The story of Tabakki…

The story of Tabakki…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 99 966518

Mehmet Arif Tabakki was a good man, a kind man, a well-respected man in the mixed village Alaminos… Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots lived in this village until 1974 and the Tabakki family always had good relations with their Greek Cypriot villagers. Sometimes they would partner in planting of fields, they would work together and share the burden of life as well as enjoying whatever gift the earth would bring to them…
The Tabakki family had such a good name in the village, also among the Greek Cypriots that some of them would feel very comfortable if the Tabakkis would be in the fields in order to send their daughters to work in the fields… They trusted he would protect their daughters like one of his own children.
Tabakki's wife Meyrem was also a hardworking Turkish Cypriot woman, well respected in the village by both communities.
An old Greek Cypriot in the coffee shop in Alaminos, Mr. Charalambos Dimitriou would tell me a story about Mehmet Arif Tabakki:
`At the beginning of the 1960s some Greek Cypriot youngsters had been arguing during elections about who to vote for… In the end they would go and ask Tabakki who to vote for and Tabakki would tell them who to vote for and they would vote like that!`
Tabakki had a lot of land in Alaminos and around – nowadays very valuable land…
Mehmet Arif Tabakki's son Ahmet was also a well-respected person in this village. Again in the coffee shop we hear a story about him:
`Before the 1963 events exploded up, there was a Greek Cypriot called Nenni with whom Ahmet Tabakki was a good friend and they worked together… Nenni, one day told Ahmet, `This country will not go for the better… I am going to go to Australia` and left his own fields in the care of his friend Ahmet Tabakki…
But all good stories on this island generally end with a tragedy and Alaminos and the story of Tabakki would be no different…
On the 20th of July 1974 as Mehmet Arif Tabakki saw a group of Greek Cypriot soldiers attacking the village, he would take his family to the orange grove he owned and he would go and check what was happening. At the orange grove there had been a `motor house` so the family would stay there while the 84 year old Tabakki would say `I will go to Kofinou to inform the United Nations Peace Keeping Forces there about what is happening here…` and he would set out to go following the river… Most probably shots would be fired from the nearby church, killing Mehmet Arif Tabakki by the river bank… His family would remain for three days in the motor home of the orange grove until someone who knew them would come out and tell them to stop hiding and come back to the river…
Meanwhile around 13 Turkish Cypriots of the village would be taken as prisoners of war and would be made to stand in front of a wall and executed in cold blood… The Tabakki family, coming back to the village would see the bits and pieces of parts of brains and blood on that wall… And then the Tabakki family would leave to go to Kofinou…
Mehmet Arif Tabakki's body would remain by the river bank for 10 or 15 days more, at the exact place where he had been shot dead… And then someone would burn his body…
Meanwhile some Turkish Cypriots who had remained in Alaminos would inform the Tabakki family in Kofinou that Mehmet Arif Tabakki had been shot and killed and then burned by the side of the river. When hearing this tragic and devastating news, the son of Mehmet, Ahmet Tabakki would take his own son Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been 12 years old with him to go back to Alaminos… The wife of Mehmet Arif Tabakki, Meryem would also come with them… They would go on his tractor to the side of the river.
`As we collected the bones of my grandfather, my grandmother Meryem was crying… My grandfather was wearing a checkered shirt in black, green and white and we would find bits and pieces of his shirt, swirled because of the fire… My grandmother Meryem would recognize this shirt… We had found pieces of his skull but did not find too much remains… We collected whatever bones we found and put them in a bag… Taking this bag we would go back to Kofinou with our tractor and while entering the cemetery we would use a back road since being on the main road those days would be dangerous…We would bury the remains in a grave we would dig – a grave of 70 centimetres deep… Then my father Ahmet would put two stones, one at each end and would write my grandfather's name on the stone… Mehmet Arif Tabakki would be the only Turkish Cypriot from Alaminos who would be buried in Kofinou…`
These were the words of Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been 12 years old at the time…
There were 15 `missing persons` from Alaminos… The remains of all 14 Turkish Cypriots `missing` from Kofinou had been found by Xenophon Kallis from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee except one: The remains of Mehmet Arif Tabakki… Kallis had told me that he knew that the `missing` Tabakki had been buried in Kofinou and I would try to help to find someone who knew where he had been buried. The son of Mehmet Arif Tabakki, Ahmet Tabakki had died but I would find the grandson, Mehmet Ozarifoglou who had been the 12 year old kid present at the burial. I would convince him to come with me and show me and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee the burial site of his grandfather…
So we had gone to Kofinou and Alaminos on the 23rd of January 2012 Monday – exactly three years ago – in search of the burial site of his grandfather… We would go together with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Sosyal and Okan Oktay from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
Our first stop would be Kofinou…
`When we buried him, it didn't even cross our mind that we would leave and would never come back…` Mehmet Ozarifoglou explains to me…
`When the checkpoints opened we wanted to come with my father to find my grandfather's grave but quite a few Turkish Cypriots discouraged us from going… They said, `Greek Cypriots went with a shiro (bulldozer) to the Kofinou cemetery and destroyed all the graves!` and we believed them and did not go! But he would see today with his own eyes that these had been lies: When we find the cemetery he exclaims, `Oh my God! Everything is as we left it! Nothing has been touched!` and he can't believe his eyes – some Turkish Cypriots lied to them but in order to understand these lies, he had to come here to see with his own eyes…
We find the back door and climb up to try to find the grave of the `missing` Mehmet Arif Tabakki… Mehmet Ozarifoglou finds a few graves and says, `This might be the grave of my grandfather…`
Kallis had done research about the `missing` Mehmet Arif Tabakki in 1995 and he had found out that he had been buried in the Kofinou cemetery… We take photos of the possible grave and other graves around this one and leave the cemetery. We leave Kofinou to go to Alaminos to the spot where Tabakki had been killed.
At the exit of Kofinou on the road to Alaminos, on both sides of the road, the Tabakki family had lots of land and their own water wells…
We reach Alaminos – we see the spot where 13 Turkish Cypriot `missing` from Alaminos had been buried and exhumed – their remains were the first to be returned to their families and it was the first burial ceremony among the `missing` Turkish Cypriots…
Then we go to find the river… `My grandfather was shot just across the church` says Mehmet Ozarifoglou… We also see the house of the Tabakkis and the fig tree that Mehmet Arif Tabakki had planted with his own hands: The fig tree is still there… We stop to take photos of this tree… Then we find the river and the church…
A refugee from Rizokarpasso who came to Alaminos as a refugee tells us that once upon a time, while planting this field, his father had found a shoe and some bones inside the shoe… He had not taken that shoe… The remains most probably belonged to Mehmet Arif Tabakki…
Until mid-60s this river would flow both winter and summer and then it would only flow in winter time… The Greek Cypriot from Rizokarpasso would cut some fresh onions and gulumbra from his field and would offer to us… We would stop at the coffee shop of Despina from Agios Amvrosios…
There had been a two storey house here where 5-6 Turkish Cypriots were using as a military post but it has been demolished. They had killed five Greek Cypriots shooting from this military post… In Kofinou in the middle of the village, they have built some statues of these five Greek Cypriots who had been killed in Alaminos – we stop and I take their photographs…
Mehmet Ozarifoglou remembers:
`One of the Greek Cypriots who had been killed had been overweight – he was lying here on this corner, on the floor – we had seen him as we were leaving Kofinou at that time, he had been killed, lying dead…`
This had been the visit we made three years ago – now I receive news that the exhumation teams of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had begun digging in Alaminos in the place where Mehmet Arif Tabakki had been killed and that after this, they would move to Kofinou to the possible grave that we had shown to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee…
What great shame that a person as kind hearted and good as Mehmet Arif Tabakki from Alaminos has been killed like that… What great shame that people like him, innocent, nothing to do with any conflict – whether Turkish Cypriot or Greek Cypriot – have been killed…
In Cyprus most good stories end with tragedies… We must do everything humanly possible to prevent these in our common future...

30.4.2015

Photo: Mehmet Ozarifoghlou by the side of the river at Alaminos...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 31st of May 2015, Sunday.


Statement from a reader

Mr. Tilemahos Ioannides from Polemi called me last week to say that "The relatives of those killed during the bombing of the Turkish airplanes from Polemi had nothing to do with the criminal killings of the old woman Aliye and her son from Evretou". He said that the relatives of those killed in the bombing, had nothing to do with those crimes that he did not approve of. "War is something else, but killing innocent people is criminal" he said. Mr. Ioannides said that he had been wounded during the 1964 conflict and was under treatment for six months in the hospital and he had lost his brother at the bombing but despite this, in 1974, when Arodes village was surrounded he did not allow any Greek Cypriot soldiers to go into the village and he did not allow anyone to touch Turkish Cypriot villagers from Arodes. We thank Mr. Tilemahos Ioannides for sharing this information with us.

`Investigation into the murder of Kavazoghlu and Mishaoulis was stopped from UN Headquarters in New York…`

`Investigation into the murder of Kavazoghlu and Mishaoulis was stopped from UN Headquarters in New York…`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

For the 50th Anniversary of the assassination of Dervish Ali Kavazoghlu and Costas Mishaoulis, on my FACEBOOK page, I share an article I had written years ago, on the 7th of April 2001. The response I get from one of my FACEBOOK friends from Sweden surprises me…
Tommy was in the Swedish contingent of the UNFICYP in 1964-1965 in Famagusta and he remembers the assassination of Kavazoghlu and Mishaoulis… But what is surprising for me is what he writes… He says, `Sevgul, I remember this because it was our unit who handled the investigation… I was not close to the investigation, but I remember that the investigator talked about possible motives. As I remember, both of the victims were Left wings and because of that, I think both sides could find reasons to kill them. There was never a result of this investigation, perhaps because the UN New York said stop. It`s up to anyone to wonder over who committed these murders. Sevgul, thank you. I have just read your article. So it`s clear that it was Kavazoghlu´s friends who committed the crime and that Mishaoulis just was at the wrong place. Have I understood this correct? As I told you, I got the information from one of the investigator s that there was an order from
Headquarters in New York to immediately cut off. Did TMT have that power to link it in that way?`
I write back to Tommy to say `At the very top I believe that the `mastermind` was the same to split the country playing one against the other so no surprise that the United Nations New York Headquarters would give such an order...`
Then I write to Tommy to see if he remembers anything more and he writes back to me this e-mail:
`Hi Sevgul,
I have read your article about the assassinations of Kavazoghlu and Kostas Mishaoulis and as I understand from the article, it was committed, or planned, by members of TMT in the Louroujina area. During our first month in Cyprus, May 1964, we made several escort missions to this village from Nicosia.
All this happened years ago, 50 to be more exact, and memories have that bad quality that they fade out by years. In UNFICYP Civilian Police, I was in that group in Famagusta which was responsible for village patrols, escorts and road checkpoints. I was too young to be involved in real investigations. But one of my best friends, Kurt Mellbris, became a part of this group who was ordered to investigate this murder on Larnaca Road near Koshi on April 11th 1965. I don`t remember who the others were or if there were policemen from other countries as well. Unfortunately, Kurt is no longer with us.
Anyhow, in the beginning of the investigation, there was an information, saying that the murderers travelled in a white car, an older (also in 1964) Singer, with a short flagpole on the radiator cap. From where this information came, I have no idea, but that was what I heard from Kurt about the murders. It was now very close to date when I should return to Sweden (April 29th). At that time I knew a Lebanese girl, working at Pendayia Hospital and one day (in the second half of April), she had come to Famagusta to visit me. Late in the evening, she should drive back to Pendayia. It wasn`t OK for me to let her drive by herself across the island in darkness, so I offered me to go with her to Pendayia, return to Famagusta in her car and then meet her in Nicosia next afternoon. So we did and some hours after midnight, I was on my way back to Famagusta. I used the straight main road.
Now, I can`t mention exact where, maybe at a junction on the highway, halfway between Nicosia and Famagusta, maybe close to the village of Kouklia, but suddenly I noticed a red light, wawing up and down some hundreds meters in front of me. I didn`t feel well because I hadn`t got any permission to leave Famagusta at this time and if it was the GC Police, I`m quite sure they would report it to my commander. Not good, even if I should leave Cyprus very soon after and that I had had a good reason to make this trip. When I came very close, I noticed that there were four or five civilians on the road and close to the road bank, I saw a white car, a Singer, with just such a flagpole on the filler cap. At that age, I normally wasn`t afraid of many things, but now, when I saw that car, I became afraid on the upper scale. I felt a compact coldness inside me, and my first thought was to speed up and try to pass them. But they stood in such a way that it had been
impossible to pass them without to hit any of them and if they were those who I suspected they were, and armed, I hadn`t had a chance. So I stopped. Four or five men, a bit older than me and well dressed. They seemed to be well fitted, athletic, and my first impression was, that they were soldiers, or maybe policemen. One of them seemed to be the leader and he came up to my front door. He asked kindly if I had a working jack because they had got a flat tyre. I had such a tool and when the rest of them changed the wheel, I and the leader talked about different things. He asked me what nationality I was, how Sweden was to live in and if I had liked my staying in the Cyprus and so on. We spoke just in English, so I don`t know if he was a GC or a TC. I didn`t see any arms or weapons. Suddenly, he asked me if Kurt is a Swedish name. A big bell rang in my head – a white Singer and a question if Kurt, one of the investigator of the murders, is a Swedish
name. I don`t lie when I say that I for a short moment saw myself lying in the ditch. I answered, that as far as I knew, Kurt is a German name, which it also is. "But there are Swedes with that name too, aren`t there?" At the same moment, one of the others came back with the jack. "OK, Thank you, have a nice trip back to Famagusta", the leader said and shook my hand.
On the rest of the trip back to Famagusta this night, thousands of thoughts drove through my head. How should I be able to explain that I had been at that highway in the middle of the night without permission from my superiors. But we can say that I was saved by the bell, because short after I was informed that the investigation had been ordered to be ended. Exactly when this order came, I don`t know, but I was informed just one or two days after my illegal night trip. And then there were no need for me to tell anyone about it. Not even that Lebanese girl.
I still don`t know if this white Singer with the flagpole which I saw on the Famagusta Road, was the same car as the information to the investigator talked about. Maybe there were lots of them in the Cyprus. I don`t know if the men I met were GC or TC, but I have through the years been of that apprehension that they were GC, maybe Yiorghadjis men, because of the place where I met them. I still don`t think that TMT had that power to, through UN Headquarters to stop such an investigation.
Sevgul, I don`t know if UNFICYP Civilian Police still serves in the Cyprus. If so, maybe they have filed even older investigations. I`m quite sure, the investigators from 1964 must have made lots of notes. If they were ordered to destroy them after that the investigation was stopped, I don`t know.
It`s 50 years since this happened, but that night on the Famagusta Road, I don`t forget. Of course, if the investigation hadn`t been stopped at that time it was, I had shared my observations with the investigators and taken the punishment for my non-permissioned trip that night.
Kindly regards
Tommy`
The persons who had killed Kavazoghlu and Mishaoulis in fact were not from TMT but were opponents of TMT in Louroudjina – they were meeting Kavazoghlu and distributing brochures in Turkish of AKEL. According to my investigation they were caught with the brochures in the village and forced by TMT to set up an ambush to kill Kavazoghlu – either they would die or Kavazoghlu would be killed. So they chose to help assassinate Kavazoghlu and Mishaoulis who happened to be with him. According to the villagers a red or green car was used plus another car… A shepherd seeing the car and hearing gun shots had gone running to Louroudjina to report this to the Turkish Cypriot police. They told him to shut up and mind his own business.
After Tommy's letter, I investigated the white car, the Singer he is mentioning in his letter. According to some villagers, this car had belonged to some Greek Cypriots who had been kidnapped by some Turkish Cypriots and although the Greek Cypriots were set free later on, they did not give back the car and the commander of the village was using this car in and around Louroudjina… Others told me that this car, the white Singer used to be used by TMT and one of the famous snipers of TMT had been driving it in Nicosia – I am not sure which one is true… We are talking about 50 years ago, half a century to be exact…
What's important for me is if it is true, why the UN Headquarters in New York had decided to stop the investigation about Mishaoulis and Kavazoghlu… I have contacted the UNFICYP Commander in Cyprus, Major General Kristin Lund and wrote to her to see if they can contribute to this issue with the information they must have in their files from 50 years back… Perhaps some of my readers who know more details can share it with us, like Tommy did… I want to thank Tommy from Sweden for sharing this vital piece of information and invite my readers to do the same if they know any more details…

3.5.2015

Photo: Children laying flowers on the grave of Kavazoghlou...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of May 2015, Sunday.

Finding the `missing` of Polis…

Finding the `missing` of Polis…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Good news comes and finds me: The remains of the fourth `missing` Turkish Cypriot from Polis have been found in the place we had shown together with an old witness to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee… We had gone to Polis on the 21st of October 2013 with an old witness who had come from London for holidays and the relative of a `missing person` from Polis had helped me to find him: He knew where some `missing` Turkish Cypriots had been buried…
It all came about quite accidentally, so to say… We had gone to Nikita village to look at a possible burial site and the person who was the owner of the house had been from Makunda… We had gone together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and there, the Assistant of the Greek Cypriot Member of the Committee, Xenophon Kallis had asked the guy from Makunda whether he had any information about those Turkish Cypriots' whereabouts who had been killed in the war in 1974 in Polis. The old man had said he knew nothing about it. The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee had been excavating some places for these `missing` persons for over a year without any results…
When Kallis and the old man from Makunda were conversing I remembered Unay and Hasan Pasha from Polis… Unay's father, Ahmet Ethem Ibrahim has been `missing` from Polis since August 1964 and I had gone to their house in Morphou to interview them for my book `Oysters with the missing pearls`… Ahmet Ethem Ibrahim had gone away in his blue Morris van towards Paphos and no one ever saw him again: It was 21st of August 1964… After some time Unay Hanim would see her father's car painted in the colours of camouflage and was being used by some Greek Cypriot soldiers… She would report this immediately to the UN but nothing happened…
I thought of calling and asking her about what Kallis was enquiring about: The `missing persons` from 1974 from Polis. Unay's husband Hasan had already spoken to me about those killed in Polis in 1974.
So I called her and she was very eager to help… She told me that the person who had buried some of these `missing` from 1974 was in fact on holidays in Cyprus from London. He was someone from Polis who lived in London. Unay Hanim would find me his phone and I would call the old Turkish Cypriot, Mr. Shevket Rado and ask for his help… I ask him to come with us to Polis and show us where the burial sites are. Despite his old age, problems of health, problems with his leg and the fact that he has to go to dialysis three times a week, he accepts quite willingly to help out voluntarily.
On 21st of October 2013 Monday morning we go to Polis together with Shevket Rado and the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee: Xenophon Kallis, Okan Oktay, Murat Soysal and one of the Greek Cypriot archaeologists. My husband gets up early and prepares wonderful sandwiches for us to eat at Polis since we need to be back in Nicosia early afternoon and would not have time to stop and eat.
We go to Polis. We go to the old cemetery of the Turkish Cypriots where a monument for the only `missing` Member of Parliament, Cengiz Ratip and `missing` teacher Turgut Sitki has been erected. Cengiz Ratip and Turgut Sitki are `missing` from Polis since 14th of February 1964. Despite all the efforts their remains have still not been found.
The old man, Shevket Rado takes us behind the monument at the cemetery.
Mr. Shevket Rado had been living in London since 1963 and was on holiday in Polis in 1974 when the war broke out. He would become a prisoner of war together with other Turkish Cypriots of Polis. One day some Greek Cypriots would come to the place where they had been kept as prisoners of war and would choose five of the strongest Turkish Cypriots – among them was Mr. Shevket as well. The Greek Cypriots took them to bury the three Turkish Cypriots killed in the war. Without absolutely any hesitation Mr. Shevket shows exactly where they had buried the three `missing` Turkish Cypriots. In a cavity of around one and a half to two meters they had buried Mehmet Chatallo, Ahmet Beyaz and Ayshe Ramadan. `You will find half a skeleton in the grave, we did not remove that, there was his head, arm and half of his body – this was an old skeleton from the old cemetery but when you dig, this might come out as well – let it not confuse you…` he explains to the
archaeologists.
I ask him to show us the possible burial site of the fourth `missing person` from 1974, Kemal Ismail. Hasan Pasha, the husband of Unay Pasha had told me the story of Kemal Ismail, that he had committed suicide at his military post - `If I see the Greek Cypriots coming, I will commit suicide` he had been saying and Hasan Pasha had warned his relatives about this… He too is `missing`… Mr. Shevket Rado takes us to the new cemetery of Turkish Cypriots of Polis - he leads the way and tells us that Kemal Ismail was buried in this cemetery… We thank him and go back to Nicosia…
Soon after the archaeologists start digging the spot behind the monument in the old cemetery of Polis and find the remains of the three `missing` Turkish Cypriots – just as Mr. Shevket explained, they also find half a skeleton…
Then news comes last week that the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee excavation team has found the fourth `missing person` in the new cemetery where Mr. Shevket had shown us the possible burial site.
Four more families will take back the remains of their loved ones and I thank from my heart Mr. Shevket Rado who came and showed us the burial sites despite his old age and illnesses, Ms. Unay Pasha and her husband for helping to find Mr. Shevket and the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee officials for exhuming these sites…
With the totally voluntary, humanitarian work, we have managed to find the remains of four more `missing` Turkish Cypriots… Unay Pasha, despite her own `missing` father helped to find other `missing persons`…
Despite grave difficulties with his health, Mr. Shevket helped quite willingly…
With people like them Cyprus has hope for the future – they are people who are not greedy and calculating like so many others – they have pure human hearts who are eager to help without expecting absolutely nothing in return…
The only thing that makes me sad is that despite her incredible humanity, we have not been able to give any news to Unay Pasha about her father Ahmet Ethem Ibrahim who has been `missing` from Polis for the past 51 years!
If anyone knows of his possible burial site, please call me with or without your name on my CYTA mobile: 99 966518.
Let's continue to work for humanity to prosper on this island… Let's continue to work for humanity not greed, for compassion and mercy to take root on this soil…

11.4.2015

Photo: With Shevket Rado at Polis...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 10th of May 2015, Sunday.

The story of Kyriacou Frangou who did not want to leave her chicks…

The story of Kyriacou Frangou who did not want to leave her chicks…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

One day I receive a message from Christina Frangou:
`Dear Sevgul,
I was given your name from our mutual friend, Andreas Maras. I have already known about you and the award you were given and consider you as a brave and special compatriot. The reason I am writing to you is that I think you can help me to find some compatriots from the Turkish Cypriot community.
Here is my story: My aunt Kyriakou Frangou, resident of Nea Smyrni, Ougou Foskolou (Hougo Foskolo) Street, 27, a street very close to the Medieval Walls of Famagusta and the church of Saint Georgios Xorinos, was killed by Turkish soldiers on the 16th of August 1974. When the night and the dark came, her Turkish Cypriot friends and neighbours dug a grave in the front yard of her house and buried her. Then they found a way and informed her brother and her nephews about her. Our family will be very honoured if some of these people came to her funeral on the 21st of March here in Limassol at the cemetery of Sfalagiotissa. The only information I have are two names: Vedia Ismail and Salih, a black Turkish Cypriot who was a policeman. Certainly we will also be very honoured if you also come to my aunt's funeral. Looking forward to speaking to you soon…
Christina Frangou.`
I write back to her after trying to find the people she was mentioning:
`Dear Christina,
A friend from Famagusta checked and Vedia Ismail is no longer alive… She also went to the house of Mr. Salih but no one was at home. She will try again when she goes to Famagusta… If you send me a few lines about your aunt and a photo of her, I would like to write a few lines about her and her friendship in Famagusta…`
Christina also writes on Facebook, trying to locate her auntie's friends:
`Next Saturday, on the 21st of March at 10 o'clock in the morning, it's the funeral of my late aunt Kyriakou Frangou who was killed by Turkish soldiers during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus. She was buried in the yard of her house by her Turkish Cypriot friends and neighbours where she stayed until February 2011. The current owner of her house always planted fresh flowers on her grave just to show his respect and to honour her. She was unearthed and identified through DNA method. Forty years have passed since then but there may be Turkish Cypriots among her friends who are still alive. If there was a chance to find them and invite them just to thank them for what they did that terrible day, it would be the best honour to her memory.`
Finally we can't find the Turkish Cypriot friends of Kyriakou Frangou but as promised, Christina sends me the story of her aunt:
`Kyriakou Frangou was born in Ayia Triada Yialousas in 1909… When she was still very young, she had moved to Varoshia where she started working in the orange orchards of the area Nea Smyrni, not far from the walls of Famagusta… She watered and took care of orange trees… She loved the trees, the flowers and birds… She loved all the people who were close to her… She did not distinguish whether a neighbour was Turkish or Greek Cypriot, she used to say that every human being was a child of God and she loved and helped her fellow people just the same…
There, she made her home, in a semi-detached house next to her brother's house…
She never got married so she loved any child, relatives or not, the same…
That terrible day, when the Turkish army invaded Famagusta and when everybody were leaving their homes to save their lives, she didn't leave.
She told her brother and the other relatives that she couldn't leave her house and her birds… She had chicken and small chicks…
When one cousin asked her to come with him to his house, she said:
`But what about my babies? I cannot leave my babies…`
The `babies` were the little chicks, the poulli as we say it…
Before the soldiers got near her house, her Turkish Cypriot friends were begging her to hide her in their homes but she did not accept their offer lest the soldiers found her there and killed them as well. She was killed in her front yard of her house…
When the night and the dark came, her neighbours buried her in her yard, next to her jasmine which so much she loved… When we visited her house in 2009, the new owner showed us a flower bed full of beautiful flowers… That's where she was buried…
She was unearthed in February 2011 and after all the formalities had been done, we buried her officially and according to her religion on the 21st March 2015.
Name: Kyriakou Frangou
Place of birth: Ayia Triada Yialousas
Place of death: Nea Smyrni Famagusta
Date of death: August 1974
Cause of death:
1. Trauma from bullet shot on the chest
2. Trauma from bullet shot on temple
3. Trauma from a bullet on the legs.
Reason of death:
CIVIL WAR CAUSED BY THOSE WHO DOMINATE THE PEOPLES OF THE WHOLE PLANET AND ROB THEIR FORTUNES AND THEIR FORTUNE.
The above information has been taken from the death certificate… `
I call Christina to tell me more and this takes her back to her memories of her childhood with her aunt…
When her aunt was taking her to the orange orchards at the age of four or five…
Her aunt would work and she would play…
`She told me to listen to birds… She was teaching me the different sounds of birds…
She loved animals…
In those years people couldn't be considered `animal friendly` - they loved animals if they gave them food… But my aunt was very kind to these animals… She would always tell me `They are also creatures of God…`
Now that I speak to you about these things, I realize that the character I formed was also her work… She taught me things about nature…
Since she didn't have children and she loved children, she was always offering things… She took care of all of us… She was a person who wanted to offer…
What she loved most was jasmine…`
The woman from Ayia Triada who spent her life gardening in the orange orchards of Varosha, the woman who loved nature, the woman who did not leave her house because she had small chicks and she did not want to leave behind was just another of the innocent victims of war… She now rests in Limassol, in the cemetery of Sfalagiotissa…
I had been there the day they were beginning the exhumations in the front yard of her house…
I am so happy that Christina Frangou contacted me – next time I go to Limassol, I will meet Christina and perhaps she can take me to her aunt's grave where I can lay some flowers, perhaps jasmine…
She is tragically gone but her respect and love for nature lives in Christina and in all the people that she touched with her love and care…
May you rest in peace Kyriacou Frangou… The friendship you planted will live through the friendship we have now with Christina… Nothing goes to `waste` on this earth, nothing that is good, nothing that is created with love and care… All the good things always find a way to continue to grow and bring more love to others…

4.4.2015

Photo: Kyriacou Frangou

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 3rd of May, 2015 – Sunday.

Memories of refugee children in my life…

Memories of refugee children in my life…

Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 96651
00 90 542 853 8436

My first encounter with the refugee children was in Nicosia in the backyard of the library where my mother was working… It must have been the early winter of 1964 – all of a sudden, there came Turkish Cypriot refugees from Paphos and were settled temporarily in some empty buildings in the backyard of the library… The library building itself had been a `konachi` once upon a time so the buildings in the backyard must have been for the servants of the pasha… Spending all my time in the library as a child from the age of three, I started playing with the refugee children in this old `konatchi` (`palace`) which had a dark cellar, winding stairs, gilded mirrors and toilets outside as it used to be in the old days…
It also had a water reservoir and taps in the backyard for washing up – it had no shower or bathroom so the refugees would create a bath in one spot in the backyard – a makeshift room with lamarina – in order to be able to wash themselves…
They had brought their weaving machines from Paphos and I would sit and watch the refugee women weaving clothes – an old woman would be using a sheave to wind thread out of wool and I would watch them using a hand mill of stone to grind cereals…
I had made friends with a wonderful refugee child from Paphos, Melahat – she had blond hair and blue eyes and was very thin and we would play for hours with her…
In the backyard of the library an aid office for refugees had been opened and together with Melahat we would go and watch the chubby elderly guy in charge distributing the aid that would arrive from abroad… There were big bundles of raffia ribbons, clothing and even a fur coat… Someone who donated these must have been very imaginative: What would a refugee do with the bundles of raffia ribbons? They needed food and shelter and a decent life…
Food was rationed in those days, not just for refugees but for almost everybody… Not far from the library was another office for rationing food and petrol. There was no petrol I remember, you were only allocated so many gallons of petrol per month so my mother and I would have to walk home instead of using our old Volkswagen… The food they distributed for refugees were made up of canned food, some sugar and flour and lentils I remember…
But in those days Melahat and I did not have such things on our minds – as 5-6 year old kids, our biggest worry was to grow up quickly, to start school, to play games… The elementary school I was going was not far from the library which was in the very centre of the walled city of Nicosia. My school was in the Arabahmet area around Victoria Street and was actually a makeshift school: It was sort of `created` for the children of the refugees and the Arabahmet area… It was next to the famous Pavlides' garage and here in this building, I would learn to read and write, to count, to recite poetry, to dance with the music of Strauss, to sing songs and learn to play melodica… We had an orchestra and a chorus – there were very few rich children at our school – our school was a school for children who were poor or who were refugees… There was a rectangular yard of the school and the road passing in front of the Pavlides' garage – we would have
our PT lessons in the street because there was nowhere else to do this! My white shorts would get dirty from the asphalt but still this was no issue for any of us: All we thought of were the new games or the next school gathering for parents at the end of the year where we would be distributed roasted chick peas and a bottle of Belkola – we would throw the roasted chick peas covered with salt in the cola and listen to the noise it made! We were one big family of kids who came from poverty but poverty was not a sin, nor was it something to be ashamed of – you just learned to live with it although poverty would steal a lot of our childhood dreams…
And we had wonderful teachers – one teacher I remember prepared us to dance as butterflies with the music of Strauss… We had yellow chiffon wings that our mothers would sew on our dancing costumes… Our music teacher Nesrin would play songs with her accordion in class and our headmaster Fikri Karayel would choose five-six of us to go to private lessons in his house in the afternoons in our last year in order to prepare us for the English College exams for free – all of us whom the headmaster had prepared voluntarily would pass the exams with flying colours…
The English College was created after the intercommunal conflict in 1963 and was a school very much like The English School – because of lack of safety – people were `disappearing` from the streets – some of those Turkish Cypriot students who had been students of The English School could no longer go there for safety reasons… So The English College was created and this was a school that prepared students for the GCEs… It was an expensive school because all the books were imported from England and I remember my mother struggling to pay for those school textbooks…
After some time, a refugee village was built for the refugee families and my refugee friends from the library backyard moved into tiny refugee houses not far from Ortakeuy. We were growing up and moving to secondary schools and while I lost contact with most of the kids from that era, few of them in fact were in my class at The English College. Melahat with her family I heard, moved to Australia… Papatya from my class also moved as a refugee to Australia…
The English College would undergo another big change in 1974 – more refugee children would come to our school from Larnaka and Limassol and Paphos and gradually the name of the school would be changed to `Turk Maarif Koleji` (`Turkish Education College`) and it would lose its essence of being an `English school` - now students would not only prepare for GCEs but also for the university entry exams of Turkey so students would have to take more lessons in Turkish… During the time of The English College, teachers for French would come from France, teachers for various other subjects would come from England but gradually this would be wiped out and the school would acquire a different character than when it started off…
At The English College, the atmosphere would be a bit different from the Arabahmet Elementary School… We would have more `rich kids` in our school as well as children of refugees from all over the island. Here, I would be in the same class with Neshe Yashin, our famous poet with whom we would spend time outside school as well in the library or in her father's bookshop… Neshe too was a refugee child from Peristerona… Neshe's father, another famous Turkish Cypriot poet of those times, Ozker Yashin would publish a newspaper and write about the problems of the refugees… A refugee himself from Peristerona, he would be the spokesperson for the Turkish Cypriot refugees… Years later Neshe would visit her village and some Greek Cypriots would give her plates that had belonged to her mother and she would see and recognize some of the furniture that belonged to her mother… Their house had been looted…
As young students we would go around old Nicosia, write notes in class to each other, spend time in the library and Neshe would write poems… After 1974 she would write her most famous poem that would leave a mark on our hearts and souls: Which part shall I love?
`One should love one's homeland
So says my father
But my homeland is divided into two
Which part should I love?`

28.3.2015

Photo: Neshe Yashin

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

Letters from the heart of Maria…

Letters from the heart of Maria…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I receive a letter from a reader, Maria from Lysi written in the language of the heart – her letter is so touching that I want to share it with you… I write to her to ask for her permission to publish it and she sends me a second letter, even more touching… Today I share with you the two letters from the heart of Maria:
First letter:
`Sevgul,
I am writing in the language that I know. But even if I knew yours, again I would write to you in the language of the heart.
I read your column unfailingly every Sunday and even if I throw out the newspaper, I always keep your page as a document for the book you are writing in our hearts, about life. Our life, our island's life, our country's.
I must confess that at the beginning two things seemed strange to me.
The first was the writing of the villages where we were born and lived our years, with foreign letters, "pseudonyms", which I want to believe that were baptised by a godfather, an illegitimate son of the war.
Then I noticed that the previously written Trikomo became Trikomo again, and previously written Lysi became Lysi again. Even if they name me Yasemen, I do not mind. But how can we rename memory to Akdogan?
The other thing was the search inside wells. I believe that anyway, we bend inside wells to see the water, or as my father was also doing, when he returned to his old village, in his old mandra, he threw a stone in his old well, to hear the sound of life. To see, as he said, if there was water.
I believed that we should not be looking inside wells for bones. The souls have been liberated and have flown like butterflies towards the light. Even if no one cried for them. Even if they hid their flight from our eyes.
I believed that we should not be looking for death inside wells. Even though I heard from my father the story of a Turkish Cypriot couple with a baby in their arms who were caught by Greek Cypriots and after they were killed, they were thrown in a well. One of the killers, when he was drinking and his soul was on fire and was burning him, he was yelling "the baby, the baby" as if he was saying "I have sinned, I have sinned".
How did we come to this point, both you and us, our souls laden with so much guilt of centuries, which still burdens even our steps? That we are walking the road of one breath for forty one years and we still have not come to meet each other!
How did we come to this point, both you and us, to find the homes that we were born in destroyed and outside the village piled up in different piles our earth and not to be able to identify them with our lives? Whose life is the one pile and whose is the other.
How did we come to this point, both you and us, to be identifying bones to be able to cry and to light a candle in the memory of the people who became life's fertilizer and who without giving us a message, flew to the light and we stayed in the darkness? Until we receive their bones.
How many lives were lost both in the wells and in the earth of the ruins?
I was saying, reading your column at the beginning, that we need to turn the page in our life. Enough bones in small boxes. I was in a hurry to turn the page, without reading it. To understand that for some people it is necessary. To understand, that by identifying death, we are burying with honour our guilt too. So that we do not burden them to our children. To understand that by identifying death our souls are also resting and being illuminated. They take light from the "missing" souls, who patiently wait to be "erase" one by one from a long list.
If I hastily turned the page, it would have remained unread and I would not learn how can the burial give birth to forgiveness and redemption. Understanding. And it is good what you do, that you give solace and the answer to the heart of all of those that live with a "why". They have the right to learn, to cry, to be redeemed. So that we can smile and shake hands, even from the distance of half an inch on the map.
Lately I read about Esra Aygin's experience in the two countries of one land, which is crossed by a river of now clean waters. She will have definitely imagined, as the song is urging us, our island as a whole. Without the invisible river which is crossing it with still murky waters from tears and blood.
I did not imagine it, I lived it. Here is also my story.
Sunday, at Apostolos Andreas, on his festival day. (I made his celebration, as my heart should have done, to honour his memory and to thank him for saving my son Andreas in an accident that he had, last year on his nameday.)
We finished and on the way back we reached the checkpoint. We passed it. And at some point I hear my husband saying "Here is my cousin's house". And I wondered, surprised "What is he saying? How come? Where am I?" Alzheimer's?
I was under the impression that we had not passed from the checkpoint, when we had already travelled for five minutes away from it.
I was under the impression that we had not changed position in the horizon. My whole soul, serene, was living a reality like a dream. Free from procedures and checks. Because the part of my soul which stayed behind, by not understanding where and when the north ended and where and when the south began, gave me a sign, that it was now coming with me.
I saw our island, as one. As it is. Without a river. With a sky which we do not look at, because our eyes are on the earth.
The house where I first saw the light, is in its place. No one is taking it on his shoulders. It is written in my soul. Even if Mustafa stays there with her permission. It is not burdening me.
The house where I first saw the light is inside my heart. I have my land. And I take it where I go. And it is with me, wherever I am.
I see our country whole, as I feel my heart in one piece. And I love it without wondering "why" or "which one of the two".
Stay well Sevgul.
I salute you from the heart, Maria.`

Second letter:
`Sevgul,
Thank you for listening to my heart. And if its words, are the same heartbeats in other people's hearts, then I am triply happy, that I am uniting in their rhythm. I feel that all together, we have an enormous heart. A heart which grows and grows and makes the miracle visible.
We deserve peace. We deserve a clean sky to draw on it, with all kinds of colours, bold and clear, our life. To draw well and truly, all those that the stars did not have the time to write.
As Kyriakos from Larnaka also told you "you have made the darkness brighter". We gather around you. All of us who have faced the darkness, were burnt and are sending it away from inside us, now we are small scattered dots that sparkle shyly. All of us united, we can give to our country the sun. We strengthen each other. We get stronger to do good, to create love, to make steps of the soul that bring us closer together.
I wrote the letter for you. With words that are superfluous inside me and are flooding. I came to the day that I opened my heart, I dared to spread it and to touch you like your words touch me every Sunday. Like the words of the people touch me, that confess to you their thoughts, feelings and their stories and I translate their message in my heart, that we are one. I realise that I feel, all that they feel. That they speak my words. This touch, I keep it in my heart and it warms me. You cannot imagine what a blessing is to have this sensation. To feel like you and you like me. And with the letter that you read, it is as if I touched with my heart, through you, the hearts of all of your readers. And I felt their beneficial touch like a push to "do". To act. And not only to feel, to think and to write. I owe it to the memory of Kemal.
Kemal was a Human. The only one who was around and helped my father, to stand on his feet, our first days in Dromolaxia. And every day that he was coming to our home and was sitting to have a coffee with my parents, I was hiding so as not to see him. And he was looking for me and was calling me "Maria! Maria!".
How could he realise that I was in such darkness? How could he see it, that I as closing my heart to his face and he was calling me to open up to him?
Let him hear me now, wherever he may be, that I am calling out to him a big "thank you" and a big "sorry". Because he was the person who held out his hand and supported us. And not even a "Christian" was around to do that…
My name is Maria and I was born in Lysi. I have two sons. Andreas and Efstathios. Efstathios is the one "typing" the letter on the computer and he is the one who answered to your first message (he told me the next day, shortly before we received your second message), while I was telling him "Wait for the day to pass". Youth is impatient.
I think it is time to seize the moment, like the youth, and not wait for the day. Not to "need the time" to get going. To leave my comfortable chair. Not to look at the sky, only through my window. To walk in our island and to come together with people. Like my soul wants it too!
Thank you Sevgul. Always be well.
Maria.
P.S. You can, if you want, publish the letter. This way others will also feel that we speak the same language.`

22.3.2015

Photo: A well in Kontea where a Greek Cypriot woman was buried in 1974…

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

The invitation…

The invitation…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

As years go by, the problems of our island are more and more aggravated… Our youngsters are still at military posts and `barricades` with guns on `duty` while young people, just like their grandmothers and grandfathers did 50 or 60 years ago are immigrating to other countries in search of a job… Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Armenian Cypriots, Maronite Cypriots who had struggled together once for workers' rights, who had worked together, who had gone to strikes together are one by one leaving the earth… A whole generation who had worked together in the fields, in road constructions, in collecting oranges, in constructions, in shoemaking and who had shared their food for the day, who had been in each other's weddings and funerals are being wiped out from the face of this earth… Those Cypriots who had danced together in weddings, who had sang the same songs in Turkish and in Greek, those Cypriots who had shared the pilavouna and the ekmek
kadeyifi during paska and bayram are going away from this earth… Not only did they speak Turkish and Greek but also English… A generation who knew each other, who respected each other but due to winds of `nationalism` having to take up guns and be on guard against each other is dying… Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women who had had their morning coffee together as neighbours, who had breastfed each other's babies, who had taken care of kids without discriminating as `yours or mine` are dying… Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women neighbours who had helped each other during days of conflict, who would hide each other and take care of each other, who would give bread, milk, cigarettes, sugar, rice or whatever there was in the house to each other, who would whisper the dangers to come to each other are dying…
While some Turkish Cypriots and some Greek Cypriots would take up guns and plan provocations, opening the way of the division, the generation who had left their houses crying due to the division are dying…
We remain behind, we heard these from our mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, some of it we lived, we experienced… And when we are gone, we know that such memory will no longer exist… This memory is being wiped out and instead another `memory` based on suspicion, enmity and `nationalism` is trying to be installed…
The mentality of people are changing towards `Them on their side and us on our side` and still preventing this, learning from the past and creating a future based on friendship is not allowed – the mentality in both sides is preventing this by trying to silence those who work for friendship and trust on this island.
The reality is that the two main communities of our island, Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots have `limited` contacts. According to a recent poll by the New Cyprus Association 75% of the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots have no contact with each other. Among other reasons, one of the basic reasons for this is the problem of language… Living `separately` since the last 50 years, our communities can no longer speak each other's languages… The mentality that is prevailing in the northern and southern parts of our island is far from encouraging contact and cooperation… Only 25% that is only one fourth of our communities are in contact with each other. And this is a drastic situation. Because our common memory is being wiped out, those who struggle together for the solution of the Cyprus problem is also very limited…
Six years ago, on the 26th of September 2009, we had got women together in Pervolia at the PEO premises there and had workshops among Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot women… They had developed ideas and had called on the leaders of the two communities… Women supporting a federal solution that would be bicommunal, bizonal, politically equal had said that they wanted a completely demilitarized island where outside interventions would not be possible. They had called on the two leaders to give their support to the victims of war and asked them for those who had committed crimes against humanity to be punished and banned from public life… They had asked the leaders to take steps that would bring our two communities together instead of steps separating them even more and had asked for the easing of the crossings and for opening more crossing points throughout the island… They had asked the two leaders to create infrastructures so that our communities
would learn each other's languages, for more bicommunal programmes in the media and for more cooperation for the interest of the two communities.
Of course as you can imagine, the leadership on both sides would not take such proposals seriously since they have always been after a `blame game` and interested only in a `win-lose` attitude. Unfortunately all they are interested is the `power game` and not really concerned with the needs and worries of ordinary people like you and me. When I say `leadership`, I include `leadership` in almost all areas, not just `governmental leadership` but in all other areas of life…
Therefore they would not be interested in steps to open the path for cooperation among the two communities…
So who will make life better for our communities on the island?
I want to share a poem by a woman from Canada, Oriah Mountain Dreamer, that I have been carrying in my heart – it had empowered me during rough times and kept me going – if only we can be true to ourselves and stop pretending, perhaps we can find the strength to struggle for a better life for all on this island. The poem is called `The invitation`…

The Invitation

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

14.3.2015

Photo: "Oranges in the Sand" peace activity of the Famagusta Initiative and other associations...

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