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Spyros Constantinou was born in July 1953 in Tseri… His father's name was Constantinos Sohpocleous. His mother's name was Irini Constantinou. They had five children, two girls and three boys and Spyros was the youngest… I interviewed him last year when he came for a visit from Australia to Cyprus and it was a huge interview, an eye opener when he told me the stories from Tseri… I would call this series of the interview with him that lasted 12 days when I published double pages each day in Yeniduzen last year in June and July 2017, `The island that lost its innocence`…
His family had become a target of EOKA-B in 1974 when they were arrested and tortured and he would tell me the details of what had happened…
But because Tseri was a place where we found some `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Aredhiou from 1963, I wanted to know what he had heard as a child in those days (he was 10 years old in 1963) and later on in order to understand what actually had been happening in Tseri…
Today I am giving my Greek Cypriot readers a summary of his interview – the actual interview could become a book and his experience is quite unique… I thank him for sharing what he knew with us and wish more people could be as brave… Here is a summary of what he said to me in connection with Tseri…
`My father was a farmer. But the difference between my father and the rest of the villagers was he was the first one that started the industrialization – he was the first one who got a tractor, then a combine and then the olive processing plant – he had a mill and it still stands there… My sister inherited it and transformed it into a fashion centre but she kept some of the old machinery that was in the mill…
I grew up very free, in a typical Cypriot village of the 50s and the 60s, most of the time barefoot… We used to wear shoes on the weekend or if we went to school, some kids went with shoes and some without shoes until the time when plastic shoes came… They used to cost 3 shillings. So everybody had shoes because it was cheap and it was readily available from the cooperative of the village…`
One of the `main characters` of the village was a man named `K.` who had a hideout for EOKA members inside his house. When little Spyros had had to have an urgent appendix operation at the age of 10, just before the intercommunal fighting broke out in December 1963, he had been taken to a private clinic just across the Ministry of Interior – mother of Spyros would see that `K.` was playing `tavli` with the Minister of Interior Yiorgadjis just across the clinic… In those days Yiorgadjis was a big name and this `K.` was very friendly with him, going to the Ministry of Interior to see him every day…
`K. had a team in the village… They would always move together, go to the coffee shop together, sit together, talk only amongst themselves… What was their mission? Surprise surprise! The reports they were giving were not at all about Turkish Cypriots but they were following the `communist stuff` in the coffee shop – their `reports` were about who was communist in the village!`
In those days, the police would find former EOKA members and would ask for `help` when intercommunal fighting began… And this was what had happened in Tseri as well… Spyros says:
`In those days there was no `army`. The police had become a de facto army. And their numbers were not sufficient. That is how they would go to former EOKA members and ask for `help` from them. They were doing this for two reasons. First, these EOKA members knew how to use guns so they did not need training. And the second reason is most probably they were eager and willing to help. So that's how they were going to the well-known persons from the right wing – almost all of them were right wing, asking them to help. That's how they were being involved, for `helping the police`. They were not seen as `paramilitary forces` but as `helping hands/aids for the police`. The land rover would be a car owned by the police and they would have one or two policemen in the front but at the back of the land rover would most probably would be four or five persons with guns and these would be those civilians, the former EOKA men. Some of them we knew from their faces, we knew those from our village but there were others from other villages. We would fear them and would be `respectful` since we were instilled a fear that the `Turkish Cypriots would attack and kill us` - we had only one-sided information, from RIK and the village authorities like the priest and the teacher… So if a few days ago some Turkish Cypriots had shot at some Greek Cypriots and if these guys would pick up guns and go to a Turkish Cypriot village, then you would look at them and say `Thank God that they are protecting us…` So in this way, they became the de facto leadership in the village. You had no choice, where would you go if you had a problem? When they turned into a de facto leadership, they would automatically acquire a political status. Because the high-level hierarchy and ministers were `thanking` them! They were `respecting` what they were doing and were giving them access…`
`… These were the anti-communist McCarthy years… The whole world was chasing `communists`! Our community was almost choking, couldn't even breathe… Be careful, don't do this, don't do that… Don't go there, don't cross to the Turkish Cypriot side! There were at least five different versions of what would happen to you if you accidentally crossed to the Turkish Cypriot side: "He crossed accidentally to the Turkish Cypriot side, laid him on the floor and crushed him with the tractor…` or `They put Bel-Cola bottles up their ….` The stories were so horrible, stories of torture and inhuman stories, you had to be extra careful… Similar stories would be told to the Turkish Cypriots because the source was the same and the boss was the same but we did not know that… And you had to be on good terms with the `Organisation` otherwise your daily life would become very difficult: You would suffer when you would go to the army, they wouldn't give you a job in the civil service, you would never be able to become a teacher since they would not take you there since you needed a `reference` everywhere – and you needed to find a `reference` - and where did these `references` come from? They came from these people in the village… They controlled every aspect of the daily life…`
The discovery of some Turkish Cypriots killed and buried in Tseri would come in bits and pieces over a long period of time to Spyros:
`My father was ploughing the fields… And he asked me not to go in a certain direction of the field. I didn't know why, I was 10 years old… Then the smell came – in those times when a donkey or a big animal died, they used to leave it exposed and the birds would come and eat it… We used to chase the big birds. Vultures… Because they were big birds, it would take time for them to take off so we used to chase and if we caught one, we would tear a feather off and sell it to those who played laouto… If we managed to get one of them, we used to sell it for six shillings…
When I got near the place of the smell, I saw a little thing that stuck up… When I went a little bit closer, I became afraid because I suspected it was something human, maybe a foot… But I didn't get close to it because the smell was horrendous so I ran away. But my father saw me and chased me… I asked him and he said `None of your business…`
My father didn't know anything about it but he suspected obviously what was happening but didn't want to speak to me about it. He never wanted to speak to me about it. So it stayed like that in my mind, not knowing… I didn't know who it was, I didn't know what happened there… I didn't know, I just had this fear…
A little while later, in the coffee shop of the village, there was this man. In those days, as today, they go hunting on Sundays… And they came back after they got some birds or rabbits that they hunted and they were sitting in the coffee shop and they still had their shooting guns and everything and one of them there was shouting about how he executed somebody. And I was sitting at a distance from him. I wasn't part of the conversation, but he was telling the story to somebody and he was shouting when he was talking. So I could hear what he was actually saying. And he was describing this young 20-year-old – he never said he was Turkish Cypriot – but he mentioned the conversation between them… And he said how he was begging him not to shoot him and how he put the shotgun to his head and blew his brains off… And he was saying it in a very loud way and in almost like a `hero` type thing. That's when I heard the second part of the story…
The third part of the story came even later… Later on, there was conversation again in the coffee shop about some Turkish Cypriots that were taken from Aredhiou… And somebody was saying a story in the coffee shop again and he said that they went to this Turkish Cypriot village and they asked them if they had any guns. And they kept on saying no, no, no but the police said to them that `we have information that you do.`
And one of the women turned to the men and this was supposed to be a `joke`, this is why the story was being told and they were laughing about it because apparently the Turkish Cypriot woman turned to her husband in front of the police and said `Why don't you just give them the guns and let them go away? We don't want them…' And they were laughing at her `stupidity` if you want to call it that way, in inverted comas, for `giving away` her husband. So they searched the house and they said they found guns. And then they started beating the husband because they thought there were more guns and again they said the Turkish Cypriot woman spoke and they found more… This is how the story was told… And then they said, they arrested them all… `All`… I didn't know what `all` was… Was it `all` that family? Was it other families? I didn't know how many Turkish Cypriots lived in Aredhiou, I didn't know if there was any there… We didn't know… As I told you, coming to Nicosia was a big deal in those days… And they said they found a cache of weapons in the village and that they arrested the Turkish Cypriots. But they never said they killed them. They never said what they did with them, that was the end of the story that I heard.
Again later on there was a rumour that they brought them to Tseri… And that's when I started connecting the dots… And some years later my brother actually said to me – I don't know where he heard it from – he knew the story with what happened to me with the well and the bodies and the smell – and he said to me `Do you know who was buried in that place?` I said `No…` He said `You remember the guy who was telling the story in the coffee shop? They are the Turkish Cypriots from Aredhiou…`
I said `How do you know that?`
He said `I heard it… It's them…`
But it was rumours… There was no confirmation. Nobody actually stood up and said `These are the people…`
We knew broken bits and pieces of the story but you couldn't connect the dots, you heard the first part and long time later something more, then all of a sudden you start thinking `Is it? But is it?'
We didn't know. So you live with this thing and you put it at the back of your mind and you think, `Maybe, maybe not… Maybe I should shut up, maybe I shouldn't say… But who do I say to? Who do I put this to? There was no one to report it to even if you were suspicious… If you went to the police to report it, they were going to say to you 'What exactly are you saying? Are you saying that something went wrong? Why are you investigating?`…"
I will continue to tell the story of how Spyros experienced 1974 in another article…
30.9.2018
Photo: Spyro Constantinou
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of October 2018, Sunday. My interview with Spyro Constantinou was published in the YENIDUZEN newspaper in Turkish between the 26th of June and 10th of July 2017 and here are the links:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada-10879yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada2-10883yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada3-10887yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada4-10891yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada5-10896yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada-6-10904yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada7-10909yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada8-10914yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada9-10918yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada10-10922yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada11-10926yy.htm
http://www.yeniduzen.com/masumiyetini-kaybeden-ada-12-10938yy.htm
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