the details… It is not every day that you find remains and I am sure it made a mark on his heart – that is why he cannot forget and he insists that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee should do something about this place…
Someone in charge at that time had collected golden teeth from this gamini and later he would sell these teeth in Kyrenia…
He tells us of another place that I had been working on where some `missing persons` had been buried under a road… There was no asphalt when they had been buried there but as they rebuilt the road, the burial site remained under the road… This was the road going from Timbou to Aphania…
He has found a witness who told him that the road had cracks where there was the possible burial site…
I had written about this place and Katerina Antona who had had a brother `missing` from Agia Kepir (Aya) had also learned that information years ago…
Now I ask him to find the person to show him the exact location on the road where there are cracks and later he, himself can show us…
There were excavations by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee years ago on the left and the right of the road but not on the actual road itself…
My reader promises that he will do his best…
And I am sure he will…
In the evening, he sends me the coordinates of the gamini – the first burial site – and the second place where they had reburied the remains at the St. Hilarion area…
I pass on the coordinates to Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay so they can work on this…
My reader had told us six years ago that if the CMP gets him `permission` to go with them inside the military camp at St. Hilarion, he is ready to go and show the possible burial site to them…
Now he has repeated his offer again – for him this is a humanitarian task and he openly and clearly says to Kallis and Okan that he can go with them, if they like and if they get `permission`, to show them the location of the possible burial site…
I thank my reader for his humanitarian gesture and hope that with his help, more `missing persons` will be found…
With such good and insistent readers, I can bury the pain in my heart and continue…
20.5.2016
Photo: View from St. Hilarion…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 12th of June 2016, Sunday.
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