Season of funerals for `missing persons`…

Season of funerals for `missing persons`…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

The season of the funerals begins again, this is the season when most of the funerals for the `missing persons` take place – even if remains have been found and families notified, generally relatives wait for the summer season for their relatives abroad to come so they can take part in the funeral… Cypriots are dispersed all over the world, in England, in Australia, in Canada and that is why the funerals of `missing persons` take part more in July and August as relatives come back from abroad for a visit.
I try to go to the funerals of `missing persons` whose remains had been found with the help of my readers – I try to go to the funerals of both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing` and to be with the relatives in this last journey… For me, this is like putting a full stop and some sort of closure… Working and investigating for years, having found so many things about this or that particular `missing` person from their relatives and friends, they become part of me even though I never knew them… If with the help of my readers we have shown the possible burial site and remains have actually been found, then begins a long wait for the work of the Anthropological Laboratory of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and the results of the DNA analysis.
Sometimes I would call them and ask whether the DNA identification have been done to this or that particular `missing person` who had been found with the help of my readers in this or that particular well. But most of the time, I never learn or rarely learn by coincidence. Most of the relatives of the `missing persons` also never learn about the vital role that my readers have played in the finding of the remains of their beloved `missing person` because this is never told to them. Unless we have been following the whole process together with the family of the `missing person`…
Sometimes we don't know which `missing persons` had been buried in a place we have shown, so naturally we wouldn't have a way of knowing who are their relatives. Therefore only until the DNA analysis is done, the identity of those `missing` would be known but since we are not part of that process with my readers, we wouldn't know and the funerals would take place and we wouldn't find out who those `missing persons` were that we helped to find and the relatives wouldn't know either since they would not be told.
Years ago one of my readers had given me a skull that he had found in Koutsovendis while hunting and had kept it for years. Through my articles he realized that this skull belonged to a `missing person`, that it was human, not a memorabilia to keep. So he called me midnight one day and told me that he wanted to give the skull back. We met the next morning and I took the skull and on the same day gave it to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. I would also convince him to show us where he took this skull from and we would go with him and he would show the archaeologists the area from which he took the skull from. I wondered for years to whom this skull belonged to. Almost every month I would ask whether DNA identification had been done. But I only found out a month after the funeral that the DNA identification had been done, the skull returned to the family and that the funeral took place. It belonged to a young Greek Cypriot from
Alambra and his wife took the remains and buried… Maybe I will find the opportunity to visit his wife one day…
Sometimes I would read about the funeral of a `missing person` that we helped to find in the newspapers. Sometimes the relatives call me and invite me to the funeral and I try to go to those funerals and put some soil and say my belated condolences to the family, the condolences due for 40 or 50 years… Sometimes even this is not possible like it happened with the Rahmi family who had been killed and buried in a well in Livera. With the help of my Greek Cypriot readers I had shown twice to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the possible burial site of this Turkish Cypriot family from Vasilia and wrote their story. They had been a family of seven – five of them kids. They had gone to work for a Greek Cypriot in Livera and were killed in December 1963 and buried in a well… Since there had been no news about the funeral, I could not go… But in spirit I was at that funeral…
There are two funerals in the following weeks of two `missing` persons, one Turkish Cypriot and the other a Greek Cypriot that I will attend. It was my readers who helped to find their burial site… Mehmet Abdurrahman Chatallo will be buried on the 22nd of July in Nicosia and Michalis Pekri will be buried on the 9th of August in Kalo Chorio. I will try to go to both funerals.
Mehmet Abdurrahman Chatallo had been killed in 1974 in Polis and one of my readers, the relative of a `missing person` from Polis, Unay Pasha helped me to find the person who had buried him, as well as others. Shevket Rado from Polis, despite his old age and poor health would agree to come with me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to Polis to show us the burial sites in October 2013. In one spot where he showed, the remains of three `missing persons` were found and in another spot, another `missing person`, a total of four `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Polis from 1974.
I had worked quite a bit investigating about the disappearance of Michalis Pekri from Vatyli and had gone to interview his wife Christina back in 2009. With the help of my readers, I had shown in those years to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, his possible burial site – it was a well… Many years passed until the exhumations began and at the depth of 33 meters, down in the well, his remains had been found. Now his remains are being returned to his family for burial and there will be the funeral of `missing` Michalis Pekri on the 9th of August Sunday at 10.00 at Kalo Chorio (Vuda) at the St. Raphael Church. I will try to attend this funeral – I called the daughter of `missing` Pekri, Maria and she sounded sad… They had gone to see the remains of her father in the laboratory and what came out of the well: the buttons of his shirt, his pants, his shoes… Pekri had eight kids and a farm… He was killed by his Turkish Cypriot
`friends` since they had `shared` his animals, cows, that they did not want to return to Pekri… 41 years after `missing` from Vatyli, now he will be buried in Kalo Chorio where his family had to become refugees and I will go there to put some soil on his grave, as though putting the last full stop on my investigations about him.
I would like to thank from the heart all my readers, both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot who have shown their humanity in this whole process… With your help remains of many `missing persons` have been found and are being returned to their relatives for burial – many many thanks from my heart…

17.7.2015

Photo: `Missing' Michalis Pekri will be buried on the 9th of August 2015 Sunday.

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of July 2015, Sunday.

`The handbook of the organisations…`

`The handbook of the organisations…`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Today I would like to share with you a touching story written by Dr. Dervish Ozer entitled `The handbook of the organisations…` Dr. Dervish Ozer has sent me this story and I published in YENIDUZEN and now we are sharing it with our readers in POLITIS. Here is the story of Dr. Dervish Ozer:

`The handbook of the organisations…`

Dr. Dervish Ozer

Actually there is no such book, I made it up…
As I was sitting down and thinking today, I thought of hundreds of shepherds killed on this island. The shepherds killed and thrown in wells (lakkos)… I thought of their sheep that remained behind, their children, their sticks (topouzi), their bags (vourka), their flutes (bityavli) in their bags and their water carriers made of gourd (nerokoloko)… I thought of the trough made up of palm trees and used to water their animals at the edge of the wells and I thought of their `jiboyi` - the long stick with a hook to catch the sheep – that has been used by shepherds tending sheep for thousands of years on this island.
In the old times, they used to evaluate children at a certain age – they would make the kids wrestle in the centre of the village. Those who would prove to be strong would be sent to tend the ox used in tending fields. Those who would be a bit weaker but whose ear would pick up easily the sounds, those who could blow good whistles, those with a strong voice would be sent to tend flocks of sheep. The weaker ones would be sent to become apprentices to seamstresses and boot makers. The worst ones would be went to school since they were no good for anything with the thought that perhaps they would study and become a `katip` (clerk) so they can keep a record of the wheat, barley, goats and sheep in their weak state as clerks…
Those who would be sent to cut wheat and barley would become `djabbar` (powerful) and would be strong enough to handle two mules easily… A little bit more fragile and with a nice voice would be given to take care of the flock. They would put on his back a shepherd's bag made up of the whole skin of the sheep and they would put water in the water bottle of the shepherd made of gourd and shake it behind him and behind the sheep. And the only thing he would be this, that is taking care of his flock. In the beginning hundreds of sheep would be no different from each other but in time the little shepherd would find out that each sheep in fact has a name and a different character. The little shepherd would learn about their diseases, how to treat them, how to milk them and how to help them deliver their baby lambs… The little shepherd would stay for a long time in the fields and would learn to talk with sheep more than with humans. He would understand
from the eyes what a sheep was trying to tell him. On long summer nights to protect himself from the heat and on long winter nights to protect himself from the cold, he would be sleeping between the legs of the sheep...
And of course, he would learn to make `chakari` (bells hung around the necks of sheep)… After many years the growing little shepherds would come to know that each chakari would produce a different sound and each beat of the hammer on the copper would make the sound of the chakari more beautiful… They would learn that the most hammered copper would produce the best sound and during long nights of winter they would beat sheets of copper to make chakari for their sheep. With each beat of the hammer, they would be able to produce a bell through which they could differentiate the sheep and recognize them from this sound. In short each chakari hung around the neck of sheep would have a completely different sound and would sound different as each sheep walked. Imagine how the shepherd would perceive the sound of a whole flock with chakari producing such a sound… And imagine what sort of an ear that shepherd would have. Being a shepherd needed exactly that
sort of ear in those times…
During the long nights of the summer the flock would be staying on the outskirts of the village, the shepherd would start playing his flute (bityavli) made of bamboo and that flock would listen to that music and would accompany the shepherd's music with their own chakari – there has never been better music composed on this island ever… It would be an amazing sound when especially when the zirziro (crickets) and the owls and the bats would participate in this music but only the Shepherd's God and those who lived on this island would know what a beautiful sound this was…
And then sleep would come… The whole village would sleep with this sound on the threshing floor of the wheat, on their roofs, in their gardens. The shepherds would sleep too but with their ears tuned to only one sound, the sound of the chakari… And if they heard the sound of a chakari, they would know which sheep was not sleeping. Five hundred sheep and on the neck of each sheep a chakari, five hundred chakari and each with a different sound and the shepherd would know which chakari he hung around the neck of which sheep and from the sound of the chakari would know which sheep felt uncomfortable, which one was going where and which one was about to give birth… And he would know their troubles. The shepherds would know which sheep were sad and would take special care of them…
And there were the wells (lakkos) where the sheep would be watered. Those who knew where in Mesaoria they could find water, would take a stick of the English tree and go round and where the stick shivered would put stones to mark this place and two or three persons would dig for days in the heat of the summer with short shovels and short picks (`guspo') until they would find water… Then with donkeys they would carry stones to put around the well so it would not tumble down… It was a skill to dig wells and to find water, not only finding water but also protecting that water was a skill… It was a lifestyle to keep the water in its bed on those long summer days and nights, to pull water with chingo buckets, to put this water in troughs made of marble or palm trees, to water the sheep, to fill the water bottle nerokoloko and to put a little bit of salt in your mouth wrapped in a towel and kept in the vourka… This was a lifestyle of those times…
that is why those who live on this island and the gods know that not a single pebble should be thrown in a well. And will not be thrown. This is only known by those who live and who want to live, they know that they don't own that water and whoever wants can use the well to satisfy their thirst. They all knew that water can be used by whoever was coming there and that some salt would be wrapped in a towel and hidden among the stones for those passers-by to find.
This is known by those who live and who want to live, they know how insolent and how unforgivable it is to throw a stone in a well. And for hundreds and thousands of years on this island, not a single pebble was ever thrown in the wells, until the `organisations` (`teşkilatlar') came along…
The `organisations` came to this island. Everything changed, the old order was destroyed, no respect remained. There came men with guns and started going around. When `organisations` surfaced on this island they produced a book with orders. When `organisations` decided that the easiest target to kill for propaganda were the shepherds with their water bottles, their `jiboyi`, their bags made of sheep skin (vourkas), tending their flocks in the fields, everything changed on this island. The shepherds started being shot treacherously by people who came next to them imitating friendship and with whom they had smoked cigarettes. But the shepherds, just as in the old times had thought of them as friends and would roll a cigarette and give it to them, searching for a little friendship and conversation in their loneliness… How would the shepherds know of the organisation or Enosis or Taksim (`partition`)… Their only concern was how many the yellow headed
sheep would give birth to and how many beats of the hammer they would make on the copper sheets to make chakaris for the newborn and what names they would give to the newborns…
In those years of `organisations`, the shepherds learnt other sounds other than the chakari… They learnt that the sound of the pistols pulled out of the waists of those they came around them and smoked rolled cigarettes with them were quite different. And they learnt that those they rolled and offered a cigarette whom they knew as friends were actually not friends. And the shepherds who had learnt and had taught not to throw a single stone in the wells had to learn that there were different sounds other than the chakaris, that the sound of the flutes would no longer be heard on this island, that the gods of love and the gods of the shepherds had left the island and that the wells were filled up with dead shepherds.
And all of these were written in the organisation books on the island.
Who would be killed for propaganda?
How is a shepherd killed?
And how a shepherd would be thrown in a well dug years ago when throwing a single pebble in a well had been a taboo…
And how about now?
First the gods of the shepherds left the island.
Then as shepherds were killed more and more, there was no shepherd left who knew how to make chakari…
There is no shepherd who knows how to play the flute anymore…
There isn't even wells left behind since wells have been filled up with those who had been killed and buried in wells…
Because in the handbook of the organisations, it was written how to kill a human and how to make that human disappear…
(DR. DERVISH OZER – JUNE 2015)

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of July 2015, Sunday.

Writing about `the banality of evil`…

Writing about `the banality of evil`…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Dr. Dervish Ozer, whose real stories based on life I have published here occasionally, sits down and writes a series of stories on `rape` during the times of war in Cyprus. We create a `Folder of rapes` and I start publishing it on my page called `Cyprus: The Untold Stories` in the YENIDUZEN newspaper. We decide to publish the `Rape Files` for five days – he has more stories though but we choose the most relevant ones in connection with `the Cyprus conflict`.
`Years have taught me that there are no limits to rape` he writes. `Being always together with women as a gynaecologist, listening to their pain and having seen the war, I have witnessed to the kinds of rape inflicted on women…` he continues.
Dr. Dervish Ozer says:
`They have told me stories and I have listened. I will try to tell all their stories… You might say why tell it again, why scratch the wound? And to this I will answer you with the words of a German lawyer, Bernhard Schlink: `Even though we cannot hold responsible the new generations for what has happened in the past, there is a place where old crimes are passed over to the new generations. If members of a society do not bring out the crimes committed in the past out into the open and accept these, if they embrace the perpetrators from their own community and protect them, then they become partners in those crimes. The crimes will be waiting for the new generations until such time that the community accepts this and denounces those crimes. Cleansing themselves of those crimes can only be possible then…`
Dr. Dervish goes on to tell of the rape of a 23 year old girl by a father and a son, how the father taught his 15 year old son to rape…
He goes on to tell another story from Mesaoria where two men argue about raping a woman and how it all comes out years later when one accuses the other of raping a dead woman: He had killed the woman after he had raped her and told his friend that `She is still warm, you can do it…`
He continues to tell stories of harassment and rape within the communities, one of the stories entitled `On those hot summer nights, I had to sleep behind closed windows…` and the title of the other story is `In those times of war I have seen rape coming not only from the enemy but from friends as well…`
The fourth story is entitled `The child born out of rape…` and draws on the fact that there had been a lot of rapes and many young girls were sent back for abortion – somehow one of them gives birth to a child born out of rape and Dr. Dervish tells the feelings of that young girl…
The fifth story is again based on a real story from Mesaoria and is entitled `Years later I saw his photo in newspapers, he was a teacher…`
What Dr. Dervish does is engage himself with dealing with our history, our past, the things that people kept silent about, the things that we should all know in order to re-evaluate ourselves… `What is our place in the world? What have we done to ourselves and to each other? What is this bloody past? What is this history not taught in schools? What went on and why people fell silent? Why these things still not discussed publicly?` Perhaps these are the questions haunting Dr. Dervish and he continues to write and we continue to speak…
There is very few writers who are dealing with the past, engaging themselves to reengage us with dealing with the truth in Cyprus… The mass majority of writers in Cyprus from either community prefers to tell stories of how their own community was a `victim` and very few would go out of their ways to tell stories about how some members of our communities were both `victims` and `perpetrators` - Dr. Dervish does precisely that, not taking the comfortable `side` of his own community but writing about both… The mass majority of writers in Cyprus don't even think about `the other community` - subconsciously it is absent from their narrative, it is all about `us` and how we paid a huge price and how we were victimized and how sorry everyone should feel about us… But for Dr. Dervish nothing is about `us` - all is about `us and them` together, it is about human nature and while some committed crimes how others just watched or how others reacted or how
others tried to save and all in all how we as the two main communities have failed to save each other from so much misery and suffering… He does not just `register` what has happened but tries to capture the feelings of those who have as a result of these crimes suffered: He writes from the mouth of a dead woman or a raped woman or a mother who is giving birth to a child out of rape… He tries to capture the human feeling, the human soul because he is suffering all these years from witnessing all those crimes as a 10 year old kid from Mesaoria and only perhaps by writing these, he can heal his soul… As a 10 year old kid in 1974, he ran among the dead, he listened to stories of the elderly in the coffee shops, he saw how a house was bombed and how his mother would be wounded, losing some of her fingers, swearing at that small age to his mother that he will become a doctor to treat her… And he would become a doctor but more than a doctor through
his writing he is trying to treat our wounds of the past, trying to help us to face our history, trying to heal our souls from the crimes that have become ghosts haunting us…
He writes about the `banality of evil` as in the words of Hannah Arendt – the indifference of perpetrators… In fact I met one of those perpetrators whose indifference would freeze the blood in my veins…
`It was war time` he told me, `in war there is no shame… There is no such thing as honour…`
He had been part of the rapes and killings and had only agreed to speak to me after months of communication with one of his close friends – his friend had convinced him that it was okay to meet with me. This was years ago, probably more than 10 years ago…
I would realize with a shock that he did not know how to read and write, this illiterate man who had gone and killed and raped – he knew those things but did not know how to read and write.
I had shown him the photo of a young boy `missing` from Aphania, trying to figure out where he had been buried… And why they had killed such a young boy, innocent, had nothing to do with any conflict whatsoever…
When I showed him the photo with the name underneath, he could not read and told me so… That he didn't know how to read and write…
He would tell me where they had buried those they had killed from the Aphania area… Later I would tell the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee officials about the burial sites he had told me… Years later they would do exhumations at Ornithi and some other spots and find the remains of some `missing` Greek Cypriots to be given to their relatives for burial…
I would ask him about the rape of a middle aged woman, not able to walk and blind… He would simply laugh and say `There is no honour during times of war, no such thing!`
No regrets, nothing… No feeling… No shame… That must be what is called `the banality of evil`… Just simple `evil` looking me in the eye, sitting in front of me, talking to me as though talking of weather… A black hole among humans…
At the end of our long conversation, he would grab my arm and threaten me that if ever I would disclose his identity, he would come after me…
At night I would sit and think about him – instead of a soul it would be as though he had a black hole inside him… Not human, I would think… Something less than human, something so empty that it is difficult to imagine such a living person with no soul attached to life…
He is still out there, leading his life like so many others from both communities, comfortable in their knowledge of having some sort of `immunity` - they are the `untouchables` since both our communities protect them and they have nothing to `fear`, immersed in their own `banality`, reflecting also the `banality` of our communities for choosing to be silent about all of them… They are not accountable for what they have done since both communities have given them protection by staying silent – staying silent as in the words of Bernhard Schlink, is becoming partners in those crimes…
Dr. Dervish is breaking that silence about the `banality` of such evil, going out of his way to reflect a mirror to our tainted past and the perpetrators who have tainted it… His struggle touches many hearts – many readers tell me of their `shock` in reading the dossier on rapes written by Dr. Dervish… He is connecting our present with our past through telling us about traumatic experiences that's hidden in our history… Because Dr. Dervish does not want to become a partner in those crimes – that's why he is breaking the silence…

13.6.2015

Photo: Painting by Nilgun Güney for the "Color of Truth" exhibition…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 12th of July 2015, Sunday.

The secrets of the lake Galatia…

The secrets of the lake Galatia…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

We sit at the cafe of Home for Cooperation in Nicosia, on the Green Line, having Cypriot coffee, sketto – no sugar. We sit across the wooden table facing each other on wooden chairs… The air is stifling, hot… We have just come back from a funeral and we don't want to leave each other just yet – she has suggested to sit and have coffee so we sit there, not really knowing what to do, Christina and me…
Between us is the lake of Galatia while we drink our coffee – the lake that knows too much but says little and keeps its secrets hidden way below… The lake where some remains have been found one day before, the lake that we visited many times before, showing possible burial sites…
The lake where Christina's father and brother might have been buried though we don't know for certain… They were the taken to Galatia as prisoners of war from Komikebir back in 1974 and they never returned… After the discovery of the mass graves in Maratha-Sandallaris and Aloa created by some groups of EOKA-B, there started a `killing spree` and the Greek Cypriot prisoners in Galatia had paid `the price` for the sins of EOKA-B – not that this can ever be `justified` but that had been the `trigger` for `revenge`… Among those who had been killed was the young judge Takis Hadjinikolaou from Yialousa – he too had been taken as a prisoner and was in Galatia and his remains would be found in the lake in a mass grave of 11 Greek Cypriot `missing persons`.
Today we have gone to the funeral of the wife of Takis Hadjinikolaou, Agni who had passed away at the age of 80… We have gone to the funeral together with Christina and we sit at the Home for Cooperation drinking coffee and again talking about the lake of Galatia… We drink coffee, the lake Galatia between us…
The remains have been found in an area where we had gone together with Christina and Louis - we had driven on a road overlooking the lake where a witness whom Louis had found had told us roughly where there might be some possible burial sites. We had gone together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee later on in July 2010, exactly five years ago and now we hear that some remains had been found where the witness that Louis had found had told us there should be some remains there…
Louis is the son of Andreas Pavlos Loizou known as the `Rich man of Komikebir` who is also `missing` like the father and brother of Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia. Five years ago Louis had come with us to investigate his `missing` father. He had been one of the richest men in Karpasia and was very generous. Almost two meters high, he loved life, working, having fun, going around. He had married Sofoulla from Varoshi whose family owned the Florida Hotel. I would meet her too later on, with her blue eyes, white hair and smiling face, she would greet me in her little refugee house in Pallouriotissa. In all seasons at least 60-70 people worked for Christina's father Pavlos, most of them Turkish Cypriots from Komikebir, Kritya (Kilitkaya) and Livadya... He would be arrested in 1974 and brought to Galatia. He would be the last person in prison in Galatia together with his son, Christina's brother...
The father of Louis, Andreas Pavlos Loizou would be sent to Nicosia to be exchanged as a prisoner of war but he would want to go back to Komikebir and then back in Karpasia, they would make him `missing`... Some of my readers had shown a palloura between Livadhia and Galatia, claiming the father of Louis had been buried there... We had shown this place to the CMP but despite excavations nothing was found. My reader would claim that they should have dug further up so we need to go again to see the palloura and check what my reader is saying...
We feel relieved with Christina that remains have been found in the lake... A team of excavators of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee has been digging in the lake on and off for many years and this time some remains have been found...
Christina found some more information about Galatia and we need to clear that up as well... According to some new information she found in her investigations, a Greek Cypriot was hired with his bulldozer to work on the new asphalt road they were building after 1974 from the main Famagusta-Karpaz road to Galatia – that is the main road of Galatia... While straightening a bend from the old road, there came out some human remains... Although they had promised to pay this Greek Cypriot for his work with his shiro (bulldozer), they never did... I actually have an idea about who this bulldozer operator might be and I tell Christina the name and now she makes some calls and finds out that in fact it is him. We make plans on how to go about it... We call the Coordinator of Exhumations of the CMP, Okan Oktay and tell him about this new information and what we are about to do with Christina... He thanks us...
We had actually planned to go to Galatia today but the best laid plans can always change – one of my readers had found a witness from 1974 and we had been arranging to go and meet him – we already postponed this twice. This time just one day before we left for Galatia, Agni Hadjinikolaou passed away and we decided to postpone going to Galatia again and instead go to the funeral together and lay some flowers for Agni...
Agni had been a wonderful woman from the island Lefkada in Greece – she had got married with the young judge Takis Hadjinikolaou and settled in Cyprus – they would have two sons, Spyros and Panos... When her husband was taken prisoner from the coffee shop of Yialousa in 1974 and taken to Galatia and then `disappeared` she would devote all her life for finding information about her husband's disappearance as well as working for other `missing persons`. She would be demonstrating at the Ledra Palace checkpoint with her husband's photograph and together with other women in black, she would visit different cities like London, Brussels, New York in order to campaign for the finding of the fate of `missing persons`.
I had met her years ago, before the checkpoints had opened in a meeting at the Ledra Palace Hotel... Through my friend Magda Zenon, I had already met Spyros Hadjinikolaou, her son whom I had interviewed back in 2001. We had begun working on his father's disappearance and it would take us about five years to learn all the facts and the place of the mass grave with the help of a family – my readers – from Galatia village as well as with the help of other friends from Germany, London etc.
The new witness one of my readers had found in Galatia now claims that after 1974, they had been given the order to open a mass grave, take out the remains and fill them in bags and leave them by the side of the road in Galatia – that someone would pick them up later, that they should just go home and not think about it. What was the reason for this? According to the witness, they were given this order `because of the judge` Takis Hadjinikolaou but they had dug the wrong mass grave and had taken out the wrong remains... Since they were not the ones to bury Takis Hadjinikolaou there, they dug another place, not far from the mass grave where Takis Hadjinikolaou had been buried together with others. `There had been a campaign by his family internationally, that's why they wanted to find and get rid of the remains of the judge` he would tell my reader.
Incidentally we couldn't go to meet him because the wife of the judge Takis Hadjinikolaou, Agni Hadjinikolaou passed away. Instead we went to her funeral, may she rest in peace now...
But we plan to go together with Christina to meet this new witness from Galatia, perhaps next week if our best laid plans don't get disturbed again... Until we find all the secrets of Galatia and its lake, we will continue to go with Christina to find out all the details...

20.6.2015

Photo: The late Agni Hadjinikolaou

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 5th of July 2015, Sunday.

Stories from my readers…

Stories from my readers…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

A Turkish Cypriot reader calls in the evening telling me that he has a Greek Cypriot friend who had been around 10 years old in 1974… As a child, this friend of his had witnessed the burial of four `missing` Greek Cypriots in Varosha…
`Can we go there so he can show?` he asks…
`I think first you should take him and see if the possible burial site he is mentioning is within the closed, fenced area of Varosha or if it is outside… If it is within the open area of Varosha no problem…`
`Okay, I will do that soonest…`
`And then, we take it from there… But I also have to tell you this: They had killed and buried some Greek Cypriots in the gardens of Perdjana but later emptied this area… I wrote about that many times… There was some information that they had reburied them somewhere in the gardens of Namik Kemal Lyceum – there was some digging by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee but nothing came out – I don't know if they were digging the exact area or not…`
`Now you say that` my reader remembers, `when I attended the Namik Kemal Lyceum in 1975, our teachers wouldn't allow us to go and play football at the football field behind the Lyceum… When we asked the reason why, some of our teachers told us that they had buried some Greek Cypriots there and that it was shallow burials and that bones might come out if we went and kicked around… I remember that the football field at some point had been fenced… And some time later, they put loads of soil on top of the field… Maybe this was a possible burial site?`
`Maybe… Let's try to investigate and see…` I say to my reader… `Another place they were mentioning was the parking lot of the Anit Gazinosu outside the walled city… Supposedly they buried some people under the parking lot – from the emptied mass grave of Varosha… They did some digging somewhere around there but not at the parking lot. I think they found the remains of a single `missing` person under a tree…`
I say goodbye to my reader and we agree to meet after he goes with his Greek Cypriot friend to check around Varosha the possible burial site…
A Greek Cypriot reader calls and tells me that he is working on finding the possible burial site of some `missing` Turkish Cypriots… I wish him luck and we will call each other again…
I meet another reader in London who has some information about Avraam Sophokli from Gardana (Sakarya) Neapolis in Famagusta. Back in 2008, that is seven years ago I had investigated the disappearance of Avraam Sophokli and I had written about him in POLITIS in November 2008:
`It was the morning of 6th of May, 1964 when Hasan Mustafa Barbacholli was stopped by two Greek Cypriot policemen from the Salamis police station. Barbacholli was a young man of 22 of Famagusta, was on his way to the Sakarya (Gardana) area…
The two policemen asked to see the insurance of the car and as Hasan was showing these papers, one of the policemen shot and killed him…
Meanwhile Avraam Sophokli of Sakarya (Gardana)-Neapolis (Yenishehir) had gone to his work in Famagusta on the 5th of May, 1964 in the evening. He was a worker but in the past month, they had told him that he would be working at night for a short period, as a night-watchman. This would be his last night on this earth because in the morning, as he finished his job and was trying to go home, he would be kidnapped in Sakarya (Gardana) and then killed by some Turkish Cypriot fighters, as a `revenge` of the killing of Hasan Mustafa Barbacholli. He would be one of the `missing` persons of 1964.`
A Turkish Cypriot reader, who was a friend of the son of Avraam Sophokli would call me and show me some possible burial sites… I would also meet the son of Avraam Sophokli and interview him about his father's disappearance… I would also meet the wife of Barbacholli and interview her…
I would arrange back in 2008 to go to Sakarya (Gardana) area of Famagusta to show to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee some possible burial sites for the `missing` Avraam Sophokli. They would dig the floor of one house but would not find any remains… The other places we had shown, they have not excavated yet as far as I know…
So my reader in London tells me of a possible burial site close to the house where the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had excavations…
`He is buried in the garage of ……` he says.
`We actually showed this place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee as a possible burial site` I tell my reader from London, `but they haven't dug yet as far as I know…`
`He was actually killed in the house where they dug – this was a military post for Turkish Cypriot soldiers… But he was later buried in that garage not far from this house…` my reader tells me…
He has also questions for me:
`In 1974, they had brought three busloads of Greek Cypriot prisoners at the football field of Magusa Turk Gucu (MTG) Football Club… I want to know what happened to them…`
He has some information about a restaurant in Protaras, that some Turkish Cypriots `missing` from 1964 had been buried under the restaurant and cement was put on top… I would have to investigate that as well to see if it is true or not…
Another reader calls me to tell me how he heard one Turkish Cypriot talking about killing 20 Greek Cypriot prisoners of war from the Pavlides garage… He gives me the name of this guy…
`It was maybe 10 years ago and we were sitting and he was telling us stories, this guy…` he says… `That one day they ordered him to take 20 Greek Cypriots from among the prisoners of war kept at the Pavlides Garage in Nicosia… He was supposed to take them to Ledra Palace for some sort of prisoner exchange but he told us that he never took them there… That he took them to the Pentataktilos where there are some quarries and he killed them there… I thought you should investigate this…`
I thank this reader – more to investigate…
Another reader writes me a note about Samanbahcha… Samanbahcha area in Nicosia belonged to Evkaf and these were tiny houses built for poor persons around a hundred years ago. According to my reader, in the renovation of these houses, in one of the wells the remains of a `missing person` had been found – he still had his cross on his neck… The well was closed and cement put on top… These tiny houses had tiny gardens behind each house and a toilet well each… I would have to investigate more to see what to make out with this information…
Another reader tells me about how her father had buried a Greek Cypriot `missing` soldier in Lapithos in a well…
`When we moved to Lapithos after 1974, my father saw a Greek Cypriot soldier lying dead under one of the trees. He buried him where he had found him… But after some time the garden was given to someone to do some sort of work there so my father got worried that this shallow grave might be disturbed. He opened the grave and took the remains out and buried him further up in a well…`
Her father is no longer alive but her mother is… I would have to go and visit her mother and see if we can locate the well…
I have my work cut out for me for the next several weeks: Investigate, investigate, investigate… I thank all my readers for doing this: Giving me the humanitarian task of working more for those who have been killed and who have no voice – my readers are the voice for those killed, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… Together we do everything humanely possible to find out and to heal the wounds of those living left behind…

6.6.2015

Photo: View from Varosha

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 28th of June 2015, Sunday.

The call of the cuckoo bird…

The call of the cuckoo bird…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Readers call, readers write, readers come and see me… Information flows for me to follow up, to check, to dust 40 or 50 year old `cold cases` of `missing persons` and other untold stories… It boils back to sleepless nights, speaking on the phone with other readers from the areas mentioned to me, trying to make head and tail of what I have in my lap… It all boils back to thinking a lot, even in my sleep and sometimes I would wake up and understand something that I have not before… It all boils back to investigating more, writing more, hoping that others would contribute with little information I come across to build the bigger picture and to understand what actually went on during those days of conflict back in the 60s and 70s…
I go to Poland to the Karnity Castle with my husband and my son to look at the lake, to walk in the deer park, to listen to hundreds of birds singing and one song sticks out: That of the cuckoo bird…
The cuckoo bird captures my heart, captures time, captures my soul… Time passes, time runs out for some of us but life continues… I sit and look at the lake with ever changing colours, clouds reflected on water, the forest around me, so quiet except for the birds and the call of the deer and boars… I walk with the four year old granddaughter of our friend who owns the castle to see the llama sitting in the park… Our friend's granddaughter, Elena calls the llama `Stephanik` and couple of times a day she goes to check on him… `Stephanik` looks at us with romantic eyes and makes funny sounds… It is a big animal with a soft heart – the elegance and natural kindness in animals is something that our species have lost over time as humans become more and more greedy and more and more egocentric… I have filled my luggage with books so I sit and read all day long – the weather is cool, not like Cyprus… I put on a thick sweater to go out and
when the sun appears, I feel happy and grateful…
I listen to the call of the cuckoo bird in the vast silence surrounding the Castle Karnity… I learn while there, of the death of two of my friends… One of them, Louise Diamond was our facilitator in `Conflict Resolution` in the 90s – she had started the conflict resolution process in Cyprus… Professor Dubb had begun a group back in the 80s but it was Louise who would build something that would have an impact on the larger society… She had beat cancer by taking out all poisons from her life – not just physical but things that had poisoned her psychology – and continued to live and work with conflict areas, trying to bring together different sides in conflict… Years later, cancer would come to visit her again and this time would stick with her, not leaving her alone… Louise would tell us that Cyprus is a `conflict habituated system` and in time I would understand perfectly well what she had meant… That the conflict has its residence in
Cyprus, that it is within the system and if you ensure one side to say `yes`, the other side of the conflict would manage to say `no` because you have not tackled the system itself, the source of the alleged conflict… An expired conflict, an imaginary conflict with roots so deep in our conscience and in culture and in stereotypes in our daily lives that we would only be seeing the tip of the iceberg… How to tackle the needs and concerns and fears – all human – that lie beneath the iceberg? Instead of confronting each other, how to ask questions and how to learn to listen because in our culture we never listen, we just get our answer ready before the question even finishes… How to learn personal stories and what this or that person has gone through… How to speak in our own name only, not generalising, avoiding speaking in the name of others… How to represent only ourself… How to reword what the person sitting next to us has just said to
us in order to see if we got it right, if actually that was what he or she meant… Communication skills…
We would build from scratch the `Conflict Resolution Trainers' Group` and meet endless hours separately in our own `sides` and when there would be `permission` to `cross` to Ledra Palace Hotel, we would meet there… After Louise, Benjamin Broome would come to Cyprus from Johns Hopkins University to help us tackle the sources of `the conflict` and to build a shared vision for the future with the help of a computer programme called Interactive Management Programme… The computer programme would shorten the time we would be spending in answering questions like `what aggravates the conflict more? This factor or that factor?`… We would go on to build our own groups – from 30 Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot conflict resolution trainers – the original group that worked with Louise Diamond and Benjamin Broome – our number would grow to 3 thousand, meeting at Ledra Palace, so much so that it would be difficult to find rooms to meet… All of this,
long before the checkpoints had opened – then the Turkish Cypriot authorities would `ban` our meetings at Ledra Palace back in 1997 and most of these groups would stop except some of us who would continue to go and try to meet at the Pyla village…
I would use all I had learnt from the conflict resolution process in Cyprus in order to bring together Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women and some years later together with Katie Economidou, we would create `Hands Across the Divide`, the first joint NGO of Cypriot women – Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… We would have to register it in London with the help of our friend, the writer Cynthia Cockburn and she would even write a book about us called `The Line`…
Others from our group would use their conflict resolution skills in creating other groups – Nikos Anastasiou, together with some Turkish Cypriot friends like Ekrem Varoghlou, Sarper Ince and Ulus Irkad, would get villagers who used to live in the same village but had never met since 1974 because of the partition – they would arrange meetings of villagers around Pyla in a park… Nikos would work with youth groups, bringing them together in Pyla…
My friend Katie with a beautiful voice – she sings and gives concerts for charity organisations all the time – would go out and form the original bi-communal chorus for peace…
Mustafa Damdelen would go out and form the original group of business leaders and work with them…
Katie Cleridou would form the first bicommunal desk in DYSI – something unheard of on those days – and she would come under harsh attack…
Fatma Azgin would bring educators and teachers together and work with them about how they saw as the sources of the conflict and to build a shared vision together…
Yiannis Laouris would go out and continue to work with computers and build his own youth groups…
Harris Anastasiou would team up with Birol Yeshilada in Portland, Oregon to teach at the Portland University to American students about Cyprus, Turkey and Greece and once a year would take his students to Cyprus to see on the ground what is actually happening…
Almost all from our group would go out into the larger society and build their own groups according to their own personal interests or contacts or beliefs…
We would all come under harsh attack... Hate campaigns would be waged against us but we would survive…
I would use everything I had learnt during the conflict resolution process when I would start tackling the humanitarian issue of `missing persons`… Listening, empathising, trying to understand what the other says, trying to go beneath the iceberg to learn the untold stories of our land in agony…
When Louise would be visited by cancer for the second time, Fatma Azgin would want to try to go and visit her or try to bring her to Cyprus so our original group of trainers could get together with her… We would not be able to manage that… The cuckoo bird would remind me that time had stopped for Louise, that at one point or another time would stop for each and every one of us but that life would continue… Others will come, others will live, others will die…
I learn about the death of another friend, Koullis Miltiadou with whom we had been working together at the Cypriots' Voice group… He had helped me to identify a possible burial site in Kaymakli (Omorphita) finding a witness – this was in the buffer zone so I would arrange and we would go together with Xenophon Kallis and some others from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee – the UN would `accompany` us… Digging would start and stop – someone would tell the archaeologists that there might be mines there and despite grave efforts to show there are no mines in the area, digging would stop… Koullis a kind hearted friend whose vision was peace on the island would die in his sleep at the age of 68… I would learn of this shocking news while in Poland…
The call of the cuckoo bird will remain with me forever, sitting in front of the lake, trying to digest the news of the end of time for Louise and Koullis… May they rest in peace: They have spent their entire lives serving humanity and peace… They are the unknown heroes of this land that humans tend to ignore… But in my heart I salute them and will carry their memory with me always…

5.6.2015

Photo – The cuckoo bird...

• Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of June 2015 Sunday.

Notes from London…

Notes from London…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

A thirteen year old refugee girl from Famagusta whom I had never met, never spoken, never exchanged e-mails offers me the keys to her house. She had been 13 years old in 1974 when she left Cyprus with her family to go and live in London… Olia is 54 years old now, that little refugee girl and it touches my heart when she gives us her beautiful house and goes to stay with a friend a few doors down… Her roots go back both to Komi Kebir and to Famagusta – as we talk, we discover that we might have run across each other since her house had been two streets behind Euripides Street in Varosha, where my great uncle Ahmet lived. She shows me photos and google maps – we speak about Varosha, that distinct smell of flowers and the sea where we have not been able to find anywhere else on earth… I would go and stay with my great uncle Ahmet and my auntie Fattush my summer holidays and we would go to the beach and I would be tanning and swimming and smelling
the sea and the suntan oil of coconut… I would get a nice tan and in the evening I would sit on the balcony and listen to John Vickers playing songs at RIK… I had a small red transistor radio and my ear would be glued to the radio, singing along songs like `Yes it's gotta be a long, lonely summer…` (`Sealed with a kiss`)… In those days my mother had bought me a lovely shirt in lavender and had taken out the buttons and instead had sewn buttons with colourful flowers on them and I would wear my shirt in the evening, having washed my long hair, sitting on the balcony and singing along with the radio… Those had been happy days, wonderful days of the sun and the sea and the music and being young, my eyes full of stars, dreaming of a different world, everything opening up and looking forward to life that I would grab with all my passion… My mother taught me to love nature, to love all creatures of the earth, to love all flowers and trees, to
love people… Sometimes she would stay too with us in Varosha and we would go to visit relatives in the walled city, meeting cousins and laughing at things… Those days would be full of laughter and fun and curiosity about everything connected with life…
My auntie Fattush would make jam from apricots that we would eat in the morning, my great uncle Ahmet would have jars of octopus that he, himself caught – the reason why he had built this house in Varosha had been his love for the sea… Throughout his life he would be a champion swimmer, an octopus hunter, collecting hundreds of seashells from the bottom of the sea… In the morning we would go to the beach on his bicycle and come back for lunch and the house would be full of lovely smells of cooking of my auntie… My auntie would polish the wooden floors and I would sit in bamboo chairs at the sofa and dream my dreams about the future… Seashells would be everywhere in the house: Climbing the wooden steps upstairs from the front door, I would see seashells on the way up and in my great uncle's room with Morris armchairs, there would be the best pieces on display on shelves of glass…
Sometimes we would walk the streets of Varosha and look at the colourful life, shop windows, cars and pedestrians and bicycles passing by… Varosha would smell of flowers from citrus trees and the sea breeze would always remind us of the beauty of this earth… Varosha would be full of hotels and full of tourists and you would hear many languages on the beach – I would practice my English and my great uncle Ahmet would always chat with tourists, sometimes inviting them to his house for dinner – delicacies of octopus and other sea food…
Olia's house in London is like a sanctuary for me: It is away from traffic and noise and it's at Finchley, in a very quiet area and it is like a doll's house… In her tiny kitchen, we would sit together with my dear friend Christina from Komi Kebir, with whom I have come to London to attend a ceremony honouring me for my work organized by the Komi Kebir Association UK and the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK… Christina whose father and brother are still `missing` from Galatia where they had last been seen, is a wonderful woman with a huge heart – so Olia, myself and Christina would sit at the tiny kitchen sharing our hearts, our memories, our lives, our hopes and dreams and the obstacles we encounter on the way… It is like a sisterhood in this quiet tiny house in Finchley and I would wear my pyjamas and read my book when they are not there, all alone except the birds in the garden… Birds are living in the chestnut tree and
they would come to the tiny garden full of flowers and plants and would eat the nuts that Olia had thrown for the squirrels so they can come down and I can see them… Olia tells me that occasionally foxes come too, to doze off under the shade of the trees… This house would cure me and refresh me and get me ready for more struggles and more work…
On Saturday the 16th of May 2015, we go to the Cypriot Community Centre where the event would take place… Already some relatives of `missing persons` are waiting for me and we sit down and talk… Soon the room would be packed with hundreds of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots: The Turkish Cypriot Democracy Association also helps to organize this evening devoted to `missing persons` and my work and then there is no space to sit, to stand and some people have to go back because the room is packed… Christina and Olia got 14 yellow roses in memory of 14 `missing` persons from Komi Kebir and these are put in vases in the room to remind us of their memory…
Eleni Tryfonos who is the head of the Komi Kebir Association UK is like a thunderstorm: When she organizes something she would never take `no` as an answer and would storm out to get a `yes`! She has so much energy, such a vivid woman from Komi Kebir that it is simply amazing just to sit and watch her at work… She has put all her energy for the success of this event… She speaks and Mr. Neoklis Neokleous as the head of the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK speaks… Their speeches touch my heart… Mr. Neoklis, in his speech says:
`This special event has been organised today to honour one of Cyprus best. A most courageous peace-journalist and human-rights-activist, Sevgul Uludag.
We honour Sevgul for what she has done for the relatives of the missing persons. This is because most of the information that the investigatory committee in Cyprus has used to locate graves and proceed to identification came from Sevgul. Given to her by ordinary Turkish and Greek Cypriots who trusted her.
For the G/C missing, she has achieved what UN resolutions, ECHR judgements and over 40 years of campaigning failed to achieve. Bring closure to any of the missing persons' cases.
Of course the fate and whereabouts for the majority of the missing is still unknown and the campaign will continue.
For the T/C missing, Sevgul went against the imposition of silence by the T/C leadership and gave their families a platform and an opportunity to tell their stories and claim their right to know as well.
To-date, thanks to Sevgul and the other guest of honour, Christina Pavlou Solomi-Patsia, as well as other good people of Cyprus, some present here today, many families of the missing, from both communities, have discovered the fate of their loved ones and have been able to bury their dead with dignity.
Christina's brother and father are still missing but she is supporting Sevgul's efforts to find others.
We also honour Sevgul for being the champion of reunification of Cyprus and its people. Bringing people close across the divide. I was happy to be present at an event she organised in Nicosia, honouring ordinary T/C and G/C for putting their lives in danger to save the lives of people from the other community.
We honour also Sevgul because through her "untold stories" series she is teaching us our good as well our grim history. She is filling books, paper articles and internet blogs with individual and family experiences of Cypriots who suffered due to murderous actions of extremists from the opposite community. And of people who became the victims of extremism in their own community.
Let these stories be a warning for all the Cypriots. As we hopefully move towards a free united Cyprus. We vouch that these experiences will never be repeated. Let's learn from the terrible mistakes of the past and move forward to a peaceful future, coexisting with acceptance and respect for each other, irrespective of ethnicity, religion or politics. Let's show the world that we don't need any protectors or guarantors.
Dear Sevgul, we are grateful for all you are doing for all of us Cypriots, we wish you well, and hope that the vision you very clearly articulate for a free, united, peaceful Cyprus will soon become a reality.`
Then I make my presentation about `missing persons` and Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia also speaks and almost everyone who came to listen to us are crying… Afterwards we are presented with plaques and then a lot of relatives of `missing persons` come to meet with us and talk with us and enquire information and help for their `missing`… Some readers with the help of Mr. Neoklis come to see me to give me information about some possible burial sites in Cyprus…
I thank my dear friend Christina and Eleni Tryfonos and Mr. Neokis Neokleous for arranging such a meaningful event and I thank Olia as well for working hard to make this happen and offering her beautiful house to us during our stay in London with Christina…

22.5.2015

Photo: With the President of the the Organization of Relatives of Missing Cypriots UK, Mr. Neoklis Neokleous, presenting to me a commemorative plaque honouring my work for `missing persons`...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 14th of June 2015, Sunday.