Sevgul Uludag
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On the 31st of May 2016, our friend Ilker Salih in London goes to the Hackney Cypriot Association in order to meet the best friend of his father, Kamil Ahmet… Ilker, makes an interview with him and sends me what he writes…
Here is what Ilker Salih wrote:
"Fazil Onder, victim of the separatists…
Kamil Ahmet was my father Irfan Salih's best friend. Kamil was born in Chamlikeuy near Lefke (Kalochorio). Like his best friend Irfan, Kamil moved to Nicosia at a very young age. It was here where he would grow up and make friends with individuals who worked tirelessly for workers' rights and Fazil Onder would be one of them.
Fazil Onder was born in Omorphita in 1926. He finished primary school but was unable to attend secondary school for financial reasons. At a young age, he started working in a saddle shop as an apprentice with his brother Cemal. When he learned the job, he founded his own saddle shop with someone called Ahmet.
In 1949, he became member of various labour unions, including the Pancyprian Federation of Labour PEO. He started working at the Cyprus Turkish Education Club (TEK) in 1951. Ahmet Malyo, Dervish Ali Kavazoglu, Mehmet Edisson and Onder had created this group in order to educate themselves in politics, economy, and ideology. They started listening to Moscow and Sofia radios and reading Turkish media. They read everything they could find and spread socialism through the TEK club. Later they published a newspaper called Inkilapchi (Revolutionary). Onder was the president and Ahmet Sadi and Kavazoglu were the columnists of the newspaper.
The newspaper supported the friendship of Greek and Turkish Cypriots. After its fifteenth issue, it was shut down as a threat to the British colonial rule.
On the day of Onder's murder, Kamil was visiting Terzi Abdurahman in his tailor's shop which was only round the corner from Fazil's shop. This old lady came by with a pram and the noticeable thing about the pram was that it was full of fruit and vegetables she purchased. The lady had explained to Kamil that a communist had been shot in front of the Ayia Sofia mosque. A sense of horror came into Kamil's mind as he wondered who it could be and immediately ran to the scene. Apparently an attempted attack on Fazil Onder in his shop by gun fire failed and Onder gave chase after the attacker with one of his knifes he used as a tool. What he didn't know the attacker had an accomplice who managed to stab Onder with his own knife in the back.
Kamil arrived at the scene and to his horror saw Fazil Onder lying on the ground with a knife in his back and the crowd was telling him to keep away. Kamil explained 'Could you imagine my friend was lying there looking up at me and I was threatened to keep back. What was Fazil thinking? I was helpless…"
That scene has haunted Kamil all his life and explained to me that the killer was standing at the corner of the road observing. Minutes later 4 Turkish Cypriot special constables arrived and threw his body into the back of a land rover. It was clear at that point Fazil was still alive. Rumour has it they drove around till he died. Kamil ran back and got on his bike and eventually ended up at the PEO unions office and asked for help in finding Fazil. PEO attended the main Nicosia hospitals but his body was not there. They advised Kamil to keep a low profile and stay indoors for four days. A few hours later leaflets were distributed by the Turkish Cypriot underground "organisation" threatening anyone who attended his funeral.
Kamil Ahmet himself had to leave Cyprus in 1967 due to threats from the underground organisation. He explains to me: 'It's very important that the young of today know what we endured in those difficult years. Fazil Onder was a true socialist and no one could change his beliefs as he was very passionate about his ideologies and a very decent person…'"
I thank Ilker Salih for being so insightful and kind and interviewing a witness to the murder of Fazil Onder…
In fact, where Fazil Onder is buried is still unknown. His funeral had been banned by the underground "organisation" and only a few attended – those who attended are long gone now and his daughter Ayshe Zeytincioghlou still does not know where her father is buried. Sure, we know the cemetery and there are a few graves there and one of them must be Fazil Onder's but which one?
I helped Ayshe and her family to apply to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee for finding the remains of her father in one of those few graves of Kaymakli (Omorphita)… She also gave DNA sample but so far there has been no development…
Recently the Turkish Cypriot trade unions held a demonstration in Nicosia together with PEO in order to give the name of "Fazil Onder" to the place where Fazil Onder's shop had been… The Turkish Cypriot police intervened immediately and told the Greek Cypriot trade unionists that they could not demonstrate together with Turkish Cypriots, they did not have "permission" to do that! If they would continue to be part of the demonstration, they would be arrested they were told. So PEO leaders left the scene in order to avoid being arrested by the Turkish Cypriot police. The Turkish Cypriot trade unions and NGOs while protesting the attitude of the police, continued and named the place "Fazil Onder Place"…
Later on the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality would agree to the naming of this place after Fazil Onder…
Fazil Onder had been killed on the 24th of May 1958… So 57 years after, the regime in the northern part would still hold grudges against him and the likes of him and would send its police to the demonstration to stop Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots from demonstrating together!
In an interview back in 2005, Fazil Onder's only daughter Ayshe had told me what she and her mother had suffered… She had been only one and a half years old when her father had been killed and they had kept that information from her so while growing up as a child, she would always expect her father to come home and bring her a present, a doll… One day, one of her cousins would tell her that her father had been killed and was not coming back and was not bringing her a doll… As a child she would be devastated and would run to her mother to confirm the harsh truth…
"My mother, each time I would ask her about my father, she would start crying…"
So her mother would say little… And Ayshe did not want to upset her mother…
The only thing that remained from her father to her is a pair of shoes that Fazil Onder had made for her – she had shown me those shoes of leather and a book… In 1963, they would become refugees from Omorphita so nothing would remain from her father…
"Everything, all his books, newspapers, articles, everything he had were lost when we became refugees from our home in Omorphita… For many years we lived in different refugee settlements… So the only thing that remains is this pair of shoes…" she had said…
"The only thing I want is to find out which one is my father's grave" she had told me…
I hope that one day we can manage to help effectively so that Ayshe would be able to visit the grave of her father Fazil Onder, trade unionist and journalist, murdered by Turkish Cypriot fascists…
25.6.2016
Photo: Fazıl Önder…
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 24th of July 2016, Sunday.
