In the gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke…

In the gardens of the Mevlevi Tekke…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Τel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   One late afternoon, together with one of my readers who grew up in old Nicosia, we go to the Tekke Bahchesi area to look at the possible burial sites he remembers from both 1963 and 1974… Mevlevi Tekke was a religious centre of the Mevlevi sect, the followers of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi – his followers, the whirling dervishes in long white robes would have performances to religious music, whirling and dancing… Mevlana, a mystic of Islam advocated unlimited tolerance, love, goodness and positive thinking… `Come, come, whoever you are, Wanderer, idolater, worshiper of fire, Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times, Come, and come yet again. Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.…` he had written… `In tolerance be like the Sea In compassion and grace be like the Sun In modesty and humility be like the Earth In generosity and helping others be like a river In concealing others faults be like the night In anger and fury be like the dead…` he said… The Mevlevi sect was common among Turkish Cypriots until late 50s and the Tekke Bahcesi (The gardens of the Tekke) were right behind the religious centre, a huge garden that gradually turned into a cemetery and in some parts shops would be built. During the intercommunal fighting of December 1963, it proved impossible for Turkish Cypriots to get out of the walled city of Nicosia in order to bury the ones killed during the conflict at the normal cemetery they had close to Dikomo. Therefore, they started burying those killed in 1963 at the Tekke Bahchesi, behind the Mevlevi Tekke. In this place that eventually turned into a military cemetery, some `missing` Turkish Cypriots were buried in February 1964 and until today you can see those graves with inscriptions on them saying `Unknown` or `Ayvasil` with a number. Ayvasil or Ayios Vasilios village was where a massacre of Turkish Cypriots had taken place – all those killed there had been civilian Turkish Cypriots: Those who could not escape the village like a grandmother with her small granddaughter, an old man who came to the village to bring eggs to his family and such… The rest of the village had managed to escape to become refugees, living in miserable conditions for many years to come. In February 1964, there were exhumations in this village, with the insistence of the Red Cross, under the presence of armed British soldiers, opening mass graves in the yard of the Turkish Cypriot cemetery of the village… Instead of the 10 or 11 Turkish Cypriots killed in the village, there came out 21 or 22 bodies from the mass graves… The Turkish Cypriot authorities, instead of trying to identify who the rest of those buried in mass graves were, they would bury them in the makeshift cemetery at Tekke Bahchesi, giving them numbers such as `Ayvasil 1`, `Ayvasil 2` etc. Families would not be notified or could not be notified and until today, despite repeated calls by the relatives of Turkish Cypriot missing persons, there has been no exhumations in this cemetery. It is believed that the people who were found in mass graves in Ayios Vasilios were Turkish Cypriots killed in the Nicosia General Hospital by some Greek Cypriots, as well as those killed in various parts in Nicosia and brought to the morgue of the hospital. In fact, the Greek Cypriot authorities at the hospital did try to identify them and even sent a notification to the Turkish Cypriot authorities in the first week of January 1964. They sent them news with a list of names and descriptions of 21 Turkish Cypriots in the morgue of the hospital, saying that these were Turkish Cypriots killed in Nicosia and that the Turkish Cypriot authorities should pick up the dead bodies from the hospital. The Turkish Cypriot authorities in those days could not or would not pick up these bodies so the Greek Cypriot authorities sent these bodies to Ayios Vasilios to be buried in mass graves. Perhaps they were not aware that already there had been a massacre in the village and some civilian Turkish Cypriots killed and buried in a mass grave… So when the Red Cross insisted that these mass graves be opened, they found around 21 or 22 bodies of Turkish Cypriots, most of them unidentified and took them to be buried at the Tekke. Some of those buried there are some of the Turkish Cypriot missing persons from 1963. But it was not only Turkish Cypriot missing persons buried here – Greek Cypriots killed in 1963-64 had also been buried here since there was no other place they could be buried that would be safe enough to carry out such burials for those who were burying them. I discovered through testimonies that at least three Greek Cypriots, `missing` from 1963 were buried here and I have their names. But there had been more burials not in the cemetery itself but around it – one Turkish Cypriot who took part in one of those burials of Greek Cypriots showed us where they had buried some Greek Cypriots late at night and we showed this place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. But there was more information a few weeks ago by one of my Turkish Cypriot readers… He publishes some photos of the Tekke Bahchesi and as we start speaking with him, he starts telling me the stories from his childhood around this area. He and his family, as well as those living around the Tekke were witnesses to the burials of Greek Cypriots at the Tekke Bahchesi, outside the cemetery, both in 1963 and 1974. He even gives me the name of the Turkish Cypriot butcher who buried them to help us to get more details. So we meet one late afternoon and go behind the Tekke. He knows each tree and each stone in this area since as a child he grew up playing in this section of our walled city… `Look` he says, `these trees just outside the cemetery were there but a sort of a fence was passing from right behind them – the burial took place in this area…` We try to imagine how the old layout might have been just behind the cemetery and we try to follow leads… `People were buried here both in 1963 and in 1974 – these people buried were Greek Cypriots. They were buried with a bulldozer…` I thank this reader for taking his time and coming with me and showing me this place. In the following weeks, I take the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee here, to show them what my reader has shown me: Murat Soysal, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay look at what I show them and we take pictures and coordinates from here. While we are there, some curious Turkish Cypriots come by to see what we are doing in the parking lot behind the cemetery. They too, have things to say, names to give about who might know better, where the exact burial sites in this parking lot might be. Taking the names and information, we thank them as well… Tekke's Gardens in old times were quite different from what it is now. Now there are no gardens, only buildings and during the construction of a coffee shop next to the cemetery, there had been rumors that some human bones were found. The cemetery itself did not look like as it looks now… Time has changed our geography and it is only in the memory of those who remember, the old appearance, the way it looked 50 years ago… Time has changed not only the geography but the culture as well – 50 years ago the whirling dervishes were still here, celebrating life with music and dancing. The Tekke was a place for the poor to come to have something to eat, the Tekke also had an orphanage and helped children in need… Now the Tekke is just a museum and behind it are all shops… The teaching of Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, the world famous mystic, the Sufi who embraced all with his poetry has disappeared from the face of Cyprus, after centuries of impact and only sanctuaries like the Tekke remained made of stone… Tekke Bahchesi, once where his words of love and tolerance had meaning now holds the `missing` bodies of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, buried together, resting in their final sleep…   23.12.2012   Photo: A grave marked as `Unknown` in the Tekke Cemetery   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 13th of January 2013, Sunday.

`Keep your heart clean…`

`Keep your heart clean…`   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   At a very early age, my mother would learn to sew her own dresses, knit her own sweaters, embroider the collars of her shirts… She would learn these from her big sisters or her cousin Ulufer. Ulufer's sister, Tomris was a hat maker and my mother would learn a few things from her as well, making me beautiful hats when I was a child for my dancing ceremonies on Children's Day. I would grow up surrounded with fabrics like cotton, velvet, thick woolen fabrics for coats, fake furs to put around the collars, knitting yarn to make sweaters, threads of different colors, beads and shiny sequins to embroider elaborate flowers on dresses, tin boxes of tea filled with different colored buttons… If she was `recycling` a dress, she would cut the buttons and put them in these tin boxes of Hornimans' Tea and if one of the children of my sister came to us, she would give her the boxes of buttons to build trains or dogs or cats, showing the child how to do it. Buttons were very important to her and we had buttons in Hornimans' Tea Boxes shiny like diamonds, wavy like the seas, buttons with tiny flowers painted on them, brass buttons, white buttons for shirts, pretty red buttons for velvet dresses she would sew, big buttons and tiny buttons… So when she was sewing, she would always check these tea boxes to see if there were enough buttons for the dress or nightgown she was making. We also had different colors of `kurdella` to put at the collars or hems of dresses… My uncles from London would sometimes bring her thread or some fabrics and she would be so happy while planning what to do with it… She had sewn her own wedding dress as well as my sister's, embroidering lovely flowers with sequins on it – she had designed it herself and my sister looked very pretty in it. I was a little bridesmaid with a pink gown that she had sewn and I would wear this, standing next to my sister at her wedding. I was only 3 or 4 years old – we have a difference of 14 years between my sister and me and I remember `La Comparsita` playing while my beautiful sister danced with the groom… There were never any nylon bags in those times – everything would be kept in either brown paper bags or bags she would make out of different fabrics. The traditional trahana, the molihiya, the rice and bulgur would all be kept in cloth bags tied tightly so no bugs would get in… Even the unused clothes would be wrapped in sheets and then put in chests. She valued fabrics, any fabric, even the smallest piece she would keep in case she would need it one day. When she would sew a dress or have a seamstress sew her something, she would keep a piece of the fabric, in case one day, she would need to mend that dress… And many times she was proven right: If some minor accident happened and a spot on the dress got burned or stained, she would mend it with the fabric she had kept. If there was a stain at the front of her shirt or dress that proved impossible to remove, she would sit and make a design and embroider it in such a way to hide the stain. Nothing was ever thrown out, everything would be recycled, old sweaters unstitched, the wool washed and hung to dry… I would have to hold my arms in front of me while she would make colorful balls of knitting yarn from the wool around my arms… These then, would be re-knitted for me or for her… She would lay down an old coat of hers on the table and cut out a new pattern that would turn into a coat for me! She was very creative with patterns and she would draw elaborate designs of embroidery on thin, almost transparent paper and she would sew these over the dresses she would make for us, later on tearing down the paper and the colorful flowers would stand out on our collars or skirts… Inside books, I would find these thin pieces of paper with her designs… She had a way with seeing something only once and then doing almost exactly the same thing later on… When I was pregnant to my son, she would create tens of cuddly animals, dogs, cats, bears, complete with eyes and noses, rabbits with puffy tails… She would see something on TV and she would sit down and make it… When my son was born, he had loads of handmade toys to play with that we still keep now as a memory of those days… With ordinary thread and ordinary needle she would create flowers, bunches of violets, cactuses, daisies, roses… I would buy her books about flowers and she would look at them and make flowers resembling in the book. Once, she had put a flower on TV and I said to her, `Mom, why did you cut off the flower of the cactus? It's a shame! You shouldn't do that!` and she would laugh at me and say, `It's not real! I made this one looking at the cactus flower outside!` She was not doing these to keep them, she would distribute them to my friends, to her friends, to relatives so her handmade flowers, complete with stalk and green leaves are distributed all over the world… I salute her skills, her way of life, her wisdom and the way she cared about what she had in this new year that gives us a chance to look back and see what we have lost and what we can hope for… Hers was a different generation who knew how to cook, how to sew, how to knit, how to embroider, how to survive on this island with little money but with lots of love and care towards others. She taught all of us the magic of love, that you had to take care of others so that the earth could take care of you… `Keep your heart clean` she would say, over and over again… `Keep your heart clean and the earth would know that… If one door closes, you must know that another door will open… Just keep your faith and don't do anything to harm others…` She would say that but she would also implement her words: I would realize that the more you shared, the more you would receive… She didn't like thrifty people, she didn't like stingy people – she thought that the more stingy they are, the more they would lose… She had an open heart and an open mind: She said what she believed in, without hesitation but she also showed respect and tried to understand why that person was thinking or acting in that particular way and she would explain these to me, pointing out what was important and what was not. `Look at your fingers` she would say to me, `are they all the same? But still, it's your hand… You and your sister and your brother are quite different… You simply can't be the same… Don't expect people to act or think the same way you do… Just put it from one ear and let it flow from the other one! Don't think about it too much! Relax!` As the situation in our divided country gets worse and worse, I think of her more and more often, her wisdom, her words, her deeds… Even after her death, she is still with me, guiding me through difficulties and giving me hope with her endless love and care… I know that so long as I remember her, she will always remain beside me, smiling from her photo on my desk, reminding me how Cyprus was and how Cyprus could be…   26.12.2012   Photo: My mother in Limassol in 1930s…   (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 6th of January, 2013.

Struggle in Cyprus and Mexico…(*)

Struggle in Cyprus and Mexico…(*)   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   We gather at the Cyprus Community Media Centre on the grounds of the Ledra Palace Hotel on the Green Line dividing Nicosia, to open the exhibition of scarves embroidered by the relatives of `missing persons` in Mexico, on the 18th of December 2012, Tuesday evening… We set up the exhibition with the help of my friend Nilgun Guney, with whom we have been running a workshop on `missing persons` for young artists at her studio, as well as Gulay Kasher, an activist for peace… Gulay is 62 years old but every day she is out in the streets, demonstrating, together with a citizens' initiative about various issues that concerns our communities. They change their slogans each week after discussing the most important issues and the agenda for the week. They stand during rush hours of traffic, wearing the printed slogans on them and just standing there for everyone to see: Sometimes they got sworn at, sometimes passers-by make obscene signs to them but most of the time they get a cheering from passengers in cars and horns are beeped showing agreement to the slogans… Last week as I was coming back from Agios Dometios, I saw her standing with the slogan on her: `Sleep well and grow up… Lullabies to you!` urging the community to wake up! The Turkish Cypriot community is going through very difficult and harsh times – every day there is at least one demonstration and one strike going on… Teachers are on strike because teachers have not been appointed to schools due to a rift among the authorities, they have been demonstrating against new dress codes sent by Ankara – in Turkey too, there has been demonstrations against the new dress code for teachers and government workers. Teachers fear that the government in Turkey might put new dress codes in order to bring a more conservative appearance in the northern part of Cyprus, as well as Turkey. The trade union of electricity workers have been on strike on and off, against the privatization of electricity. Last week they started cutting off the electricity of government buildings, courthouses, municipalities, street lamps and anyone else that does not pay the bill in the private sector. There are some hotels who have vast amounts of debts but who don't pay a penny since they have support of the authorities in the northern part of the island. The trade union of electricity workers, EL-SEN, thinks that this is done on purpose in order to bankrupt the electricity authority so that it can be privatized – Ankara has already decided that electricity should be privatized. So nowadays at night some streets are in total darkness… The Nicosia Turkish Cypriot Municipality Workers Trade Union BES has also been on strike: While there are around 250 municipality workers in Nicosia Municipality in the southern part of the island, there are more than 1,200 workers in the northern part working in the Nicosia Turkish Cypriot municipality. Hundreds of persons were employed by the current Turkish Cypriot mayor and as a result the municipality went bankrupt and could not pay wages… Garbage was not collected for months and streets were stinking while flies and rats started appearing all over the place. Nowadays, the authorities have some private companies collect the garbage but this has not solved the problem of the workers in the municipality… Their wages have not been paid for months. The mayor is trying to get a big loan from a bank from Turkey but the bank's conditions have also upset the workers… Workers are against layoffs and are demonstrating in the streets. On one such occasion few weeks ago, they threw garbage in all the main roads, making it impossible to drive through these streets, in order to get the attention of the public. Last week lawyers went on strike and made a demonstration with their black robes, protesting a new law about payments of debts. If the new law comes into force, people will not go to prison for avoiding paying their debts and thousands who have not been able to pay and who are sent or will be sent to prison will be pardoned. Lawyers and judges think that this is a political intervention in the court and justice system and are against this. The Young Businessmen's Association made a statement saying that if this new law is put into force, they will call on their members not to pay their debts! Sometimes it's farmers who have demonstrations, sometimes small merchants or some left groups… One of the biggest discussions of the past weeks has been the economic protocol signed between authorities in Ankara and Nicosia, foreseeing privatization and other economic measures. Already the Ercan Airport was privatized and the new operator is a firm from Turkey who will start running the airport from the 1st of January 2013. One group called `Baraka` said last week, `Ayshe, the holiday is over, get out of Cyprus!` `Ayshe` was the code name giving the sign to Turkish soldiers to proceed to the second phase of their military operation in Cyprus back in August 1974. The group, protesting the Ambassador of Turkey in Cyprus, as well as local authorities for signing the latest economic protocol with Ankara, symbolically put them in a basket attached to black balloons and had them fly out of Cyprus in the basket with the balloons! So this is the atmosphere pertinent in the northern part of Cyprus and with these conditions, my friend Gulay is never at a loss for finding slogans to demonstrate with, together with her friends from the citizens' initiative… She comes to help me to set up the exhibition on the Green Line… We open the exhibition on the 18th of December 2012 Tuesday evening and many Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot relatives of `missing persons` come… We put on a rope some of the scarves embroidered by the relatives of `missing persons` from Mexico – Cordelia Rizzo, about whom I wrote about in these pages in the past months had contacted me for advice about what they could learn from what I have been doing concerning the `missing persons` in Cyprus. She is part of the demonstrations and the women's embroidery movement in Mexico: Each scarf embroidered with green thread tells the story of a `missing person` and each scarf embroidered with red thread tells the story of someone killed but whose killers have not been punished. Every Sunday they gather in town squares to embroider these scarves and then put them up on a rope for passers-by to see… They too have their struggle in Mexico, just like us in Cyprus. Petros Souppouris and Huseyin Rustem Akansoy, who both lost their families in massacres in Palekythro and Maratha back in 1974 and who are leading members of the Bi-Communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of War and Massacres called 'Together we can' open the exhibition. Souppouris says, `What we have been doing in Cyprus has crossed the ocean and reached Mexico…` Christos Efthymiou, leader of `Together we can`, says that the pain of relatives of `missing persons` are common both in Cyprus and in Mexico… I tell the story behind the scarves and Ricardo Lopez from Chile who has been in Cyprus for many years talks about the issue of `missing persons` in Latin America since 1910… On the night of the exhibition, Gulay comes after her demonstration bringing some nuts, I have brought bulgur koftesi (koupes), Christina Pavlou Solomi has cooked pies with halloumi and olives, Maria Georgiadou has brought some melomakarona she baked. We offer wine brought by Christos and these things to eat at the exhibition and there is a warm atmosphere as people greet each other and go to see the scarves and read in three languages, Turkish, Greek and English, what's written on them. Galina has translated from Spanish to Greek, Christos from Greek to English and I translated from English to Turkish so everyone can understand what's been embroidered on the scarves… For one night, we might put aside everything, the darkness of the streets in the north, the daily demonstrations in both sides of the island, the economic crisis and let our heart beat in Mexico, feeling the pain, suffering and struggle of the Mexican people for their `missing persons`. For one night we might remember that we are part of the world and it is not only Cypriots who suffer but thousands of miles away, in Mexico, there are more than 10 thousand relatives of `missing persons` waiting to hear about the fate of their loved ones. Some of them have been taken by police or army, some kidnapped and `disappeared`, all of this happening in the past six years… Nouritsa Nadjarian, an old Armenian Cypriot friend is also here with us: She leads a `Patchwork` group and knows how to embroider. She will embroider one scarf to send back to Mexico to express our solidarity and love from Cyprus to the relatives of `missing` from Mexico… She knows better than most what it means to live in pain, her family expelled from Anatolia back in 1920s… Born in 1921 in Nicosia, Nouritsa, a very distinguished lady, a dear friend, will embroider the scarf with love, empathy and the joy of being able to connect with the rest of the world: She will express exactly how we feel and this scarf will be another connection of ordinary people who suffer all over the world but who can manage to develop relations of understanding no matter where they live… Oceans don't matter, miles don't matter, what matters is that we are human and we struggle daily for a better world whether we are in Mexico or in Cyprus, whether we are in the northern or southern part of the island – we are all human and we are capable of connecting with each other to create a better understanding and solidarity amongst us…   22.12.2012   Photo: From the exhibition of scarves from Mexico at the Cyprus Community Media Centre on the Green Line in Nicosia, Cyprus   (*) Article published in POLITIS on the 30th of December, 2012 Sunday.

A woman from Yialousa: Kakoulou and her husband Giannis…

A woman from Yialousa: Kakoulou and her husband Giannis…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Tel: 00 357 99 966518 00 90 542 853 8436   I had come across her story while searching for some Greek Cypriot `missing persons` from 1963… A young boy remembered her being killed and her body thrown in the street… He had witnessed this at that time and was in shock… This was not the only murder he had seen… Just across his house another Greek Cypriot who had gone to buy bread had been killed and he had seen how the loaves of bread the old man had bought had scattered on the ground, how his bicycle had fallen and how later, some Turkish Cypriot soldiers would come to pick up his body to bury him at the Tekke Bahchesi in Nicosia, within the walls. `It was amazing how, some hours later, they would use the same car to distribute bread` he would remember. He would give me names to call, names of those in the car – some of them would deny knowing anything… Silence would fall but it would not matter since a witness has already spoken, silence broken, taboos shaken, zones of darkness illuminated… That's all that mattered since he would remember, as a child, vividly, all those killed around his house… `They had killed the woman and thrown her body in the street… Someone had thrown a mattress over her body… I saw that as well` he would tell me. I would try to find out more and discover that the woman he was talking about was known as `Kakullu` by Turkish Cypriots. She had been living in Nicosia, just next to the old market that we call `Bandabuliya` that had had two doors, one facing the north, one facing the south and this old market had been a joint one, once upon a time… Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had worked together in this market, with a very high ceiling, smelling of fruits and vegetables, intact with butchers selling meat… At the entrance in the southern part had been the Greek Cypriot butchers… But as the conflict slowly brewed, Greek Cypriots would be kicked out of this market and the southern door closed, never to open again… This was 1963-64 and the old Greek Cypriot who came to buy bread with his bicycle had been caught unaware, not suspecting anything… `Kakoullou`, who lived just next to the old bazaar with her husband, with no children, had been bedridden… She too had been young once, a very rich woman from Yialousa who had contributed so much to her villagers, as well as her family. But she was not even on the list of the `Missing Greek Cypriots of 1963` - I would discover that she is `missing`, as well as her husband and inform the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so that they would take measures to put her on the list. I would call people from Yialousa to help to find out details about her life and finally, one of my Greek Cypriot readers would tell me more… He would send me a letter thanking me for remembering `Kakoullou` and would say the following: `Dear Sevgul, I follow your articles regularly and I would like to state that you are a healer of the wounds of our country Cyprus. Please continue to do what you do since you are like an angel helping to heal the wounds of families in pain. I wrote this letter in order to thank you. You have been trying to find out information about a woman that you call `Kakoullou` that no one bothers to remember. You have found out what happened to her and her husband and also wrote about their possible burial site. Our family used to know Kakoula (you pronounce her name as Kakoullou but the correct name is Kakoula) very well. She had settled in Nicosia but she was actually from Yialousa. She had a big house next to the old market (`Bandabulia) and she had been a pioneer in many things. For instance she had been the first woman shareholder of the Bank of Cyprus. She used to rent the rooms of her house next to the old bazaar in Nicosia like a hotel and was running a coffee shop downstairs. Her husband's name was Giannis Ellinas. In those old times, those who came to Nicosia would stay in her pansiyon. I remember staying with my father in this pansiyon once… Kakoula had built an elementary school in Yialousa and they had called it the Kakoullion Elementary School. This school was just next to the church. I believe she had been born around 1890s. She was a very rich and very generous woman from Yialousa. Due to her building an elementary school in Yialousa, the church had honoured her and gave her some very valuable land. Kakoula, in return had given these lands and some houses she owned to her sisters in Yialousa and to her sister's daughters. She had a sister called Nestilou and she had given some houses to the daughters of Nestilou. Kakoula herself did not have any children. She had built a coffee shop in the land that the Archangelos Church in Yialousa had donated to her and had donated this coffee shop to one of her relatives. Kakoula had also bought a big place in the graveyard in Yialousa and had prepared her own grave. She wanted to be buried in Yialousa, although she resided in Nicosia. But as the conflict exploded in 1963 among the two communities, as you said in your articles, both Kakoula and her husband Giannis were killed by some Turkish Cypriots and their dead bodies remained there. As you state in your article, a kind hearted Turkish Cypriot would take their bodies and put them in a closed van and in the night time would go and bury them at the Tekke Bahchesi in Nicosia. Please thank this kind hearted Turkish Cypriot in our name for doing this. As far as I know, they were never enlisted as `missing persons`, neither Kakoulou, nor her husband Giannis, by her family in the official list of missing persons. Perhaps you can find one of her relatives so that she and her husband are put on the list of missing persons so that if one day, their remains are found, they can at least be taken by some of their relatives and buried properly. Dear Sevgul, When you go to Yialousa, please go and see the school she has built. Go to the Greek Cypriot cemetery and find the grave Kakoulou has prepared for herself but could not be buried – the grave remains empty. I would like to thank you for not allowing her to be forgotten…` I thank this Greek Cypriot reader for writing to me and giving me some details about Kakoulou…   Those who remember Kakoulou and her husband Giannis, please give me a call on my mobile 99 966518… Perhaps one day, I can find a photo of this `missing` woman I have been writing about… I asked a Turkish Cypriot friend of mine, an artist, who knew Kakoulou to draw a picture of her and she did… But I would appreciate at least a photo of her so that we could see her face… She contributed so much to Yialousa – at least the people from Yialousa must do something so that she is not forgotten…   15/12/2012   Photo: The house of Kakoulou, painted by Turkish Cypriot artist Ferah Kaya.   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 23rd of December, 2012.

In search of `missing` from Dikomo and Kochatis…

In search of `missing` from Dikomo and Kochatis…   Sevgul Uludag   caramel_cy@yahoo.com   Τel: 00 357 99 966518 0090 542 853 8436   On a sunny morning of these winter days, we travel to the village Dikomo to look at some possible burial sites of some `missing persons` from the village… The witness is from this village, a Greek Cypriot who grew up here and who knew everyone… He guides us to our first stop, a house that does not exist anymore because it was demolished but you can still see the walls… `This was the house of Maritsa Christofi Netou` he says… `She had been living with her brother Kiriakos Strati. Kiriakos could only walk with the help of a cane, he would walk very slowly…` He holds a book in his hands about Dikomo and he finds the photo of Maritsa and shows it to me: A typical Cypriot village woman, sitting down, surrounded by some youngsters, probably her relatives or co-villagers. `She was the natural dentist of the village` he tells me, `she used to take out our shaky teeth when we were children… She had one long fingernail and with the help of that, she would take out our teeth and put salt in the wound so it would stop bleeding…` Maritsa and Kiriakos are `missing` from their house in Dikomo… Next to the demolished house is another house that looks new: `This was the house of her daughter` our witness explains. According to our witness, both Maritsa and Kiriakos were killed in the demolished house and then buried under an almond tree in their yard. We go in the yard and find the almond tree… `A team of Turkish Cypriot policemen were sent from Kyrenia Boghazi to Dikomo and they killed those who remained behind, back in 1974` he says. We move in the same street to the place of another demolished house: Not even a stone has remained, all cleaned up… `Here` he says, `used to live Yakumi Petrou who had been born in 1910… So he was around 64 years old in 1974. He has been killed here…` But our witness has no information whether he had been buried here or elsewhere… We walk in the narrow streets of Dikomo, the sun shining on us and you notice that Dikomo is so green: In the gardens of the houses we pass by, we notice the lovely trees and flowers… We stop at another point where yet, another demolished house used to exist – now another makeshift construction has taken its place… `This was the house of Christalla Nikola Christofi` he says, `she was paralysed so she could not move. She was killed in her house and was buried in her yard… This is the information I have…` I feel sad hearing all these stories and more and more, this village starts to remind me of Kythrea… Kythrea had the same story: Killing paralysed or very old people, killing those who could not or did not try to escape the war… From Kythrea there are 49 `missing persons` and with the help of my readers and Maria Georgiadou who is also the relative of four `missing persons`, we managed to find two `missing` old men from Kythrea… Dikomo, similarly has 45 `missing persons`, some from inside the village, some during fighting in the war in other areas. We move yet to another house in another part of Dikomo… `Here` says our witness, `used to live a father, a mother and a daughter. They were old. The daughter was paralysed. They were all killed and buried under that electricity poll. The daughter's name was Eleni, she had been born in 1909, the mother was Mirofora and was born in 1892 and the father was Pantelis Zotis – he had been born in 1889…` We go to the centre of the village then, to sit in the main coffee shop and have some coffee. An old man with blue eyes and a cane sits with his hat on, a small branch of basil tucked behind his ear… He is from Louroudjina I learn. There are people in this village from Kochatis, Dali and Agios Sozomenos… Most of those we meet can speak Greek… A bearded man does not speak but looks at us with sad eyes… He gets up and leaves… After he leaves, one of his friends says to me, `He is sad because his brother is missing since 1964. His brother, together with another Turkish Cypriot had gone from their village to Nisou to buy cigarettes. They were on bicycles. They were kidnapped by some Greek Cypriots who were also `active` in the kidnapping of the young shepherd from Agios Sozomenos, Fikret and killed him – his remains were found in a riverbed around Alambra village. One of those who kidnapped both Fikret and Cemal and Huseyin had been a Greek Cypriot policeman, acting like a `Rambo` in the area… We heard that this policeman died recently of cancer. There is no news of Cemal Mustafa and Huseyin Ibrahim since December 1963 and their remains have not been found… His brother feels very sad… The family is in so much pain, waiting all these years for the remains of these two `missing` Turkish Cypriots to be found… But nothing has happened and it's 49 years since they are waiting… Almost half a century… This is very cruel…` The coffee I drink will coil like a snake in my stomach after hearing about Maritsa and the others `missing` from Dikomo, as well as Cemal and Huseyin `missing` from Nisou… They too were innocent people, one of them engaged to be married soon… Cemal Huseyin was engaged to Aysel, who had been pregnant for two months, they were finishing the construction of their house in Kochati village when her fiancée went `missing`. The Greek Cypriot policeman, a sergeant in the area who kidnapped Cemal and Huseyin with his friends had been also terrorizing Nisou village and a Greek Cypriot of Nisou would warn his co-villagers, the Turkish Cypriots to flee since the policeman was planning on kidnapping some other young Turkish Cypriots of Nisou. So Turkish Cypriots would leave Nisou and go and live as refugees in the nearby Louroudjina, after Cemal and Huseyin had gone `missing`, out of fear for the lives of their own children and youngsters as well… We leave the coffee shop to go yet to a fifth possible burial site that our witness will show us: There had been a house behind the trees of the Panayia Church of the village – we search and find the area and our witness shows us the place where Stavros and Annesou Chatallos, an old couple, might have been buried… `What happened in 1964 in this village?` I ask the witness. `We had to create spots to try to guard our village in case there was an attack from Ortakeuy, Geunyeli or Aghirda` he says… `What happened in 1974 during the coup?` I ask him. `We lost two` he says… `Andreas Menikou, whose nickname was `Daskalos` (`Teacher`) was killed in a restaurant in Syncyari while eating and drinking by some people from EOKA-B. Andreas had been a supporter of Makarios. Kostas Sotiriou, a fireman who had been a good friend of Andreas Menikou was also killed. One of the friends of Kostas Sotiriou was forced by EOKA-B to kill him…` Together with us on this trip to Dikomo are Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, as well as two Turkish Cypriot investigators working for the committee. We leave Dikomo, once a beautiful, quiet village, now full of its `secret` burial sites that we try to uncover through the help of witnesses…   7.12.2012   Photo: Maritsa Christofi Netou, the "natural dentist" of Dikomo, "missing" since 1974…   (*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of December 2012, Sunday.

`Together we can...`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

0090 542 853 8436

She turns her back to the lake, facing the multicultural group, catching her breath first, mingling on the edge of pain and then starting to speak, slowly reciting the horrible days of August 1974 and what had happened here... It is a multicultural group – some young artists from the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities, a Syrian Cypriot artist Adi Atassi who has been in Cyprus for the last quarter of a century, an Armenian Cypriot, Nouritsa Nadjarian, whose mother was expelled from Anatolia to come to Cyprus back in 1921, settling in Nicosia and herself being born in Cyprus... She is 81 years old, with a cane but she comes with us wherever we go, she walks with us and she stands with us to open her heart to hear what's been passing from the hearts of the others... And there is our Italian Cypriot artist, Gaia, as well – it's the first time she comes with us to a mass grave here in Galatia, taking photos and hearing the story about this burial site of 11 `missing` Greek Cypriots whose remains were uncovered during exhumations... No, this is not a `bi-communal` group, it's a `multi-communal`, multicultural group...

Christina of Komikebir was only 13 years old when she had to go through the horrors of war... She has lost her father and brother and the last place they were seen was in the Turkish Cypriot village of Galatia at the beginning of Karpasia.

Christina is part of the Bi-Communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of Massacres and War, `Together we can` association that has been running a workshop on `missing persons` together with Nilgun Guney Art Studio since last June... We have been taking the young Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot artists, as well as our Syrian Cypriot artist and our Armenian Cypriot friend around the island, showing them the mass graves, getting them together with relatives of `missing persons` to speak and to tell what sort of turmoil they have been going through... We have been giving them material as they need, photos of `missing persons`, their stories as I wrote, trying to help them to feel, to understand and to paint...

It is very difficult for Christina to be here since it refreshes all her bad memories but she makes the effort because she knows that with the knowledge will come strength... If she speaks and if people hear with their hearts what she's saying, truth will set them free and truth will make them stronger. Truth is the only medicine we should drink in this country in shambles, divided, torn apart with memories of trauma and pain... Truth is the only thing that will save us so we must all speak and tell what we know and we must all listen and hear what is being told by people like Christina... People like Christina are in this group of relatives of `missing persons` and victims of massacres and war and they work humbly, quietly with a very low profile, like saints in this geography of pretence...

You will not find them in posh cocktail parties, you will not see them wearing expensive jewellery and driving luxurious cars... They will not be invited to receptions given by the United Nations or other `important` international organizations... You will rarely see them on TV or hear them on radio – they are ordinary people like you and me, going around very quietly, doing what needs to be done, sacrificing themselves so that the truth be known although the truth might not be `popular` on either side of the island.

You will find Christina planting trees in her garden, one in the name of her father, one for her brother...Or with garden scissors she would be trimming plants and trees in my garden, showing me which one is sick and what I should do to heal it, creating space to branches and leaves so they can breathe... She would be speaking to me the language of understanding nature and she would know each plant and each tree and what they need and what they don't need. She would be teaching me how to take care of nature because she has learnt this from her childhood in Komikebir where her family had vast amounts of fields and gardens, always producing, always working, always taking care of nature and humans around them... Or you will find her visiting old people, speaking quietly and trying to find out this or that detail about what might have happened in the past, where there might be some burial sites or how things unfolded in this country torn apart by war.

No, you will not find her or anyone from this NGO called `Together we can` invited when important figures like the European Commission's Vice President visits Cyprus or when there is the UN Day at the Ledra Palace Hotel or the opening ceremony of the EU Presidency of Cyprus. No, this group will not be invited to any of the activities of the EU Presidency of Cyprus because they are not `important` people, they are ordinary people like you and me and they don't speak the language of power or Cypriot politics. They speak the language of ordinary people, of life, of real problems, of real issues, of real trauma and pain, of real suffering because they come from there... You will find Christina in possible burial sites or with witnesses trying to show or describe those sites. You will find the members of this NGO working insistently and consistently, without stop, without complaint, without showing off, investigating, arranging, encouraging the people to speak up so that our children and our grandchildren can have a better life since if we don't speak the language of truth, our children and grandchildren will always be led by lies... Mountain of lies created by both sides, mountains of hatred, mountains of pressure forcing you to `choose` the one side or the other. No, members of this group will not choose one side or the other, they will choose both because they come from both – Huseyin Rustem Akansoy comes from Maratha, Sherif Mehmet Ali comes from Tremethousa, Petros Souppouris comes from Palekythro, Christos Efthymiou comes from Dali, Andreas Sizinos comes from Gypsou... They would embrace all and allow their hearts to open up to hear the truth of the other, the pain of the other, the suffering and the agony and the trauma of the other and feel it as their own...

Among all the `mainstream` politicians and `mainstream` politics, only Takis Hadjigeorgiou, the Euro MP of AKEL really heard their voice with his heart and he proposed Huseyin and Petros who have lost all their families in the massacres of Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa and Palekythro, to the European Citizen Award... This week Huseyin and Petros went to Brussels to meet with others who have received the European Citizen Award of the European Parliament. But Takis is rare because he has a very human heart and is not blinded by ambition or position or power and he uses his power to help the voice of this group, `Together we can` to be heard in Europe... What Takis has done is very symbolic for Cyprus, showing Europe that people like Huseyin and Petros, despite their enormous loss and trauma, have managed to overcome their own pain, turning it into a struggle for a common peaceful future on this island, becoming role models for all countries in conflict, as well as our torn island... Takis has shown Europe that the Bi-Communal Relatives of Missing Persons and Victims of Massacres and War from Cyprus has said `Yes!`, `Together we can!`

`Yes, together we can work, we can share, we can build a better life on this island! Yes, together we can face the traumas of the past, we can look into each other's eyes and see the truth because only the truth will set us free and make us stronger! Yes, together we can do it and we are doing it and we will continue to do it...`

People like Christina, Huseyin, Petros, Spiros, Sherif, Andreas, Ali, Christos and all the others in this group are showing the way to the future, even if some try to make them `invisible`... Thanks to Takis Hadjigeorgiou, at least their voice is heard in Brussels, if not among the ruling elites of the international community and the `locals` in Nicosia...

10.11.2012

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 2^nd of December, 2012.

Photo: Some of the young artists at the Galatia lake…