Behind the Tekke…

Behind the Tekke…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Our first stop is in Nicosia, behind the `Mevlevi Tekke`, now a museum but once upon a time a religious sanctuary for the `Mevlevis` - those who believed in Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi who had written beautiful poetry in his time… The Mevlevi sect was active here until 1950s and the believers would gather at the Tekke in their long white robes to listen to music and to dance – the swirling dervishes – as a prayer to God. In one of the most famous poems, Mevlana says:
`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.…`
One of the earliest Pashas of the Ottomans in Cyprus had been from the Mevlevi sect and he had arranged to build the Mevlevi Tekke here, in the centre of Nicosia. Behind the Tekke was big gardens that belonged to the sanctuary...
At the end of December 1963 when intercommunal fighting began in Nicosia, because Turkish Cypriots could not get out of Nicosia, they had started burying their dead behind the Tekke, in these gardens... At that time, there had been nothing here – both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots killed during the fighting or killed due to the `conflict` were buried here. I had taken a witness who had helped bury them and he had given his account of what had happened to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee – he had been a young boy of 17-18 in those times, they had fled from Kaymakli (Omorphita) in fear of their lives and families were settled in a cinema close by. One night, some Turkish Cypriots had come to the cinema to take youngsters to help bury some Greek Cypriots killed in the fighting... They would be digging graves and helping to bury them. He had shown us the spot where he thought they had buried the Greek Cypriot `missing` from
end of 1963.
A few days ago one of my readers would call me to tell me that he had found out some other `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried somewhere in Phota village. The commander in those times in 1963-64 of the walled city were good friends with the commander in the area of Phota and when they had caught some Greek Cypriots who had passed to the Turkish quarter of Nicosia by accident or those they took and arrested for whatever pretext, he would send some of them to be killed and buried in the area of Phota. Phota, close to Kirni and Boghazi, was a `pure` Turkish Cypriot area so what my reader has told me sounds probable... Currently there is exhumations in Phota and perhaps the news that there is exhumations triggered this piece of information to come to the surface... But as always, I would need to investigate more. My reader promises to find out the possible burial site in Phota from 1963-64.
But today we are behind the Tekke, at a parking lot between two buildings. The Evkaf had built these in the gardens of the Tekke... My witness shows us the location where he saw some Greek Cypriot `missing` being buried in 1974.
`It was right after the 20th of July 1974 and I saw a truckload of Greek Cypriots being buried somewhere here` he points out to Murat Soysal, Okan Oktay and Xenophon Kallis from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, who came with us so we could show them this possible burial site of some `missing` Greek Cypriots from 1974.
`Perhaps, some of the remains stayed under this building but perhaps if you excavate the parking lot, starting from here, you might find some remains...`
He had known the truck driver, a guy from around Vassilia who is no longer alive now. The guy from around Vassilia did not have such a good name, in fact he had had a terrible nickname, they called him `C.......`
My witness had been working somewhere close to the Tekke and that's how he happened to be in this area that day...
He had seen this truck driver taking watches and rings from the dead bodies and had warned him:
`Why are you doing that? Don't! It's a shame!`
And the truck driver had told him:
`They won't be needing these where they have gone... But these, I need them...` and had continued to take whatever he could find from the dead bodies.
The name of this driver has been popping up during my investigations, both his and his brother's names were mentioned in connection with some `disappearances` during 1974. They had been from around Vassilia and had fled in 1963 and had gone to live elsewhere as refugees – both brothers had been drivers, one of them a bus driver who would take Turkish Cypriot workers to the Morphou and Vassilia area to work in citrus plants or in collecting carrots and other vegetables. Recently a woman had told me that the driver with the nickname `C...` had been boasting about taking a woman and her child in 1974, how he had taken them and how he had kept them... She had shaken her head and whispered to me to go to the coffee shops in the area and try to listen to the old men if they would speak and tell me what had happened...
Behind the Tekke, I see one of my distant cousins in the area and we start talking:
`We built our shop here at the end of the 70s` he says. `In those days, this whole lot was completely empty – there had been a water depot somewhere there but nothing else... We had heard rumours that while that building was being constructed, some bones had been found...`
So now we have confirmation from two different eye witnesses that I have taken here at different times that some Greek Cypriots `missing` both from 1963-64 and 1974 had been buried in these grounds.
My witness explains to us the former look of the area:
`There used to be small houses here but they are demolished now...`
We walk with Kallis towards the front of the building – it is clear that it is the same area our first witness who had pointed out to us the possible burial site of some of the Greek Cypriot `missing` from 1963-64...Perhaps this had been a `burial site` they had started using in 1963 and continued to use it in 1974 as well...
As we are about to leave, we encounter another reader who had been a witness to a burial after the 14th of August 1974... He had been on top of the Kornaro Hotel in Nicosia and he asks me when they will dig there...
I introduce him to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and he tells them his story...
`If you get me up on the roof of Kornaro Hotel` he says, `I can show you the place where the burial took place. We were up on the roof of Kornaro – to the right of Kornaro, there had been some trees. Between the trees and Kornaro, we saw bulldozers digging and burying... An officer had come to visit and he told us `Where shall we take them to bury? We are burying them here... Such things happen in wartime...` I had seen a lot of dead bodies and a lot of wounded... Further up was the Grammar School... There had been a fierce fight around here in 1974 – the area was where TURDIK and ELDIK had been...`
I had published what he had told me five-six years ago and then a very detailed interview in 2011, that is three years ago... Because Kornaro Hotel is now in the `military zone` we have no way of taking him up there unless a `special permission` is given. Perhaps we can try to go up a high building from the Greek Cypriot side of the area so he can point out the possible burial site that he knows... We will continue to work on this...
Now it's time to go to Ebicho because some of my other readers are waiting to show us possible burial sites so we thank my witness who had come to show us this possible burial site in the Tekke Bahchesi and we leave Nicosia...

1.3.2014

Photo: Possible burial site at the Tekke Bahchesi...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of March 2014, Sunday.

What can we learn from what Rwanda is doing right now for healing the wounds?

What can we learn from what Rwanda is doing right now for healing the wounds?

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

As there is new hope for some sort of agreement in Cyprus, perhaps it is good at looking around the globe at countries of conflict about how they are treating their traumas of the past, how they are facing the truth and how they are trying to rebuild their torn countries…
We have always spoken about the possibility of setting up some sort of `Truth and Reconciliation Committees` in order to face the traumas that our island had to go through at least in the last half century, many giving the example of South Africa.
Something new is being done in Rwanda and perhaps it can give us ideas and inspiration about how we want to take up our recent past in healing the wounds of our country…
A few days ago, I read the article written by Swanee Hunt from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, leader of `Women Waging Peace`… When she had been the US Ambassador to Austria, Swanee Hunt had worked with women from former Yugoslavia and later on had set up with inspiration given to her by our dear friend Katie Economidou the international women's organization called `Women Waging Peace` that we had become part of… Katie had convinced Swanee Hunt to bring together 10 women each from 10 conflict areas and with the 100 women to set up such an international women's organization. We had gone to Boston and had spent a month, getting together with women from other conflict areas, sharing our stories and learning about what women were doing to heal the wounds of their countries that had suffered due to colonisation and war. Swanee Hunt in her recent article entitled ` Rebuilding Rwanda: Trauma and Trust…` writes:
`Rwanda's First Lady, Jeannette Kagame, has launched yet another initiative in this tiny central African state.
Her office has started up projects advancing children, particularly girls, and providing what a business school might dub a "proof of concept" as their promotion has evolved into public policy. This particular experiment, obligatory across the rural countryside, is Ndi Umunyarwanda, 'I Am Rwandan.'
Twenty years since the 100-day genocide of 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu, "It's to help people not be confused about the Hutu perpetrators, not to listen to their parents who are keeping alive old hatred," I'm told by a friend interpreting for me at her neighbourhood gathering.
That said, few youth are in attendance, even though the country's median age is less than 19.
But as the hours unfold, it's not clear the primary purpose is for the younger generation, for whom the genocide is a story, not a memory. Instead, these gatherings are trauma therapy en masse.
The meeting is in a rectangular room with two-toned walls and imposing turquoise doors.
Windows with large plastic slats frame palm tree branches outside and allow in light and breeze. Attendees, mostly men, are seated in popsicle orange, yellow, red, and purple plastic chairs. Some hundred are jammed inside, 50 outside. Loudspeakers boom through the room and the yard.
A young woman leads the crowd in a song, clapping and hopping as she belts out, "Peace is the responsibility of every Rwandan ('Yes!' sings the audience chorus)… lt's good to love our country (Yes!)… We are all relatives (Yes!)… Women, young, old, the whole country (Yes!)…Our identity should have no discrimination (Yes!)… We fought genocide (Yes!)."
The music ends, and she shouts into the microphone in a Pentecostal tone, gesticulating wildly: "Being Hutu, Tutsi, Twa is not paramount. Most important is being Rwandan. Non-Rwandans don't recognize us anymore, because they can't believe our identity is Rwandan."
Now she launches into another raucous song. "We had a king," her voice bounces off the walls. "He had slaves but never discriminated until missionaries came. They colonized us by teaching our country 'divide and rule.'"
A documentary begins to roll. "In the old days," the narrator explains nostalgically, "young Rwandans were taught our history, how to wage war, how to dance." Fascinating black-and-white-flecked clips follow: first French Catholic missionaries, then Hutu political leaders making outrageous allegations about the Tutsi minority.
Jean Kambanda, prime minister during the genocide, is wearing camouflage, even though he is not in the army. He holds up a pistol. "Everyone can have a gun," he shouts. "They came with machetes yesterday to arm the militias. The ones for you are on the way. In 10 days you can finish this!"
The genocide itself is given about 10 seconds. "Everyone knows that part," someone whispers to me.
The film ends with the Rwandan Patriotic Front leader, Paul Kagame, who has de facto led the country ever since the genocide.
"We must be inclusive and just. We must not have politics of hate. We have died many times; it's time for us to live."
After the documentary, the audience focuses on three leaders sitting behind a long table. The first is a young man: "We were 18 clans, but we didn't discriminate among Hutu farmers, Tutsi cattlemen, Twa potters. Rwandans were living in harmony until missionaries started teaching about differences…. The missionaries taught that Hutu are the true Rwandans. But we can't blame everything on the colonizer; Rwandan ourselves believed the strangers as they urged genocide."
The second speaker — Mathilde – explains the central purpose of the meeting.
"It's time to tell each other your experiences, even if you disagree with each other." To do that, Mathilde says, "Everyone must open up. People's children must know the truth, but even as we tell them, let's remember the good and forget the bad."
A man in his 30s begins the testimonials. "I'm Rwandan." The audience claps. "I lost my father, mother, and grandfather. My other grandfather" he said, "run away and hide in a safe place. I have wounds from my history, but I'm better than I was at the time of the genocide." More clapping.
And so an hour passes, as one person after another stands and tells a 20-year-old tale of suffering, losses, fear, abuse. But each story ends with the strong assertion of forward-looking unity, "I am Rwandan."
Will this national soul-baring be unifying? Two decades of silence have muted a festering pain. "Some are ready to talk about the past, others are not yet. Some will never be," the First Lady tells me. "But many who come forward with their stories will feel heard, respected – and that's an essential part of healing."
We don't have to copy anything, we can create our own way of healing our country but at the same time we don't have to reinvent methods that have been tried in other conflict areas… We can take inspiration from Rwanda, from South Africa, from France and Germany – there are thousands of examples – the main thing perhaps is to have the will to do it…
I think it's time to start thinking about how we will do this in practice…

22.2.2014

Photo: At the `I Am Rwandan` meeting in Kigali, a man stands to ask for unity among Hutu and Tutsi...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 9th of March 2014, Sunday.

Stories from Kyrenia…

Stories from Kyrenia…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I meet Stella Yiallouridis, the wife of `missing` Andreas Yiallouridis to talk about what we can do to find out what had happened to him and the group he had been together with him…
Married in 1971, they had a son in 1972 and when he had gone `missing` in 1974, Stella had been pregnant – two months – to their daughter who would never have a chance to see or touch her father…
In July 1974 when the war began, Andreas Yiallouridis had been called as a `reservist` and had been together with a group, a total of nine persons, who would go `missing` in Kyrenia.
They had taken refuge in a house, later on we would find out that it was the house of a British pilot… From there Andreas would call his wife Stella and when Stella would ask him where in Kyrenia they were, he would answer `We don't know…`
They would find out from the telephone number that this was the Sir Arnold Toynbee Street and that they were in the house of British pilot J.V. Macarthy… They would inform the UN to go and save them from there…
Maroulla Chaghalli from Kyrenia lived in the same street so we would call Maroulla to see if she would come with us to show us the pilot's house and to try to dig further for information about what had happened to the group. The remains of two from the group had been found during the exhumations at the Botanical Garden area in Kyrenia but the rest – the seven Greek Cypriots last time heard of in the pilot's house – are still `missing`.
On the 7th of February 2014 Friday I would arrange with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to come with us to go to the Sir Arnold Toynbee Street in Kyrenia and we would all go together, the 78 year old Maroulla Chaghallis, Stella Yiallouridis, myself and from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee Murat Soysal, Okan Oktay, Xenophon Kallis and a Turkish Cypriot investigator Hikmet Selchuklu.
We would go to find the Sir Arnold Toynbee Street in Kyrenia, now called `Gulbahar Street`, the name of a deceased Turkish Cypriot woman teacher who had been settled in the house of the pilot at the end of 1974. Gulbahar which means `Rose spring` had been a very famous, very active Turkish Cypriot teacher from Limassol – she had raised many good students, had been very active with civil society organisations and charities, helping a lot with children's charity associations. Everyone loved their Gulbahar Teacher… They had moved from Limassol in December 1974 to the house of the pilot. Gulbahar Resa, later on known as Gulbahar Gochkun, lived in this house until she died a decade and a half ago… The street first had been named `Islam Bey Sokak` but when she died, they gave her name to the street in her good memory as `Gulbahar Street`. Her son Resa is a good friend who works at PEO and I would speak to him later about the house…
`When we moved in the pilot's house, there had been no furniture – it had been ransacked` he would tell me. `But there were no bullet holes either inside or outside the house, no sign of any fighting or any shooting…`
The yard of the house had been cement, no soil…
We would go and look at the house where the group of seven `missing` Greek Cypriots had last been seen.
Maroulla Chaghalli whose house had been in the same street had heard someone shouting in Greek on the 25th of July 1974.
`We heard someone saying `Why do you break the doors of the houses to enter?` and then we heard gun shots… After 15 minutes a group of Turkish soldiers, accompanied by two Turkish Cypriots came to our house. One of those Turkish Cypriots we knew as the son of Moustafa, who had a mandra further up… He told us not to be afraid that they would not allow them to hurt us… We ended up in Aghirdagh and there another Turkish Cypriot whom my husband knew, helped us to come back to Kyrenia, to the Dome Hotel…`
Stella Yiallouridis in our first meeting had given me a telephone number of a Turkish Cypriot whom she had said was the Turkish Cypriot who had gone to the house of Maroulla Chaghallis, the son of Moustafa. I had called him and he had come to meet Maroulla when we had gone to the `Gulbahar Street` but it would turn out to be a `mistaken identity` - no, he was not the son of the Moustafa with the mandra, but the son of another Moustafa. He would tell us who the sons of the Moustafa were for whom we had been looking for and we would go to visit them in their shop. But no, they did not quite remember the incident – perhaps it was their elder brother who had passed away some years ago? This family had been a good family who had saved the lives of many Greek Cypriots during the war… Some had even called them `traitors` for exactly that reason: For saving the lives of some Greek Cypriots from the Kyrenia area. When we would go to their shop together with
Maroulla Chaghallis and Stella and the officials of the CMP, both of the sons of Moustafa would tell me that they read my articles about `missing persons` every day in YENIDUZEN and would congratulate me for the good work we had been doing. One of the sons would enquire about Mahallebaris from Kyrenia – he is a good friend of the son of the `missing` Mahallebaris and the son would visit him from time to time… We would say goodbye to this kind hearted family from Kyrenia who had saved the lives of many Greek Cypriots during the war in 1974.
The information that Stella had given me that they might have been killed and buried in the yard of the pilot's house would turn out to be false since the yard had been all cement back in 1974, no soil to bury them in…
There had been another piece of information that Maroulla Chaghallis had heard from a Greek Cypriot years ago that they might have been buried in an empty field next to her house – now this field is the yard of the Kyrenia police where they do the tests for the cars once a year for traffic.
The exhumations at the Botanical Gardens in Kyrenia were done several times but there are still possible burial sites in that area… We had gone there many times – the area has changed dramatically and some apartments had been built in this area, a road passing over a possible burial site… We do not yet know if the group in the pilot's house had been arrested and taken to the area around Botanical Gardens but we will continue with the help of our readers to search every single item of information and to try to find out the fate of this `missing` group from the pilot's house…
It is not easy for Maroulla, at the age of 78 to go to her house, to show us the pilot's house, to go and speak with the sons of Moustafa – all of these would bring back memories of the past… It is not easy for Stella to look at the house of the pilot and to think about what might have happened there or afterwards what might have happened. The worst thing on this earth is not to know… Once you know, you find a way to deal with it but not knowing would paralyse you and pose you with thousands of questions about what might have happened… I whisper to Okan Oktay to take them to lunch to change the mood of the day and I suggest a restaurant not in the old harbour but behind the castle where there is a very open view of the sea, our Mediterranean, our blue sea so that Maroulla and Stella can rest a little bit and calm down their emotions simply by looking at the view… Kyrenia has become a place of hotels and casinos with terrible traffic,
buildings, buildings, buildings everywhere but this spot I have chosen is very quiet and calm, offering us an eternal view of how Kyrenia once was, the eternal beauty of the Kyrenia shores… We sit and look at the crows perching on the rocks, the little fishermen's boats entering the harbour, the castle glistening in the sun, trying to `normalize` life and heal the wounds of the past…

8.2.2014

Photo: The pilot's house...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 2nd of March 2014 Sunday.

`My heart always stayed in Kyrenia…`

`My heart always stayed in Kyrenia…`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Goksel Kemal, born in 1961 in Kyrenia was the youngest of the five kids in his family. His father Kemal Hasan was quite a well-known fisherman in the Kyrenia harbour, his mother was Asiye. They were one of the oldest Turkish Cypriot families from Kyrenia, their roots going back more than 200 years in Kyrenia…
Since Kemal was a fisherman and they lived one hundred meters close to the sea, little Goksel had learnt to swim at the age of five at `Karakiz`, a beach after the Kyrenia Castle. In those days the street leading to his house was called Lambros Katsonis… He loved the sea and fishing and spent his days at the harbour. Why was this area called `Karakiz`? According to legend, a dark girl had drowned here hence the name `Kara` (`Black`) `Kiz` (`Girl`)… When Goksel was a small child and wanted to go to the `Karakiz` beach his mother would frighten him saying `Maybe the `Karakiz` might take you away!` in order to keep him off the beach!
While Goksel was three years old in 1964, some Greek Cypriots would kidnap the fisherman's boat of his father outside the harbour and had burnt it, making Kemal lose his tool for winning his bread. He had become `unemployed` and would go here and there to find odd jobs to work. Goksel's elder brothers Moral, Hasan and Doghan would build a `periptero` from bamboos and would start selling sandwiches, cokes and kebap there in order to help their unemployed father. Goksel too, from a very early age would go to the beach behind the fort to sell sandwiches and coke to help his family. They continued doing this until 1967… Meanwhile Kemal had started working with a very kind hearted Greek Cypriot in the harbour called Charalambos, going fishing or renting boats. The first Greek words that Goksel would learn would be "Varga gia peripato!` meaning `boat trip` and little Goksel would shout this out loud in order to attract customers.
Having worked hard, the children had saved some money until 1967 and gave this to their father to get a small boat with a one and a half litre horsepower engine… People swimming could actually pass this boat but the family was happy that Kemal was slowly going back to his profession: being a fisherman… This is what he had loved to do…
In 1970, a Greek Cypriot called Sotiri from Karakoumi would build a bigger fishing boat for Kemal and Kemal would sell his small boat to a Greek Cypriot who had a bar at the Kyrenia Harbour. The bar owner would cut the boat in half and put it at his bar…
Goksel's life in the Kyrenia Harbour had begun in 1968… Because he was blond, they used to call him `Sari badadez` (`Yellow potato`) but one day when his father's boat was in front of the Corner Bar, Goksel had slipped and fell into the water – he had had an ice cream cone in his hand, when he came out of the water, the ice cream and the cone was intact so everyone in the harbour started calling him `Pagoto` (`Ice cream`).
I met Goksel Kemal through the Facebook and asked him to kindly write his childhood memories of Kyrenia… Since 1979 he has been living in London but he took Kyrenia in his heart with him, the town he was born in, the town he loves and it is clear from the way he wrote his memories, how much he misses Kyrenia…
Goksel Kemal wrote:
`The best days of my childhood were spent in the harbour, playing hide and seek with Greek Cypriot children, the day the Kyrenia Ship was excavated and brought to the surface, I had been there… Andrew who could not speak properly always had a bucket in his hand, going around the harbour. In the old days of festivities (panairi) I would sit on the stones by the old lantern, watching in excitement to see who would be able to pick up the flag from the masts covered with oil… The owner of the bar who had bought my father's small fishing boat had a son Tony and one day he would slap me without any reason, I would run crying to my father… Or while going home to `Karakiz`, collecting konnara on my way… Or the smell of the soil after the rain – I can still feel that smell…
While staying at `Karakiz`, I would hear the sound of the engine of my father's fishing boat and would run to the harbour to help him… All these things remain in my memory as though it had happened yesterday…
On the 15th of July 1974, my father had just returned from fishing – he was in the harbour and we were going to take the boat out and paint it.
My mother had told me and my brother Doghan that morning around 09.00-10.00 to go together `To help out your father`… And from `Karakiz` we had started walking slowly towards the back of the Kyrenia Castle. As soon as we passed the `Tavshan Tepesi` (`The Rabbit Hill') we heard shots and when we looked we saw a speedboat pulling out of the harbour and some people shooting at the boat from the Castle.
At that moment someone would shout at us:
`Goksel! Doghan! Go back home!`
When we looked at who was shouting we saw our brother Hasan, coming back home from near the hospital. We ran home and did not get out from our house until 19th of July Friday. That morning, my father sent me and my brother Doghan to Nicosia…
On the morning of the 19th of July while I was going to Nicosia with the bus of late uncle Djafer, Husnu Mustafa had got on the same bus wıth us and he had got off at the Boghazi to go up to St. Hilarion. When I would return some weeks later to Kyrenia, I would hear that he had been killed in the war there…
We came back to Kyrenia after two or three weeks.
When I came back to Kyrenia I felt a big emptiness. There were no people on the roads, everywhere was dead still. It was as though everyone had deserted Kyrenia… And when I went down to the harbour, it was the same… A few days after, I would hear from the elderly about who had lost their lives during the war, names of both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who had been killed in the war.
They had settled the Greek Cypriots of Kyrenia at the Dome Hotel and during weekends, they would take them out for a walk at the harbour in groups. I had seen the son of a Greek Cypriot called Fani and he had asked me whether I had seen his father Fani. I had heard that his father had been shot but I could not say this to him, I said, `No, I didn't see him…`
I think both Fani and Alex were shot…And I think they are `missing` but I am not hundred per cent sure…
There had been a Greek Cypriot woman called Eleni who had a small market on the way from the courts towards the hospital, on the left. Mrs. Eleni had been a good friend of my late mother Asiye. Fani and Alex were her son and her son-in-law. I am not sure if they are `missing` or not but when my mother had heard that they might be `missing` she would be crying for them…
All of these were like a dream, like an adventure, as though I would wake up suddenly… The harbour was quiet - The children I had played with had suddenly disappeared…
The best days of my childhood before 1974 were over now…
I saw two dead persons in Kyrenia. One of them next to the old 23 Nisan Elementary School and the other one, on the road to the stadium outside a house, buried in the sand…
I settled in England in 1979 and my heart always stayed in Kyrenia…`

14.2.2014

Photo: Goksel Kemal with his father at the Kyrenia harbour in his childhood days...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 23rd of February, 2014 Sunday.

Return of glasses after 40 years…

Return of glasses after 40 years…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

The day is sunny and nice and we are all excited about what we are going to do… We have been preparing for this meeting for the past week and we all cross our fingers that it would go smooth… Because we all know, deep in our hearts that it would be an emotional day… It is Saturday, the 1st of February 2014…
A Turkish Cypriot friend, author of stories of `missing persons` from Messaoria, a gynaecologist currently practicing is Ankara, is flying in today just for this purpose... My readers would remember his stories that we have published on these pages, the touching stories of Dr. Dervish Ozer, who had been a 10 year old kid in 1974, living through the shock and trauma of war, a bomb falling where they were hiding away from their village, his mother being wounded from her hand and losing some of the fingers of her hand… Little Dervish on that day deciding to become a doctor, the ten year old boy, in order to help his mother. He would keep his promise to his mother, the little ten year old boy and in fact would become a doctor. His mother would be sent to Varosha to Dr. Hadjikakou to be treated and he would treat her so well that she would forever be grateful to the late Dr. Hadjikakou… I would get Dervish in contact with one of the daughters of Dr.
Hadjikakou because Dervish also makes sculptures and he has made a sculpture of Dr. Hadjikakou who had treated her mother so well and he wants to erect this monument as a symbol of friendship, somewhere on the Green Line where both communities can see…
The whole story starts with him actually, the stories he would listen from his elders, the stories he would eavesdrop in coffee shops and he would follow them up, learning details, doing research, going out and speaking with more people as he would grow up. One day he would call me and we would meet and he would share with me what he knew of the area… We would continue to speak through the phone or when he would come for quick visits to Cyprus… He and his family would try to help for me to understand what actually happened in this area back in 1974 and he would also show me possible burial sites, telling me their stories… I would ask him to write these down as stories from his childhood and he would begin writing and I would publish these stories on my daily page in Yeniduzen called `Cyprus: The Untold Stories` and he would be happy and I would be happy and encourage him to write more… I would translate some of those stories and we would publish
them in POLITIS as well, the stories of the 10 year old kid from Ebicho who saw too much for his young age, traumatized by war… As he would write more and more, I would know that the poison of the trauma would go away, at least some of it and he would feel better… Finally I would tell him to prepare his stories and we would help to publish him the book of his stories called `Say hello to him`, stories of war and `missing persons` from Khora Publications in Nicosia in Turkish. Hopefully one day we would have an opportunity to publish all of them in Greek and English as well since these stories are written in such a humanitarian way without taking any sides, only speaking of the feelings of `missing persons` and their close relatives, of days of war through the eyes of a child…
So he would hear the story of the glasses and he would follow it…
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot soldier with a goatee beard would go to Ebicho and seek refuge with two or three UN soldiers there in a house – on the wall had been written `UN`. The village, having come under attack from Greek Cypriot soldiers had been evacuated from the 20th of July 1974 and the Turkish Cypriot villagers would only return on the evening of 14th of August 1974. They would hear of one or two Greek Cypriot soldiers who had taken refuge with the UN inside the village and would go and surround the building and ask the UN soldiers to give the Greek Cypriots to them. During this whole fuss, a jeep with some Turkish soldiers with a Turkish Cypriot driver would appear and one of the Turkish officers from the jeep would kick the door in and would take the Greek Cypriot soldier with the goatee beard and glasses from the house. Someone would hit him in the face and his glasses would fall to the floor. The jeep would take him away and only his glasses
would remain behind.
Someone would pick up the glasses and would give to a Turkish Cypriot from the village whose glasses had been broken when trying to escape the war and he would wear them for many years, being thankful that they fit…
Having learnt the story of the glasses, Dervish would go after more information. Could we find the person to whom these glasses might belong? I would write the story and publish in POLITIS in 2011, together with the photo of the glasses but we would get no response.
Sometimes life works in funny ways so one day, through a friend I would meet Despina who had been looking for information about a Greek Cypriot `missing person`, the husband of the best friend of her mother's. We would start investigating and soon it would be clear that the glasses might in fact belong to him. As Dervish Ozer would come for his book launch, I would arrange for them to meet and talk. Despina would provide a photo of the `missing person` and we would go to the village of Dervish to meet the guy who wore the glasses for many years. Dervish's sister would cook lunch for us and we would sit talking about what had happened in that village. Despina and the family of the `missing person` would provide some photos so Dervish could show in the village to see if it is him. Dervish would go round showing the photo to those who had seen him being taken away from the UN building and they would recognize and confirm that it's him. We would agree
that Despina would tell the wife of the `missing person` about the glasses, prepare her for this and Dervish would come again from Ankara in about a month to meet her and to give her back the glasses.
So off we go to Ebicho, Despina, her mother, her mother's best friend who is the wife of the `missing person`, the brother of the `missing person` to Ebicho to meet Dervish and his family. We have also invited the Permanent Secretary of the UN at the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Mr. Florian von König because we want the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to do further investigation about this `missing person`.
Dervish greets us and we go to his sister's house. Mr. A. who had worn the glasses for some years is there to greet the relatives of the `missing` Greek Cypriot. The meeting is very emotional as the wife of the `missing` Greek Cypriot takes the glasses and opens the box to touch them… This is the first thing, the first news after waiting for exactly 40 years… Both Dervish and Mr. A. explain to her what had happened, me translating to English, Despina translating to Greek so everyone in the living room would understand… Mr. A. would give a gift of `tesbih`, `beads of patience` as we would call in Turkish to the wife of the `missing person`. The family also prepared a letter to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they give it to Mr. Florian who is also very much touched by this emotional encounter. It is like a scene from a movie but a movie based on reality, not fiction…
Mr. Florian tells the wife of the `missing person` to keep the glasses, a photograph would be enough… His humanity touches our hearts and we thank him for this…
We sit to eat with the family of Dervish and then we go to see his father and mother in their field where they have planted broad beans, broccoli and spring onions… They collect vegetables for us to take back with us… The mother of Dervish, Mrs. Mine cries as she talks about the war to Mr. Florian…
`We have seen pain, we have seen war, that's why we want to help` she says… Having lost two fingers during the bombing, she shows her hand to Mr. Florian saying, `This is nothing, you see, she has lost her husband… Such things should never happen again in Cyprus… That's why we try to help stop this pain and suffering…`
The wife of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` will not sleep, his brother will not sleep, I will not sleep tonight, perhaps Despina too and her mother will not sleep… We will all not sleep since the day has been so powerfully emotional…
We are happy to return something that belonged to a `missing person` but we must not stop there – both Dervish, myself and Despina, we will all work to find out more details about what happened after he was taken away from the UN building and to try to give more answers to the family…
The wife of the `missing person` will keep the glasses, the glasses that found their way to her house after 40 years, the glasses that her beloved husband wore… If this is not some kind of `miracle` of humans working towards peace, I don't know what else is… It is because of Dervish that we managed to get them back to where they belonged – his humanity would stop at nothing, would encounter any obstacles and would work with a human heart to stop the pain of the relatives of `missing persons`, having experienced war at the early age of ten and having seen things that no child should ever see…
I thank Dervish and all who helped the return of the glasses – they all give us a lesson of humanity of how much can be done on this island, if only we care a little bit about each other…

2.2.2014

Photo: The glasses that were returned to the relatives of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` after 40 years...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of February 2014, Sunday.

From Ebicho to Komi Kepir…

From Ebicho to Komi Kepir…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Surrounded by cypress trees, the big cavity looks like a small picnic area, all green, glowing in the warm winter sun… It has the shape of a rectangle, my reader calls it `The hollow with the cypress trees…`
A lot of soil had been taken from here and probably sold or used in constructions or in gardens and that's how this rectangular shaped big cavity came to be. Later on, cypress trees have been planted towards the edges inside the cavity and they would grow to provide protection from the winds of Messaoria…
The old man from Ebicho (Abohor, now called Cihangir) is showing us this place – he is the father of one of my readers… My reader is abroad and I call him to ask where in this cavity we should be looking for…
`Check the north-eastern corner` he says… `It has to be between the edge and the cypress trees… Two `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried there…`
Already Xenophon Kallis has gone down the deep cavity to explore – he stands 2-3 meters below, checking the ground where my reader is describing through the phone… We are together with the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay… This is our first stop today, on the 21st of January 2014, Tuesday and we will continue to investigate and to show some other possible burial sites…
According to my reader the two `missing` Greek Cypriots who had been killed and buried here back in 1974, had been trying to escape – they were in the group of 45 Greek Cypriots captured in Voni, in Frosso Dimou's house. They had been arrested and taken on foot towards Beykeuy, a neighbouring village.
A group of Turkish Cypriots in command around this area would execute them but during the execution, the automatic gun they were trying to use would get stuck and some of those from the group – maybe around eight or ten persons – would try to escape towards these fields… A chase would begin on foot, to try to catch and kill them… My reader, who had been a ten year old kid back in 1974, would hear the stories about this group, about the chase and he would grow up to investigate the details and tell us about what happened in this area… So the two would be caught and killed and would be buried in this spot… This possible burial site would have to be investigated to see if their remains are still there or whether they have been removed while taking big amounts of soil from this spot. The person who had chased and killed and buried them with his own shiro (bulldozer) would tell my reader the story so in a way, we have `first-hand information`
through my reader…
We take photos and coordinates of the area and we move to another old cavity outside Ebicho (Abohor) – we want the old man to show us the exact location of the huge cavity that once existed in the trash damping ground there. It has been partly fenced in order to prevent trash being thrown… Close by is a shooting range used by the military from time to time…
The old man, the father of my reader shows us where the cavity had used to be and shows us where its contours had been… Once upon a time, the British had taken havara soil from this cavity in order to build the road close by… In 1974, one of my readers had seen some Greek Cypriots being buried in this cavity… The hole had been 20 meters by 30 meters and its depth went as far as 3-4 meters at some points…After the war in 1974, having collected the dead bodies from around Palekythre and Ebicho, one of my readers had witnessed to the burial of 8-10 Greek Cypriot `missing persons` here. Later on this havara hole would become a rubbish damp and tons of rubbish must have been thrown in the hole, not just this hole but to the whole area where we are standing now… Finally the authorities of the village would try to fence it off in order stop people from throwing rubbish here… Kallis had found photos from 1963 of the area and on another visit, I had
shown this photo to the old man, to be sure of the exact location of the possible burial site and we had come before to explore with him. Now he is showing the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, the exact location of the havara hole…
He is around 80 years old and moves like the `Atomic Ant`, short, skilled, energetic… `I'm okay, at least I can find my way back to my house!` he jokes with us…
`Back in the old days, there used to be around 700-800 Turkish Cypriots in our village and there was only one sick person with cancer` he says… `Nowadays, everyone in the village suffers from something… Life has deteriorated, what with the things we eat, the pesticides and hormones and so on… Thank God I am healthy and can still move around and do my own stuff…`
He points out someone who had come and stopped further up…
`See? That man over there, he has cancer…`
We thank him and leave for Karpaz area. This family is so precious for me – they have been helping to uncover all the details of what had happened in this area during the war and helping us to locate possible burial sites. A beautiful family I hold close to my heart because such families are becoming extinct from Cyprus – they have an open heart, they always welcome you and offer you whatever they have, showing hospitality like it used to exist in old times…
Our next stop is the Famagusta Boghazi where we meet two Greek Cypriots from Ephtakomi… Together we go to Galatia and just outside Galatia (Mehmetchik as it is called by Turkish Cypriots) on the road to Ephtakomi they show us a little bridge where they say some `missing` Greek Cypriots had been buried. There are three small bridges on this road and two have been excavated by the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Back in August, one of my readers had also shown a possible burial site on this road but further down…
We say goodbye to the two Greek Cypriots and go to Komi Kepir to check on a well that had been filled during the disappearances of the Greek Cypriots of the area… The well is just outside Komi Kepir… We meet the owner of the land and although in the beginning he had denied that there in fact had been such a well in his field, now that he sees Christina Pavlou Solomi with us whose father and brother are `missing` since 1974 and he recognizes her, he says, `In fact, there is a well, it is in this field…` When he looks at Chirstina and sees all the pain in her eyes, something gives way in his heart and now, he tries to locate the well in the field… Kallis already has a map and shows this to the owner, telling him that the well is marked on the map… Years ago, Christina's mother, Panayiotou Pavlou Solomi had visited Kallis and told him that in this field a well had been closed abruptly just when some people had gone `missing`. Her husband and son
were being kept as prisoners of war in Galatia together with the others from her village and surrounding villages. The villagers had got suspected about why an open well would be closed… `Katirci's well` as it is called is somewhere here – Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay are investigating the field now with the owner… It is Christina's presence here that made the difference – although it is extremely difficult for Christina to come back to this village and to stand in this field, she has made a tremendous effort in order to help find the `missing`… She has a few tears in her eyes and I hold her hand, she is like an angel on this earth, like a saint, going beyond her own pain and suffering to help to stop the pain of all other relatives of `missing persons`… She has taken a big step and not everyone can do that – it takes a lot of guts and courage to be able to do what she is doing, despite her own suffering… Her tears pass
through my heart and I am grateful to have her as a friend in my life… She is so precious for me, a gem, a jewel, shining her light through the things she does…
On our way back Christina shows us the Agios Afxentios Church, a very old church where renovation work is just beginning… She shows us her house, her grandmother's olive oil mill… Time to say goodbye to Komi Kepir for now but we will come back again, hoping to help to have better days for our children…

25.1.2014

Photo: A possible burial site in Ebicho (Abohor)...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 9th of February 2014, Sunday.

Stories from Silikou and Limassol…

Stories from Silikou and Limassol…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We set out early morning around 08.30 from Nicosia with two cars on the 15th of January 2014 Wednesday to go to Ipsona together with a Turkish Cypriot witness from Silikou village… The witness is an old man with health problems and he needs to be back at 12.00 o'clock since he has to go into dialysis every day on that hour… Still he comes all the way from Prastio Morphou (it is called Aydinkeuy by Turkish Cypriots now) to show us a possible burial site…
We pass Ipsona and take the road towards Kouris dam… The roads have changed but once we find the right road that the old man remembers, he is happy… At a junction we stop the cars and get out… He shows us an area where there might be some `missing persons` buried. One of his Greek Cypriot friends had seen the burial place and had told him about it and now he is sharing it with us.
We start chatting about his village Silikou and talk about how the father of Nicos Anastasiades, ` Chrysanthos ` as he calls him had saved the lives of his Turkish Cypriot villagers… I had written about this before, one of his villagers, Pembe had told me the story and later on the Turkish media had `discovered` the story… Now the old man tells me more details of what had happened:
`I was the muhktar of the village at that time but could not get out of the village` he tells me, `so we sent Ibrahim Dayi to Chrysanthos Anastasiades to tell him that some Greek Cypriots from outside our village had come and our lives were in danger… Uncle Ibrahim was old so they would not touch him while he travelled to find Chrysanthos, the father of Anastasiades… Chrysanthos was coming from a very poor family and the family of Ibrahim had helped him survive when he had been a child, giving him bread to eat and money… So when Ibrahim would contact Chrysanthos who had been chief of police in Limassol at that time, Chrysanthos would immediately call the Greek Cypriots who came with bad intentions in our village and would send them away, telling them they cannot touch the Turkish Cypriots in Silikou… Some of these Greek Cypriots who had come to our village from outside were from Platres, Trimiklini, Pera Pedi…`
Probably they were some of the EOKA-B teams of the area…
The old man continues to tell his story:
`Chrysanthos was from our village Silikou but he had married to Pera Pedi and had been staying there. After the phone call from Chrysanthos to them, telling them off, they came and apologized and then left. They were afraid of Chrysanthos, that's why they apologized… But this way, our lives were saved…`
We look at the possible burial site on the way to the Kouris dam and then say goodbye to the old man – he will pay a short visit to his village Silikou and then head back in time for his dialysis.
But we have more work to do because I want to show the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee another possible burial site so we head back to Limassol together with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay. Here we meet my friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia from Komi Kebir – she has been helping voluntarily the search for the `missing persons`.
We stop at the entrance to the `Turkish Mahalla` of Limassol, `Ayanton` as the Turkish Cypriots call it. We walk towards the north, taking behind us the mosque and the church of the Ayios Antonios neighbourhood. I show the officials of CMP the place shown to me by some Turkish Cypriot witnesses where some Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot `missing` from the 60s might have been buried. The information was that some `missing` Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots are suspected to be buried in the well of the toilet of the `military` building where they might have been kept as prisoners for some time. We walk around the buildings and some Greek Cypriots using these buildings now help us to locate the actual building used as a prison, the toilet itself and show us where the wells are – they are behind the building, they point out four wells but the biggest one, closest to the toilet, might be the possible burial site.
It is said that unknown persons, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot might have been buried in the toilet well or in the shooting practice area in those times.
Next we try to locate the entry to the underground shooting practice area, some tunnels built underground since there were rumours that some `missing` might have been buried there…
One of my readers who had served here had told me that some `missing persons` had been buried in a well in the underground shooting range.
It is Kallis who discovers the entry – inside a house here, in the kitchen, was a big well and from the well they could enter the tunnel for shooting practice. It is covered now but when the Greek Cypriot refugee family moved in this house, they had discovered a big well, open, inside the kitchen! The well was very clean, no water, no trash – if this was the main entry, that's understandable… We find out that the tunnels stretched under the Turkish neighbourhood, were elaborate and might have had other entrances… Perhaps this had been the main entrance… I have a Turkish Cypriot reader who had served his military service here and I will arrange to take him here so he can tell us more about the secret tunnels and what had happened in these former military buildings of Turkish Cypriots… The refugees living in these houses offer us coffee – they are from Famagusta and very kind, reminding us of the hospitality of our people once upon a time
in Cyprus…
There is yet another secret shooting range underground in Larnaka that we still need to locate – we know from testimonies of my readers that some people were tortured and probably killed, still `missing` until now…
We say goodbye to Limassol with its secrets gradually unfolding before our very eyes… With some more help from readers, I am sure we will discover more about what happened in this neighbourhood back in the 60s and perhaps find the possible burial site of the `missing persons` from around Limassol…

18.1.2014

Photo: Possible burial site outside Limassol around Kouris dam…

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 2nd of February 2014, Sunday.