Not a Hollywood movie…

Not a Hollywood movie…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

No, it was not a Hollywood movie, an American thriller where a group of five or six young students, barely 15 or 16 years old, would witness a double murder and would have to remain silent for the rest of their lives… No, it was not a scene from a movie where they would not even talk about what they had witnessed amongst themselves and it would take a lot of courage on the part of one of them to be able to come up with the information and share with me, after a lot of encouragement from a mutual friend…
They had been a group of young students, barely 15 or 16 years old and had gone to a field to collect some fruit… It might have been spring time or early summer since they had been wearing short sleeves, as he remembers… Perhaps it was April or May 1964…
The place was in Parissinos, Strovolos, not far from the CINEPLEX… In the field they had gone to, there were orange trees, fig trees, gonnara… Perhaps they had escaped from school to have some fun and some fruit and had come to this field… Outside the field which were fenced, it was all open space – no buildings in this area in those times but empty fields stretching on and on…
While collecting and eating fruit, the youngsters had heard the noise of a car, a police Landover approaching and they panicked! Since the field did not belong to any of them, they thought they were going to get caught stealing fruit! They all tried to hide, take cover, lay down on the ground so they would not be seen stealing the fruit…
The Landover had stopped just on the edge of the fenced field and two men with Sten guns had got out and had taken out two persons – one of them was middle aged and the other a younger person…
They stood them side by side facing the road and shot them with the Sten guns they had…
There had been some heaps of earth so the youngsters assumed that either there was a well there or the guys with the guns had opened a hole from before in order to bury these two unknown persons…
The youngsters had assumed that those two unknown persons executed there had been two Turkish Cypriots… It was daytime, perhaps early afternoon…
The youngsters were shocked from the shooting and were terrified of what they had seen had left after the Landover had left and would close their mouths for the rest of their lives, not even talking amongst themselves about what they had witnessed… Over time, two of these youngsters had died so there remained only 3 or 4 of them alive, who remembered this shocking experience…
One day about three years ago, one of them would tell this story to a mutual friend and she would find me and tell me what she had heard. She would even take me to the place and show me the site where two `unknown` and probably `missing persons` had been killed. He would decline from coming and showing this place – his shock continued after so many years…
On the 9th of December 2013 Monday, I would have a brief encounter with our mutual friend with this witness and she would ask me what had happened. Sure, I had told the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee about this place but it would be much better if the witness himself would come and show us. She would call him immediately and we would agree to meet the following day around CINEPLEX. I would immediately call the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they would agree to come and meet the witness.
So on the 10th of December 2013, Tuesday we would meet the witness… He would be sad and you could read that sadness from his face…
`How did you feel when this happened?` I would ask him and he would say `I thought that lives of some people did not count… That life was cheap for some… It was a big shock and we did not even speak amongst ourselves about what happened, afterwards… We closed our mouths for a lot of years… I did not even tell my wife about this – one Christmas night when we were abroad in 1989 or 1990, I told her about it… It took me so many years to speak about it even to my wife…`
Since they had not seen whether the two `unknown` persons were actually buried here, the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would have to make further investigations about this. Had they been buried here or further up where there were some wells? Was there a well here or was it a hole they had dug with the purpose of burying the two `unknown` persons that they would kill? There were other wells across the road so could they have been buried in those wells?
In two of the wells further up, the remains of a total of nine `missing` Turkish Cypriots - `missing' from 1963-64 – had been found and these remains had been returned to their families and they have been buried. So apparently this whole area was an area where they killed and buried people in the wells…
We would thank the witness and our mutual friend for coming and showing us the location of the crime that took place back in 1964 and say goodbye to them… The witness would not give his phone number – he would still carry the fear and shock of those days locked up in his heart… If it was not for the humanity and encouragement from our mutual friend, perhaps he would carry his secret all the way to his grave and would never speak up… She, like an angel would encourage him to tell her the whole story, to show her the place and later on would manage to convince him to come in person and show us this area… There aren't enough words to thank her for doing this…
I will make a call on those young students of those days who had witnessed to this incident to call me with or without their names and tell me if they have seen anything more or if they have heard any more details…
No, it's not a Hollywood movie, not a thriller we watch on TV where five or six youngsters witness a double murder and have to stay silent for many years, fearing even to speak about it amongst themselves and one of them, almost half a century later would come to show where the murders took place… This is the island of Cyprus, we are in 2014, we are talking about two `unknown` persons killed in 1964 in broad daylight in Parissinos, Strovolos, Nicosia… Please share if you know more details so that we can give some answers and perhaps some remains to the relatives of those two `missing` and `unknown` persons… My phone number is 99 966518 and if you want to remain anonymous, you may remain anonymous. Thank you…

Photo: Not a movie but actual life, this was the scene of the double murders...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 12th of January 2014, Sunday.

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Days of remembrance and reflection…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I learnt all the details about death and what remembrance and reflection means at a very young age… I was only seven years old when my father died on the 3rd of April 1966. I can never forget that date, I can't erase the 3rd of April from my mind or in my soul, it has become part of my memory that simply can't be erased.
I had been taken to one of my father's friend's house to stay overnight and out of the blue at night, I was thinking `What does it feel like when someone's father dies?`
My father had died that day but I did not know. No one had told me. They had only taken me to the house of Hakki Suha, to stay in the same room with Shirin, his daughter, my friend. Hakki Bey was the head of Bayrak Radio and my father had worked there for a brief period as translator. His Greek was perfect, his English was perfect, his Turkish was perfect. It was a time for persecution for him and he had been thrown out of many jobs… He had refused to join TMT, the paramilitary underground organization, he had rifts with Denktash because of this, he had been close with Greek Cypriots which was a `sin` in those days, he had been thrown into prison, me visiting him with my mother and reading him a poem I had learnt at the pre-elementary school, him crying, my mother crying, me, the three or four year old kid, trying to make sense of why he was there, why there was this green mesh between us, why I couldn't hug him, why he couldn't come home for the
New Year. He was set to spend New Year in prison because he had committed the `sin` of saying `NO` to joining the TMT.
`I can't slay a chicken` he had explained to them… `If I join and tomorrow you come and tell me you have to kill your brother because of this or that pretext, I can't do that… You go on your way but I can't join TMT…`
This was the `sin` he had committed and why he was in prison.
Eventually he would get out and work at odd jobs, the next day being thrown out of those jobs, the owners of the businesses being threatened by the paramilitary organization.
He had got a job at Bayrak to translate and I think it was his last job… Because he would die of a heart attack on the 3rd of April 1966.
That's why I must have been taken to the house of his boss and stayed the night there. That's why I must have sensed something terribly wrong with my life and as a seven year old kid asked myself, `What must it feel like to have one's father die…`
I wish no child finds out the answer… But I did… Next day, I was taken home… My aunt from Kridhia was crying out loud, my father was in the garage, in a coffin… They had put cotton in his nostrils and in his ears…
I wanted to hug him, kiss his chubby cheeks but they wouldn't let me… I couldn't hug him one last time… He was just there, in a coffin, still, peaceful and yet my heart was crying out loud… Our next door neighbours had five kids with whom I played a lot, making `Karagozi`, the shadow theatre or `Ispastra` with cards or hide and seek or simply with our dolls… Zehra, the eldest daughter would take me to their house and we would sit, me sad, Zehra and all the other kids, not really knowing what to say or do with me, feeling sorry for me...
Later we would go to the cemetery with my sister and her husband and their daughter Il. She was barely three or four years old and she too tried to console everyone, particularly my mother:
`Grandma, don't worry` she would say, `this is just a room underground… He would just live there… It's a very small room but he would be okay…`
Things would change in our lives… From then on, we won't go to weddings or parties… We won't go anywhere alone… In those years it would be considered a shame for a widow to go anywhere alone… We would only go if my older sister and her husband would take us somewhere like the beach…
The most dramatic thing every year, from then on, would be the month of April… At the beginning of April, my mother would start acting funny… She would be all nerves, she would close inside herself like a clam, she would lay on the couch, her hand on her brow… As a child I would suspect she had been crying…
Close to the date April 3rd, we would have the same behaviour every single year, throughout our lives… I would feel awkward, I wouldn't know how to console my mother, I didn't know how to console her, there was actually no consolation… April 3rd for her was a day of remembrance and reflection. It was a day of mourning the death of her husband… Every 3rd of April, we would have `Mevlid` in the house. We would invite neighbours and family to come to listen to the religious singings of a Hodja, Ahmet Gurses… We would prepare for this from days before: We would clean the house, get chairs from neighbours, make flaounes (pilavuna) with my mother in the kitchen to offer at the `Mevlid`, the Hodja would come, all women would gather and sit, I would offer rosewater in an antique bottle to each and every guest during the `Mevlid` and at the end help my mother to offer the flaunes and the `Sadrazam Sucugu` (a sort of lokoumi with walnuts inside), tea
and lemonade and coffee. At the end of each `Mevlid` I would cry when the Hodja would pronounce our names, saying `This mevlid is going out to Mr. Niyazi Uludag from his daughter Sevgul and Ilkay and his wife Turkan…`
So I learnt as a child what death and remembrance means, what it means to sit and think about your loss, how it had been when he was there, how it became so different when he was no longer there, my beloved father…
April 3rd was a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of our family… I would always wish we never had those days in our lives because they were very sad days…
So when I saw that there would be a dancing event on the 21st of December 2013, I panicked… 21st of December? I knew that the organization arranging this event was a well-meaning organisation, a Greek Cypriot foundation doing this in the northern part of the island. Immediately I tried to contact them… I managed to contact one of the organizers. I would tell him about how 21st of December was considered a day of mourning and remembrance in the collective memory of the Turkish Cypriot community. 21st of December 1963 was the day when the inter-communal fighting had begun and many Turkish Cypriots, as well as Greek Cypriots were killed or disappeared on that day and the following days… It would be a very sad day for many Turkish Cypriots whose loved ones went `missing` or were killed on that day… I remembered my mother and me, how on the 3rd of April, we would be in the mood of mourning and remembering… I told the organizer that this day – 21st
of December - was not a day to come out and dance together in the streets since it was a very sensitive date particularly for many Turkish Cypriots. Many Turkish Cypriots are still `missing` from that date…
The foundation had organized a bi-communal youth dancing event in the Buyuk Han in Nicosia, in the northern part, as well as in the southern part of our capital. The person I contacted panicked. Although they had some Turkish Cypriots in their group, no one noticed that date, no one had warned them that this was a very sensitive date, definitely not a date for `dancing in the streets`… He tried to call all others concerned with the organization of the event… I suggested to him to postpone it but it was one day before the event and after they held a meeting, they decided that they could not cancel it.
On the 21st of December 2013, on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the 1963 events, a small group of Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots went outside Buyuk Han and danced tango in the street…
Perhaps this showed that while some mourned, some wanted to celebrate life… Although done unintentionally, it brought out the paradigm of life and death in the same moment… Later on I would ask one of the organizers if he would be willing to organize a street dance event in Ledra Street on the 20th of July, it would be the same thing – these were very sensitive days and very sensitive memorial dates for our communities – unless we learn to show respect to that, we would never be able to build a culture of peace on this island.
For me, the most meaningful words came from a new group called `Left Intervention`… In a statement they said:
`We do not forget that about half a century ago, some Holidays in this country were not Happy at all. On December 21, 1963 the streets of Nicosia witnessed a series of events that epitomised the failure of the Cypriot political leadership to build a state based on mutual respect and cooperation.
On that night, the corpses of two Turkish Cypriots shot by the police, accounted for the toll of that day. There had been many more corpses on either side in Cyprus, prior to, and after that day.
Officially, quasi-officially, and unofficially sanctioned and organised deaths. Yet, there was no prosecution and no trial. We invite everyone resenting the culture of impunity in Cyprus manifesting itself in recent scandals to consider its deep historical roots. The demand for justice starts for there.
We propose to establish December 21 as a day of remembrance and reflection in Cyprus. We can only enjoy happy holidays if we admit and accept that at some point, some people on either side of the island contributed to turning a Christmas holiday into a bloody one. These people are among us, have never been confronted with the consequences of their actions, and are even honoured in the context of official state ceremonies.
Left Intervention, 24 December 2013.`

22-28.12.2013

Photo: December 1963 meant more tears, more refugees, more `missing persons`...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 5th of January 2014, Sunday.

Finding a humanitarian way to treat the traumas…

Finding a humanitarian way to treat the traumas…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

On the 21st of December 1963, which is considered a `Black Day` for Turkish Cypriots, that is the beginning of the inter-communal conflict of '63, a Greek Cypriot foundation organizes a `dance` in the northern part of Nicosia, at the Buyuk Han…
When I find out, I try to contact the organizers to try to tell them that this is a very bad choice as a date – that perhaps they should think of postponing it to another date… On that day and the following days until May 1964, many Turkish Cypriots were killed or went `missing`… It is an important date in our recent history as an island… Not only Turkish Cypriots but Greek Cypriots too had been killed or went `missing` around those dates… It was the beginning of the next phase of the conflict that would carry us to the partition in 1974… The conflict, brewing had already started in the late 50s but '63 was a turning point… We all know that…
A friend from Limassol calls me to invite me to this event and I tell her it is a very bad choice as a date… `If I call you to come and dance in Ledra Street on the 20th of July, would you like that? We should show a little bit of respect to the pain of the relatives whose loved ones have been killed or went `missing` on that date…` I tell her.
One of the Greek Cypriot organizers is shocked to find out that this is a very sensitive date for Turkish Cypriots, he is very sorry that none of the Turkish Cypriots in their group had noticed it and immediately he tries to speak with everyone and calls everyone and arranges a meeting but because so much effort has been put to this dancing event he says, finally they decide not to postpone it.
So on the 21st of December 2013, Saturday, some Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots gather at the Buyuk Han and dance…
I feel sad… Call it a `mistake` or `lack of care` - the `pretext` doesn't matter really – it simply brings sadness to my heart… Was it so difficult to shift this date and to show some respect to the pain of the relatives of those `missing` on that date?
I feel sad a lot these days when I sit down and listen to the impact of the 50 year old conflict on this island on the relatives of `missing persons`…
I feel sad to hear that one old Greek Cypriot woman, after the return of the remains of her husband, whom I had helped to find, has lost her attachment towards life and that her health has deteriorated… For many long years, she had been at the Ledra Palace checkpoint with a photograph of her husband in her hands, she was wearing black… After her husband had gone `missing` in 1974, it had been her life's aim to find out what had happened to him, she had found details and I had helped the relatives to find more details and to confirm that he had been killed and despite threats we had managed to find the burial site… After the exhumation of his remains together with others, I would also attend his funeral, bringing with me seashells I had collected from the beach in Karpasia, from the village where he came from, to bury with him…
But when she gets the remains and buries her husband, after some time, she realizes that she has lost the aim of her life and her health starts deteriorating… I am afraid to ask her son how she is but one of her cousins tells me about her… I wanted to visit her but I was advised by her relatives not to go since she might not recognize me… I feel sad because I know what a strong woman she had been and what sort of struggles she had to give to survive and to find out the truth… Her untreated traumas in the end open the gates to this new situation: She has lost her aim in life… I feel sad not only for her but for all those in similar situations – no one ever treated their traumas and now she lays down to die…
Another woman, a Turkish Cypriot whose father went `missing` in 1963 from Larnaka calls me every 15 days…
`What happened? Did they start digging? Did they find my father? It has been exactly 50 years since he went `missing` - my mother died waiting for any news… I am growing old now, shall I be able to take his remains and bury him before I die?`
She has been struggling alone to take care of her sick mother who had been bedridden – each time there was a funeral of a `missing person`, her mother would get excited and she would ask if she too would be able to take the remains of her husband and bury him… This year she passes away… I feel shame that we could not even give her the remains of her husband and now her daughter is waiting impatiently for this well to be dug or for that well to be dug to see if her father's remains would be finally found… 50 years… She had been a child and now she is a middle aged woman… She had baby teeth and now her teeth have fallen out… She had beautiful, shiny hair and now her hair has turned grey… Just imagine the time she has been waiting – 50 long, long, long years… And yet, still there are no results…
I go to visit two young women in their house… One of them was six years old when her father went `missing` in 1974… As a six year old girl, she would never leave the house, she didn't want to get out of the house just in case her father came back and did not find anyone at home… Again, no one ever treated her traumas… Who will compensate for this huge loss and huge pain and this trauma? Who will give her back the childhood that she lost? Just imagine being a six year old girl and never wanting to go out to play in the street or wanting to go to a neighbour's house or outside your village since your father might come and might not find anyone at home…
Can you imagine what she has been living throughout her life? Can you imagine her fear of getting out of the house? Can you imagine how this fear must have affected her soul?
How did all these relatives of `missing persons` cope all these years with all these traumas?
Cyprus is a place where thousands of people have been living with traumas throughout their lives with no treatment or understanding or care… Politicians in both sides would only use these traumas for their own agenda but no one would actually show some human care…
These traumas are not just the traumas of individuals; they are the traumas of our communities…
Ignoring these wounds and traumas will not make them go away…
They are still bleeding and we need to find humanitarian ways to cure these traumas… Otherwise our country will never heal…

21.12.2013


Photo: The first Turkish Cypriot victim Cemaliye Huseyin who was killed in december 1963... She left behind a daughter. Kyriacos Djambazis is currently writing a novel about her...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 29th of December 2013, Sunday.

The magical violin that saved the lives of the Bedelian family…

The magical violin that saved the lives of the Bedelian family…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518

The little place was called Markneukirchen in Germany, on the border with the Czech Republic. In the 17th century, some Protestants who were being persecuted in Bohemia had fled and came to this tiny village where they would settle down. Among them were those with skills of making violins and brass instruments… For the next four centuries this tiny village would be producing these musical instruments – according to the information on Wikipedia, in 1900, 80 per cent of all violins and brass musical instruments were being produced in Markneukirchen, Germany.
The young Vahan Bedelian, son of Haroutioun and Rebecca Bedelian from Adana had put an order to produce a violin for himself, a copy of Joseph Guarnerius violins to this town. Vahan Bedelian got this violin from Markneukirchen, delivered to him in Adana in 1913. This violin would accompany him throughout his life, would save him and his family's lives. It was like a magical violin and he would keep it and play it and tell the story of this magical violin to his grandchildren… He would teach his violin lessons with this violin…
In 1909 when troubles began in Adana, Vahan Bedelian and his family would flee to Cyprus, would settle in Larnaka, and would stay for 15 months. Bedelian would go to the Larnaka American Academy and when things seemed to settle down, in 1911 they would return to their home in Adana, Turkey. But things would continue to brew and in 1913 the First World War would begin… In 1915 the Armenian population of Adana and Cilicia in general would be deported to Der Zor, Syria – Syria was still part of the Ottoman Empire and on their way there, the Bedelian family would stop at Aleppo… There, one of Vahan Bedelian's friends would arrange a job as music and violin teacher for him at the Aleppo School of Art… Bedelian's grandson Vahan Aynedjian, tells me the story of what happened in Aleppo:
`During the deportations of the Armenian population of Cilicia, my grandfather's family, which came from Adana, was deported to Syria, which was then, part of the Ottoman Empire.
They arrived in Aleppo and due to the fact that my grandfather, Vahan Bedelian, was a music and violin teacher, a friend of his, Mr. Akoyan, who had arrived earlier than him, had arranged a job for him at the Aleppo School of Art, as a music and violin teacher.
With this job, Vahan Bedelian managed, after considerable difficulty, to obtain a permit from the Chief of Police of Aleppo (Police Mudur), to stay in Aleppo with his whole family, which was comprised of 11 members.
There was a luxurious hotel in Aleppo, the Baron Hotel (which still operates), owned by two wealthy Armenian brothers, Onnig and Krikor Mazloumian, built in 1909, where all the government officials and rich merchants used to stay. There was a Pasha, Shukru Pasha, who stayed at the hotel on his way from Constantinople to Der-El-Zor, where he had been appointed as the next Governor.
The owners of the hotel had the idea of organizing a reception for the Pasha, with the objective of entertaining him, in order that he would have a good impression about the Armenians and their culture, and that he would treat them accordingly when he took charge as Governor of Der-El-Zor.
They had the idea of inviting Vahan Bedelian to play the violin during the reception. He played with so much sensitivity, the "A la Turka" pieces, that the Pasha was moved and he asked that Bedelian would come near him.
He asked: "Who is this young man", and when he found out that he was a young Armenian refugee from Adana, he immediately proposed that he would take him with him to Der-El-Zor, to teach this art there.
As soon as Bedelian's friends heard this, they said that this is not possible as he had a job in the local Art School and that the local community needed him. Another friend realized that if Bedelian left, all the members of his family would have to leave Aleppo with him, as they were staying there with the permit obtained by him.
Fortunately, they managed to convince the Pasha to leave Bedelian in Aleppo, thus he and his family stayed there until the end of the First World War in 1918 and returned to Adana, when French forces were stationed in Cilicia.
Meanwhile, all others who left Aleppo towards the Syrian Desert, in the direction of Der-El-Zor, became victims of killings and of death from hunger and diseases.
That violin has made a very long journey. It started from Germany, where it was specially manufactured for Vahan Bedelian in 1913. That makes that violin, 100 years old this year. It was then imported to Adana and travelled with him during the deportation to Aleppo and after the end of the First World War, it returned to Adana and stayed there for 3 years until 1921, when they decided to flee to Cyprus and has since been in Cyprus.
In 1976, he gave the violin to me as a gift. I was 15 years old then.
He said to me: "This violin saved my life and also the lives of our family members.
If it was not for this violin, we would have all been deported to Der-El-Zor and only God knows where we would now be.
Because I knew how to play the violin, I got a job in the Art School of Aleppo and remained there until the end of the war.
The hands of the Pasha, who was going to Der-El-Zor as Governor, have touched this violin.
I want you to keep it, play on it and make sure that you hand it down from generation to generation, making sure that you tell them this story…` I have this violin now…`
Vahan Bedelian would teach music and particularly violin in Cyprus for more than half a century to Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenian Cypriots and all others. He would teach at four different schools, would set up bands and orchestras that would play on different occasions… He would have students of all ethnicities and would believe that music would bring people closer… His grandson Vahan Bedelian describes him so well:
`My grandfather Vahan Bedelian was a very patient person… He was a workaholic. He was a very religious person. He was a very kind and gentle person. He was a person with principles… He believed in music… He believed that music made people more human, it would make them approach life in a different way. Even if people were enemies, he believed that they would be able to communicate in the language of music. This was his philosophy and he would tell this philosophy to Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… `Music tells people what other people think… You can bring people together through music… Even if they don't speak a common language, music brings them together… Music can be their common language and this can happen in Cyprus` he used to say and always he gave music lessons in Cyprus to Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenians and to people from all other ethnic groups…`
According to his grandson Vahan Aynedjian, a normal day for Vahan Bedelian would start at 05.30 in the morning… He would get up and make gymnastics, in front of the open windows of his bedroom. Then he would go out to his garden, look at his flowers… He loved roses and he would pick a rose and put it on the breakfast table so he would enjoy the rose while having his breakfast. His first students for private violin lessons would start coming at 06.30 in the morning! At 07.00 he would go to the school he was teaching but it was not one school – he was teaching at the Armenian Elementary School and Melkonian and he would share his time amongst these two. On some days with his bicycle he would ride to go to the Turkish Cypriot Lyceum and to the English School to teach, his violin under his arm… His mornings would flow like this, sharing his time among four schools. He would have lunch between 1.30-2.00 and then chorus and orchestra practices would
begin – there were three other music schools where he taught as well as the private lessons in his house… He would continue until 6 or 7 at night… He took very good care of his health and he never smoked and never took alcoholic drinks… He would continue to work and give violin lessons until the age of 93! He would die at the age of 96 and would be buried in the Armenian Cemetery on the Green Line…
Bedelian did not belong to one community but belonged to all so what a coincidence that he would rest eternally in a space on the buffer zone… He had wonderful students from all communities, my brother was amongst his students of violin and my dream is to have some of his Turkish Cypriot, Greek Cypriot, Armenian Cypriot students to give a concert together to commemorate him… Perhaps in this concert, Vahan Aynedjian, the grandson of Vahan Bedelian who has the magical violin now, can also play with that violin that his grandfather gave him as a gift… This year, the violin is exactly 100 years old… So perhaps, with those interested in commemorating this great master of music Vahan Bedelian who has given so much to all Cypriots for more than half a century, we can work towards a day of commemoration for all the communities of Cyprus – as he had suggested, perhaps music can bring us all together to create a better understanding on this little,
tormented island…

7.12.2013


Photo: Vahan Bedelian with his `magical violin` in 1925

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 22nd of December, 2013 Sunday.

Learning to love the earth…

Learning to love the earth…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We bring nothing with us when we come to this earth – we get out of our mother's womb and we are naked… We leave the same way, when it's our time to leave, not possible at all to take anything with us…
We come to this earth crying and we leave crying… Calling out to our mothers, the very first connection with our earth…
It is our mother who teaches us everything for the first years of our lives. She teaches us to smile, she teaches us to love, she teaches us to talk and to take our very first steps on this earth… She teaches us not to fear, she teaches us the loving care when we are sick, being by the side of our bed, caressing our head, soothing us, telling us that everything will be all right. She is our only and primary connection with the earth; all other relationships come after that…
She teaches us to eat and drink, she cooks for us, nurtures us… She gives her milk and then when we are old enough, she cooks wonderful things for us to eat… I remember how my mother used to cook eggs for me – the melada style – and feed me with a spoon, telling me to open my mouth wide since the plane was coming to land in it! She would put a little salt on each spoonful of egg and my mouth would fill with the pleasure of eggs… She would dip bread in the egg and would feed me, telling me stories and fairy tales so I would not notice that I was eating and all of a sudden, both eggs would be finished! As a child she would tell me years later, she had only seen eggs in books – they had been such a poor family that she didn't know what eggs tasted like. Only when she was grown up, she would discover eggs… Perhaps that's why from a very early age, she would try to feed me eggs for breakfast…
During times of deep poverty when my father had died and had left debts of the house owned when it was being built, my mother would hide the egg shells from the previous day and in the morning when I would ask her why she was not having an egg with me, she would show me the empty shell and say `I already had it before you woke up…` A white lie, I would discover years later because there weren't enough eggs for both of us…
She would make soups for me when I was a child, lentil soup with chicken stock, rice soup with carrots and celery and pieces of chicken – she would always put the liver of the chicken in the soup and would reserve this for me. She would feed me the liver of the chicken with a little salt on it and I would be all smiles…
Whenever I would feel sick with flu or would have a headache, my mother would make me `mother's soup`, putting carrots, celery, fresh tomatoes, chicken, rice and red lentils to make me strong. She would tell me stories about lentil soup, how good it is for our bodies, how it contains iron and how she had met a very old guy who came as an inspector to her school when she had been a young teacher… The old guy had rosy cheeks and he looked very fit despite his age. They would ask him his secret and he would tell them that `Every morning he would eat lentil soup!`
She would show me the lizards and tell me how great they were, eating all the flies… She would show me the spider webs in our garden and tell me that they were here on this earth and that they served a very good cause by eating the flies! She would tell me stories about snakes and how snakes ate rats and helped the farmers… She would tell me about black snakes that Cypriots used to cherish like pets, once upon a time in Cyprus… In their old house in Tahtakala, they would put milk for the black snake, who would come to drink it… She would tell me stories of the cuckoos perched on the date trees who would come at night to sing to us: `The owls are very good, they eat the mice!` she would tell me…
She would teach me that the ants were hard workers and show me their nests, she would tell me stories of the cricket and the ant, finding books in colour from the library where she was working and telling me the tales of La Fontaine… I would be amazed with the ants and the laziness of the crickets singing all day long in August, making a big noise, flying and perching on our almond tree… She would show me how ants would follow each other and tell me that `They have a wedding and that's where they are all going!` From the age of six, she would start teaching me English since she had been an English teacher at the Shakespeare School and she would use the books from 1930s and 40s, giving me homework, making me listen and repeat, every night watching television together – the series in English like Avengers or Peyton Place on RIK – and she would be translating to Turkish from English for me to understand…
She would always sing when in the kitchen – I would grow up with beautiful songs she would sing to me… She would sing children's songs, songs she had learnt from our auntie from Switzerland about macaroni – whenever she would cook macaroni, she would sing songs about macaroni from Swiss Italians…
She would teach me to appreciate milk, cheese and halloumi, rice and macaroni, chicken and meat… She would show me how fruit grew on the trees, how the lemons became lemons starting from flowers… We would smell the lemon flowers and tangerine flowers and smile… Together we would collect lots of tangerines and she would give me a wooden spoon to stir the juice with sugar in order to make lemonade… We would be hard working and happy in the kitchen, making lemonade for hot summer days, to offer to guests and to drink ourselves. No Coca Cola in our house in those times, only lemonade made with tangerines and lemons from our garden…
These are the things I cherish about life, the things I learnt from my mother, the things that helped me to stay strong despite poverty, despite threats, despite unemployment, despite dark days of political repression for many years… These are the things that I also taught my son, showing him the moon and the stars and the flowers and to be happy that we are on this earth, that we are lucky to have each other and love each other, that no matter how harsh the conditions might get, we would still survive with the love we have…
From a very early age, my mother would teach me to always give gifts, that it would not matter if it was small or big, that we needed to share what we had because the earth will always send us more if we shared.
The biggest gift she gave me was to learn to love this earth and to understand that each creature had a life of its' own, serving a purpose, a bigger good… That we should always think about them, take care of them, not hurt them because we belonged to the same earth, same planet… That we were all connected, that we should appreciate all the flowers and all the trees and all the ants and spiders and birds and all other living creatures… She would teach me compassion and to be gentle with all living creatures, to communicate with them, to touch them, to learn from them, to be one with them…
In today's chaotic world, how many mothers actually create time to teach these values to their children? Children nowadays are given electronic toys to play with, they spend more time indoors in front of TV or a computer or an Ipad, rather than being out in the open… Their parents make them run from one private lesson to another, not even run but the kids are taken with cars so they don't even actually walk… Children are more lonely today, than in the past… Children are less connected with the earth and learn less from the earth… Sure, you can learn a lot from the internet but could it be the same thing to watch the lemon tree blossom and actually see how a flower turns into a lemon? Can it ever give the same feeling, these images on screens, while the actual life passes by without being too much noticed?
I thank the earth for giving such a mother to me who taught me how to love the earth and to appreciate all living things… Perhaps everyone should create more time with their children in order to show them how wonderful life is and not everything takes place in the virtual world of internet…

18.11.2013

Picture: The Japanese painter Tetsuya Ishida felt the loneliness and the ugliness of consumer societies and painted those...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 15th of December, 2013 Sunday.

From Myrtou to Lapithos…

From Myrtou to Lapithos…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

The witness is old, has spent time in Arab countries working after 1974 for many years so he can speak English… He is calm and a happy person, which is rare to find nowadays… He is one of my readers and with him and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, I have arranged to go to Myrtou so that he can show us a possible burial site of one `missing person`.
He tells me stories about Myrtou, how Myrtou was a place that would take workers since there was the monastery Agios Panteleimonas that had a lot of land in the area… Once upon a time in this area they would plant cotton and workers would work in the cotton fields… They would get tobacco from Yialousa and roll into cigarettes here and export to England… They would grow tangerines, oranges, carobs, olives… They would collect mushrooms and asparagus and also make gypsum from stones of the area in gaminis… Myrtou was famous for its honey, it had wild flowers, particularly Tulipa Cypria… The monastery had cows and sheep…
Once upon a time, there had been life in the monastery but nowadays, it is falling apart, that beautiful building, decayed and with lack of care, it shows the destruction of a culture, the destruction of a way of life, lonely, just standing there as if proof that terrible things have been happening on this island and that nobody cares… Because if there had been care for life and culture, the monastery would not be in this shape… Agios Panteleimonas was in the old days the hope for people with serious illnesses like losing the eye sight, not being able to walk and many came to pray here, with the hope for protection. According to the villagers, many Greek Cypriots, as well as Turkish Cypriots with such serious illnesses came to pray at the monastery… Now we would only hear stories about this while the monastery itself awaits renovation…
Once upon a time, this monastery had been one of the richest monasteries and had a lot of land around Pendaya, Ashera, Kato Moni, Agia Irini, Panagra… The Metropolitis of Kyrenia would make an agreement with the Grand Vizier in Constantinopolis in 1754 and this monastery too, would pay taxes to the Ottomans… The villagers would name a big pine tree after the metropolitis was killed in 1821 by the Ottomans in Nicosia… Villagers would go to rest under this big pine tree for a few hours every day…
The witness tells me that right after Assomato village, the weather would be different… Even if Assomato would be hot in the summer, Myrtou would be cooler… In fact, even in this season when we have had no rain, Myrtou is greener than the other villages we passed through… It stands 1000 feet above sea level so perhaps that explains this greenery and the good weather even in summertime…
The witness tells me that years and years ago many people came to work in Myrtou, because of the monastery… They would work only for their daily bread, without any sort of payment. They would stay and settle here, get married, have children, build houses so that's how Myrtou would develop… Myrtou, nowadays is called `Chamlibel` by Turkish Cypriots. Yes, there are people living here, people get married, have children, build houses and in this village life still continues… If you do not know anything of its past, it's just another village… Only if you know people connected with memories of Myrtou, then you would start realizing what sort of loss it has been for our country…
We go inside the village, at a place called `Vrisi`… There used to be lots of water in the area once upon a time… At the place called `Vrisi`, one `missing` person had been buried… The witness shows us this place and we take photos and coordinates, together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Further up stands a beautiful stone house, the stones built like dantella (lace)… In old times, in this area, stones were free, not expensive as today therefore they were building their houses of stones, they explain to me. The ones who live in this house now only come once a week, we find out – the beautiful stone house belonged to Nikos Samuel family, a rich family whose relatives had a school in Nicosia.
In the village we come across an old man, a refugee from Fasli village… He had become a refugee twice – in 1963 he fled from Fasli in Paphos to Antrolikou and then to Myrtou in 1974… Has he been back to his village? `Yes` he says, `but it is so far and I am so old, it is very difficult to go again…`
The Turkish Cypriot investigators will take our witness back to Nicosia and we will continue to Lapithos to meet another reader of mine… I thank him from the heart for doing this…
Last week this reader had called me to tell me of a possible burial site by the seaside in Lapithos. Now we meet him and he tells us his story:
`Back in 1977 I used to come to fish here, by the seaside` he says… `One day I found a military helmet, with a hole – apparently that person who wore the helmet had been shot from his head… I took the helmet home as a memento of those days and later on, in the same field, I saw a skull, it had no chin… Right after the war in 1974, this whole area was full of dead bodies of soldiers and they buried them randomly and that's why I had found the skull…`
We are at an area I had written a lot about just by the sea – we are between Rita on the Rocks and the Incirli Plaj - further up is a fenced area which is a military area where witnesses had told me they had seen human remains while working during the fencing of the area… Just across the road was a tomato field where remains of 40 `missing persons` had been found during exhumations of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee. They had also dug in this field where we are standing now, a small area but did not find anything.
Some years ago, this field had been turned into an area for 4x4 jeeps so a lot of soil had been taken and the land was turned upside down… Xenophon Kallis starts investigating and finds some bones, some of them animal, one of them that might be human or animal. They will send this bone to the laboratory for analysis because it looks like a human bone…
These had been the killing fields – my reader tells me that during the war, a small team of Greeks and Greek Cypriots had tried to come through the sea to this area. According to my reader, `The Turkish soldiers did not touch them and allowed them to land from the sea and then surrounded them and there was a fierce fight here… There were many bodies scattered around and later on they would bury them randomly…`
A Turkish Cypriot couple come to take a look at what we are doing in this field… She is from Stavrokonnou, her cousin also `missing`, killed by some Turkish Cypriots due to internal strife among the TMT of the village back in 1966… She points out that there had been an open well in this field and when her goat fell, she herself closed its mouth… She and her husband had helped the Missing Persons' Committee, pointing out various possible burial sites… About the tomato field where the remains of 40 `missing` persons had been found, she points out that perhaps there might be more under the road that was built in 1975 to go up to Lapithos… Her husband says that `We used to plant that field and there were women clothes, we used to encounter those women clothes…`
The road was built after refugees came to settle in Lapithos in 1975…
She says that they had also shown some other burial sites in the area to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and invites me to visit her… I promise to go and see her and sit down and talk about what else she might know about this whole area… I like her a lot since she is straight, playing no games, not mincing words but simply doing what has to be done: Helping out in the search for the `missing persons`, whether they are Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots and she has a huge heart full of understanding and humanity.
We say goodbye to her and her husband and to my reader, thanking him for showing us this area and head back to Nicosia…

30.11.2013

Photo: At the Agios Panteleimonas Monastery at Myrtou...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 8th of December, 2013 Sunday.

From Ebicho to Assia and Aphania…

From Ebicho to Assia and Aphania…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Τel: 00 357 99 966518

On the 12th of November 2013 Tuesday morning, together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis and Murat Soysal, as well as the Coordinator of Exhumations Anthropologist Okan Oktay, we go together to investigate various possible burial sites I would like to show them.
Our first stop is the rubbish dump area of Ebicho (Abohor – Cihangir as the Turkish Cypriots call it). I want to show the fenced area of the rubbish dump of Ebicho to the Committee since I have found a Turkish Cypriot eye witness from 1974 who had seen some Greek Cypriot `missing persons` while they were being buried here. He had told me back in August this year that from the British times, there had been a huge hole where the British had taken soil for building the road back in the 40s or 50s. He said:
`When you go to the rubbish dump of Ebicho, on the right hand side at the entrance, there is a fenced area. In this area there used to be a big hole. This whole was 20 meters by 30 meters and its depth went as far as 3-4 meters at some points. The British had taken from this place soil while building a road passing next to the rubbish dump. We were even using this hole for shooting practice as young kids since bullets could not get out accidentally…
In 1974, when they were burying some `missing persons` in this hole, I was there. I was a young kid then… It was after the war. The bulldozer operator of the village – he died many years ago – had collected from around Palekythro and Ebicho, the ones killed in the war. I remember that he had buried here at least 8-10 `missing` Greek Cypriots.
These `missing` Greek Cypriots had remained out in the open for many days so their colour had turned dark. As a young boy, I had thought `Were they all black? I didn't know that Greek Cypriots had black people…And their hair had fallen out…` not realizing that their skin had turned darker, due to staying out in the open, in the sun…
In this havara hole, the bulldozer operator of the village had buried `missing` Greek Cypriots that he had gathered from around Ebicho and nearby villages. After some time, this hole had become a rubbish dump. Whoever had a dead animal would throw over this hole or whoever had a construction, the remains he would take here and dump it. But if there are excavations here, you would find the remains of at least 8-10 `missing` Greek Cypriots at the bottom of the pit. This hole has never been touched, has never been excavated. The only thing done was dumping rubbish over it. And finally, in order to stop people from dumping more rubbish, the municipality put fences around it.
Each time I pass from this area, I feel bad because I remember those people buried here… Please try to help and inform the Committee so that this place can be excavated and the remains returned to their families to be buried…`
Now we come to the rubbish dump and take photos. From the description of my Turkish Cypriot reader, we roughly find where the hole might have been. I thank this reader for his humanity…
Then we go to Assia to meet a Turkish Cypriot relative of a `missing person` from 1964. His father had been `missing` from Assia and recently a Greek Cypriot had come and shown two possible burial sites and he wants to show us these. We go to the first possible burial site, a well and on our way back we stop at the Panagia Church dating from 11th century. The Panagia Church is below the level of the road so according to my readers, it is sometimes submerged in water when there are heavy rains. There had been information that some burials might have taken place in 1974 in the yard of the church so we investigate the yard… There are two big cavities that look as if they were dug with a bulldozer. Some say that around 30-40 `missing` persons were buried here.
Then we go to the other possible burial site outside Assia and the relative of the `missing` Turkish Cypriot shows us this place – it is another well…
Then we say goodbye to him and go back to Aphania…
We pass by the burial site of the Englezou family, the youngest was barely 11 years old, little Georgakis Englezou… On the 16th of October 2013, I had gone to his funeral in Limassol. His other brother, Christakis, 14 years old is still `missing`…
Then we go to the site where back in mid-90s, Americans had done some exhumations in order to find the remains of a `missing` Greek Cypriot American citizen, Kasapis… Together with him was one more, young Greek Cypriot so his remains might be in this area…
When we reach the burial site, I feel shocked – there are many aloe vera plants, in Turkish we call them `Sabir Aghaci`, meaning `Trees of Patience…` - they look like from the ages of dinosaurs and they surround a water well…
It brings back bad memories of a story I had heard in this village… A Greek Cypriot woman from Assia or Aphania was taken by two Turkish Cypriots from Aphania, raped and killed and buried next to some aloe vera trees… We had been looking for these aloe vera trees… Could this be a simple coincidence or are these the trees we had been looking for?
No one knew about the story of the woman buried next to the aloe vera until these two Turkish Cypriots, years later had a big argument about something else in the coffee shop and they started shouting at each other and accusing each other of killing that woman… All those in the coffee shop heard and found out the details then…
Further down, Kallis shows us another well…
The whole area is silent, eucalyptus trees standing and showing their beauty… Messaoria has its own quiet beauty – I had missed that, I realize now since I have not come to this area for a long time now…
I go back to Nicosia with a heavy heart – there is no cure to pain except enduring it… Sadness is everywhere, as well as the happiness of the sunshine and the birds and the trees and the bees… Our happiness is always shaded with the sadness of all these true life stories of what we have done to each other… And yet, we survive and whether our heart is heavy or light, we try to move on, to create something better than our past… Perhaps the only way to endure this pain is to move on and keep on doing things that will bring more happiness to this country in order to overcome the sadness of the past…

16.11.2013

Photo: The rubbish damp outside Ebicho...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 1st of December 2013, Sunday.