Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 99 966518
How many funerals, how many deaths, how many graves?… How many `missing persons'` remains have I witnessed being taken out of how many wells… How many relatives' tears have drowned my heart… Enough!
It is enough!
We are all human beings… In this small island, hundreds of our humans have been destroyed for nothing with pretexts like "you have eyebrows over your eyes, your hair is not brown, your hair is not blond, you speak Turkish, you speak Greek!" Whether they were Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots, humans were killed…
For whose interest was this done? For just a handful of Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot families to become "rich", that's why it was done. They created a bunch of overly rich persons so that they can continue to exploit our island for their own interests… Those who planned this, enriched it with provocations, got help from outside and implemented it have caused the traumas that our communities have been living with…
They have caused traumas of the relatives of women and children killed in Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa… They have caused traumas in Palekythro, in Derinia, in Tochni, Komi Kepir, Eftagomi, Dikomo, Synchari, Meneou, Famagusta, Gouphes, Morphou, Kyrenia, Agios Georgios, Lapithos, Karavas, Paphos, Vretcha and Polemidia… Like a web of crime scenes all over the island, those who have killed have caused horrible psychological destruction to those who remained behind… The relatives of those killed remained alive to experience such deep pain and sorrow…
Whether in the 1950s or in 1963-64 or 1974, the pain our communities went through was the same: A missing father, a missing brother, becoming a refugee, poverty, the childhood stolen from children…
I say "Shame on you, shame!"
Even today there are those who defend tension instead of peace and who wants us to live with the result of all these crimes instead of the solution… I say SHAME ON YOU since they disregard how human lives were destroyed for petty interests… SHAME ON YOU… SHAME ON YOU who defend tension and conflict, instead of peace and understanding…
I just got back from the funeral of a "missing person"… I am very sorry… This person's daughter was tiny when he had gone "missing" – little Pantelitsa was only two years old… As she was saying goodbye to her father, reading her speech in tears and with a shaky voice, my dear friend Maria Georgiadou had collapsed on a chair, as though carrying the weight of all of Cyprus on her shoulders… The "missing person" was Stelios Orphanides from Kythrea who was married to Xenia from Neo Chorio Kythrea… Xenia was devastated, not being able to move… This was one of the most dramatic days for Maria Georgiadou, his sister, George who was inconsolable and hugging those who came to pay their condolences and crying… Maria and George, only some months ago had buried their beloved son Stelios who had been named after the "missing" uncle Stelios Orphanides…
Maria and her whole family had gone through a very difficult period in the past months – losing their son Stelios at a young age and then being notified that her brother Stelios' remains had been found in Voni… Going to the laboratory to see the remains of her beloved brother, trying to console his wife Xenia and his daughter Pantelitsa… Who will console us my dear Maria, having lost so many of our communities? Who will cure our hearts?... Definitely not those who talk about more tension and more conflict… Definitely not those who talk only about money, only about gas, only about "defence", only about "property" but never about our broken hearts, our pain, our suffering in a humane way… Do they care my dear Maria that your mother and father and sister are still "missing" from Kythrea? Do they lose any sleep at night thinking of them? All those people in "power" who make deals and sell this piece or that piece of our country, all those who love the corridors of "power" and who make tours in Varosha to try to trigger more hatred and more pain and who try to trigger other higher walls between our communities… Do they lose sleep at night over our "missing" persons of our communities?
I came to the funeral of Stelios Orphanides together with Sevilay Berk who herself lost her mother and father when she was only 17 years old and had a lot of siblings left behind… She had to become a mother and father to them, she had to take care of them, a girl of 17… Her husband Mustafa Berk is also here… My husband, my heart comrade Zeki Erkut is also here… We were together with Christos Efthymiou whose brother was sent to be massacred at a young age so that the partition of this land could be accomplished… Michalis Yiangou Savva is here, whose brother was killed for the same reason: To partition the island… The decision of the "big powers" who had been playing games on this land for centuries and using "local co-operators" from both communities to achieve this partition…
We were together with Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia who had left her mother at home in Limassol and came here – we embraced, trying to share this pain… Christina's mother is getting worse and worse psychologically – after all the traumas she has gone through, having lost her son and husband, having become a refugee in her own land, having lost all her land, her house, her property, having to start from scratch and hold on to life with the hope that they will "return", even going and buying a house for her "missing" son, to have a place to live in in case he returns… All of this devastating her and now having buried her husband and son whose remains were found in a mass grave in Galatia, now she has lost direction about how to survive on this earth or whether to survive or not… Christina, with a broken heart, on the edge of tears and we embrace, to share all this…
In October, more funerals… We will go to Maratha to bury 19 Turkish Cypriot "missing" persons… They are from the group of 126 women and children and old men and old women who have been executed by EOKA-B and buried in mass graves… The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee did exhumations in Maratha and the remains are being identified – last year we buried groups of women and children… And CMP will continue to dig the mass grave in Aloa… More funerals, more pain, more proof of what war has done to this country… More proof to those who pretend not to see and not to hear about how human lives are destroyed so long as you create tension and hatred…
We will go to Maratha to bury them again, our words will become thorns in our throats, words will become stones in our stomach and our tears will flow like rivers… Those who do not feel such heavy pain should shut up now! Enough! It is enough! Just shut up!
It is enough so many dead bodies, so many memories, so many fears, so much torture and so much pain!
It is enough!
We want to live peacefully on this soil. We want peace… We do not want fighting, tension, vengeance and hatred… We do not want the lives of our children and our relatives to be sacrificed for the petty interests of a few… We want to be part of humanity where international law will be truly implemented without any "temporary" clauses… We do not want our children to live in fear, with suspicions and with uncertainties – we want peaceful lives for them…
We want our children to look at the moon and the stars, living under the blue sky, enjoying our turquoise sea and bright sun and dream of a beautiful future…
It is enough!
How many funerals of "missing persons" I have attended… How many funerals, how many deaths, how many graves…
How many `missing persons'` remains have I witnessed being taken out of how many wells… How many relatives' tears have drowned my heart… Enough!
It is enough!
Those who have not opened a grave and buried their loved one there don't feel these, it is enough!
Those who do not feel the deep darkness in the hearts of those who wait for their loved ones to come back, let them shut up and not speak anymore!
It is enough!
7.9.2019
Photos:
Maria Georgiadou, Pantelitsa and Xenia Orphanidou, receiving condolences at the funeral of their beloved Stelios...
The remains of Stelios Orphanides were found in Voni...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 6th of October, 2019 – Sunday. Similar article was published in Turkish in the YENIDUZEN newspaper on the 6th of September 2019 and here is the link:
http://www.yeniduzen.com/artik-yeter-14421yy.htm
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