From Pervolia to Gaziveran…

From Pervolia to Gaziveran…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We travel to Pervolia, Larnaca to meet a witness, relative of a `missing person`, one of my readers… He is keen to help… He knows pain, he has seen pain, he has seen how much destruction pain creates if you are a relative of a `missing person`. He has first-hand experience of pain… He wants to be the balm to ease that pain, to cure it, to help others who are suffering… Our earth is blessed to have such courageous persons taking the extra step to ease the pain of others… He is Greek Cypriot and he is helping us to try to find the remains of a Turkish Cypriot `missing` from 1964…
He had called me earlier and had said he had some information about a possible burial site in Pervolia, Larnaca.
`You know better how to arrange so I can show this place` he had said. `I made some investigations, I spoke with some people and they showed me a place…`
`I will arrange with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee so we can come and you can show us` I had told him.
So we travel on Friday the 19th of September, 2014 to Pervolia to meet him. He does not live in Pervolia but elsewhere but he comes all the way from his village to meet us and show us. We go together with the Assistant of the Greek Cypriot Member of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Xenophon Kallis and Okan Oktay, the Coordinator of Exhumations.
We meet our witness in Pervolia and after having coffee, we move together, him driving in the front, leading us and we are at the back going outside Pervolia. He stops somewhere and we follow him.
`This is the spot` he says `where there might be two wells. The Turkish Cypriot `missing person` might be in one of these two wells…`
One of his friends had watched the whole thing and got frightened.
`One of my friends at that time, back in 1964 was here` he says. `He saw some Greek Cypriots stop a car, take the driver out of the car, drag him up to here and then he heard shots… He felt so frightened, he left…`
He spoke to four different persons while investigating the fate of this `missing` Turkish Cypriot.
`Two others confirmed that he had been killed and buried here, in a well.`
In fact although the well is closed, we can see the contours of the mouth of the well – we can even make out another contour of perhaps a second well…
`They said the well was about 5 meters deep` he explains…
`Only the fourth person I spoke to confirmed that they buried him in the well but later took him out of the well and buried him somewhere on the beach… I don't believe this is true` he says.
Another Greek Cypriot reader had told me the story of this well and we had even come again together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee back in 2011 in order to locate this well. We had gone around the whole plot and looked at each and every well and this one had seemed the most probable, the farthest and the closed one…
So now, this witness is reconfirming this information and this is very important since it opens the way of the investigation and the excavations if the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee decide to excavate. Because it is not from a single source but is being confirmed as a possible burial site.
We go to the front of the area where he wants to show us more wells. We meet the owners that we had met the previous time we had been here back in 2011. They know nothing of course since they are just renting this place now, 50 years after the crime…
We look back to where we had stopped when we came in…
`I don't think they carried him all the way here` our witness says, `since he was a very well built and fat person – it would not have been easy to drag him all this way…`
He is right of course…
We take photos again and take coordinates again and thanking everyone present, we leave… Our witness has been courageous enough to call me and to come here today to show us this possible burial site. Not everyone is courageous enough to tell us what they know. I thank him and think of last week when at a gathering for lunch with different people, a Turkish Cypriot I had known for many years – a very sensitive person when it comes to human rights, peace and democracy – surprised me when he started telling me stories from his childhood…
`See, I never said this to anyone – this is the first time I am telling this to someone in the last forty years` he said.
`I saw people being executed and it was such a big shock, I never spoke about it… It was just outside Gaziveran, where there is a new hotel… Nine Greek Cypriots were taken from Gaziveran and put on a truck and taken just outside the village – as kids, we followed the truck, running after the truck… The truck stopped and they took them down and killed them there while we watched secretly and then dragged them out of our sight… We were so much in shock we ran back…`
`Can't you show us this place?`
`It was next to the new hotel, on the beach… I don't know what they did with the bodies…`
`Perhaps they buried them there or if there were some caves in that area? We could ask the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to go and do a surface search in the area…`
`They also killed some people near a small church behind the Ikidere (Dyo Potamos) village – there was this priest who had been arrested with some people and when they were leaving, the priest said, `Wait a minute, I forgot something` and they stopped, he went in and got a shotgun and fired at the soldiers, so they were executed in that area…`
Information he kept locked up for the past 40 years comes in a flow like the waves in the sea while he starts telling me of other things he heard and saw when our host stops us:
`Enough of graves and missing persons` she says, `Food is ready, let's move to the table to eat…`
We sit down to eat and the topics of conversation change but I will call him later on to sit and talk quietly and to see if he can show us the place close to Gaziveran…
I thank all who try to help to ease the pain of others and ask you to call me if you have anything to share on my mobile number 99 966518. I do not want to know your name if you don't want to say it to me – if you know of possible burial sites, please help us in our humanitarian task in easing the pain of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot relatives of `missing` persons…

20.9.2014

Photo: View from the possible burial site in Pervolia, Larnaka.

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

A life spent in struggle for peace: Rezvan Konti…

A life spent in struggle for peace: Rezvan Konti…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Born on the 10th of April 1926 in Syngrassi, Rezvan Konti had a tough life… He was one of five children in his family… His family was poorest of the poor – Rezvan Konti could not even complete elementary school due to poverty – when he was in the fourth grade, they took him away from Syngrassi to Arnadhi to stay with his grandfather – when his grandfather could not manage to feed three kids of his daughter he sent them back to Syngrassi and that's when little Rezvan was sent to tend the sheep and become a little shepherd. He was a shepherd until he was about 15-16 years old and then he enrolled to become a soldier in the British army where he served for five years – this took him first to Palestine, to Nazareth, and then to Egypt… From there they set out to go to Greece… When Germany attacked Greece, the ship turned back and left them in Beirut, Lebanon. `We were mixed, both Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots serving as soldiers during
the Second World War in the British Army` he would tell me… `In those times there was no discrimination among Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots…`
From Beirut they went to Italy and started carrying dead and wounded soldiers. They started travelling towards Milan but could not make it there so they went back to Rimini, staying there for three or four months… And then they went back to Palestine to stay for three more years… After the Second World War was over, they wanted to get out of the military service but the British would not let them go and when they revolted in 1946, they were imprisoned, around 600-700 soldiers in Palestine. His comrade Poumpouris was similarly imprisoned in Egypt because they too serving in Egypt had revolted. Rezvan Konti continued to tell his story to me:
`Then we were taken to court and AKEL found us a lawyer from London who defended us and finally I managed to come back to Cyprus in 1946 but still they would not let us go… In 1947 I was a soldier near the Golden Sand hotel. I got married in January 1946 and I started skipping the military, they would arrest me and put me in prison… Still they would not let us leave the British military service! They wanted to send us to Japan but we did not want to go all the way to Japan! They managed to send some to Japan but some of those escaped from Japan to Australia! But finally for me the military days were over. I started looking for a job but there was no job… In 1949 I had a conflict with a Greek Cypriot and one of my cousins Hasan Konti who was an electrician started taking care of me. He was a member of AKEL. He found me a job and I started working. Some houses were being built in Famagusta and I was working there as a labourer. A Greek Cypriot called
Kyriacos Vazi had made me a member of AKEL… I looked for him but could not find any trace of him… I don't know if he is alive or not… This was 1951. First I had become a member of PEO and then a member of AKEL. From 1951 until 1960-65 we were going around all the villages and working vigorously inside AKEL, for AKEL… I had started taking up duties in PEO and AKEL.
When EOKA was founded and became active, AKEL sent us someone either from the Central Committee or the Famagusta Branch – I do not remember – called Drousioti – he was a baker – to tell us to leave AKEL.
`Why?` we asked him.
`Because we cannot protect you` he told us. I was against this. First Andreas Fanti, head of Famagusta Branch had called me to a meeting. `Why don't you want to leave AKEL?` he had asked me.
`Where shall we go?` I answered him. My cousin Mustafa Konti, who was later shot both by EOKA and TMT for being a member of AKEL had a famous saying `I go there and Mouhammed chases me away, I come here and Christos chases me away, where shall I go?!!!` We were all in the same difficult situation. Our problem was we were cut off from the Turkish Cypriot community until the newspaper `Inkilapchi` (`Revolutionary`) started being published. Ahmet Sadi, one of the Turkish Cypriot leaders in PEO was saying that `The newspaper will be our protection…`
So the newspaper was published and I was selling this newspaper inside Famagusta…
I had gone to Agia Kepir and people did not know me there. We were together with a friend. One of the villagers saw me and gave me a list and said, `Vre koumparo, perhaps you can help us…`
`If I can, of course I will help you` I told him.
He gave me the hit list of TMT, the list of those who were to be killed! I looked at the list… At number 17 was my own name! Ahmet Sadi was on the 7th row. I remember many of those names… These were names to be killed and they were asking for help to find them to kill them! My cousin Mustafa Konti was at number 33! Hulus who is in London was in the first row… Kavazoghlou was also on that list… When I took the list, I said to the villager from Agia Kepir, `Look… I can find these people for you but I should copy the list in order not to forget!` I took the list and copied it. In the morning I went to AKEL Famagusta Branch… One of our villagers, Alexandros was sitting on the stairs… `Why did you come?` he said. He took me upstairs to the executive committee – there was much fuss about why I had come… I told them and showed them the list and told them that there was orders to kill those on the list, `Please save these friends` I said.
`Go` they told me, `we know that already…`
They called a driver and told him to take me to Chomlekchi… The driver took me there… Those were the days around 1958…
I never severed ties with AKEL… I go and meet them but I feel disappointed because AKEL did not put all its weight for the solution of the Cyprus problem… We only want peace, nothing else… If this goes on too long chauvinism will become stronger and we won't be able to demolish chauvinism… There is friendship, we can prove that… Even some Turkish Cypriots saying `I did not expect this from AKEL` is the result of this friendship. If we continue to be in conflict, we will lose… When we lose, only the imperialists will be benefiting from this…`
These were the words of Rezvan Konti, one of the strongest believers in peace, someone of non-stop struggle, someone who believed in friendship among our communities… Someone who struggled against chauvinism, nationalism and racism despite the very heavy price he paid throughout his life for being in the `opposition`. These were the words of Rezvan Konti whom I interviewed in 2005… He passed away a few days ago… May he rest in peace and may we all learn from his life because he never gave up hope that one day we will be a reunified country without discrimination and in peace…

17.9.2014

Photo: Rezvan Konti

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 28th of September, 2014 Sunday.

The long, hot summer…

The long, hot summer…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

It's a long, hot summer… We try to survive in the centre of Cyprus, in Nicosia, in our garden watching our little cat's curiosity – he is interested in everything and he wants to be part of everything happening around him… If I am in the kitchen, he is there, trying to figure out how to climb to the sink to see what it is that I am doing… If I am in my room working on the computer, he climbs to the table and wants to go on the keyboard and see what's going on… If we are in the garden, he too is there, around the little pond with the turtles – he wants so much to play with the turtles but turtles are very shy and he keeps on trying to touch them with his paw, getting himself wet and then licking it off and sitting for hours by the pond, watching them eat or swim… He is a very pale yellow, almost pink and his hair is so soft… He hides under beds or chairs and at times he has a lot of energy and jumps all over the place, climbing
trees, catching bugs and bringing them in for us to see… His innocence touches our hearts…
It's a long, hot summer and we try to survive the heaviness of this land through the innocence of the animals, through the excitement of waiting for our son to come to us for a short holiday from Germany – we can only see him two or three times a year and when he comes, life becomes a festival so we wait for him to finish his studies and come back so he can cheer us up and give us hope and empower us so that we can survive the heaviness of Cyprus…
It's a long, hot summer but I continue to work as always, going to Lefkoniko to see a cousin for the first time that I never knew existed. Based in London, he has come for a short holiday and he writes to me – he too not knowing that we are cousins – and wants to show a well in his yard that have been closed…
`My grandmother always had been suspicious about this well` he explains to me… `She was saying, there would be no reason why the Greek Cypriots would close such a big well with so much water in it and she always suspected that maybe they had buried someone in the well…`
Turkish Cypriots had left the village in 1958 and would only return in 1974… In 1958 Menikou from Koufes was executed in the centre of the village by some Greek Cypriots from EOKA – a Turkish Cypriot witness to this murder, Ismail who had come across them while torturing him and protesting at what they were doing would be killed about a month later. So Turkish Cypriots would be frightened and would leave… This was my father's village, Lefkoniko and Turkish Cypriots would go to nearby Ipsillat – the Greek Cypriot mukhtar of the village would try to encourage the Turkish Cypriots to return to the village but in 1964, another Turkish Cypriot who would go to take out a license for his car would be taken by the Greek Cypriot `gang` in the village and is still `missing` until now… Soon after, those who did not want Turkish Cypriots to return to this village would demolish most of the Turkish Cypriot houses to ensure that they stay where they are…
So I go to Lefkoniko together with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee on our way to Koma tou Yialou to show a possible burial site. We stop at the centre and my cousin leads us to his house. It's behind the church this house… He shows us the well… While talking, we discover that we are cousins – his grandmother was the sister of my father… Because his mother went to England in 1956 and settled there, I probably never saw her…
He shows us the well which is closed and tells us the story… His auntie also comes and she too tells us what she remembers about the area. We take photos and coordinates – the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee will investigate about this area and see if there is really anything suspicious about this well and whether it can be a possible burial site.
It's a long, hot summer but the earth brings gifts like meeting a cousin whom I did not even know existed and finding out that one of his brothers was named after my father Niyazi. He has also written a book of memories about the 1974 war – he had been a child and had come to Cyprus for holidays and war happened and he got stuck in Cyprus… He gives us his book in English and Turkish… Written from the eyes of a child, he documents what he had seen and felt at that young age…
We thank him and say our goodbyes to move to Koma tou Yialou so I can show the olive trees where there might be a burial site of some `missing` Greek Cypriots from the village.
It's a long, hot summer but my readers continue to call and try to help so I meet them in the south and in the north of our island, we sit and talk, they give me coordinates, they give me books, they give me information about possible new burial sites…
We go to Kyrenia Boghazi together with the son of a `missing person` - he called me to explain that a bulldozer operator had found some remains when he was digging about one and a half years ago and got frightened and covered it up… Now he wants to show us this possible burial site. So I arrange to go with the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and we go to Boghazi-Aghirdagh area to see a half construction where there is a house almost finished and a swimming pool being constructed… When our witness was digging for the swimming pool, he found some leg bones and got frightened. The architect had made a mistake in calculating where the swimming pool would be constructed so he told them to stop and shift it a few meters closer to the house – so they had buried the bones they had found in the place they had dug…
`If you dig around the swimming pool` he explains to us, `you would definitely find the bones there… We were frightened and did not dig more to see…`
They had got permission to cut some trees in order to build the swimming pool…
There is no one around and the whole construction site looks deserted… All around there are fences and a dog barks as we take photos and coordinates. The smell is astonishing: That of the pine trees… There is retsina on the barks, bringing me the memories from Kredhia when as children we used to collect from almond trees this kind of retsina and put them in bottles to sit in the sun to melt to be used as glue…
Later at night I would call one of my readers from Aghirdagh to tell him what we saw… He tells me of another possible burial site in Boghazi and promises to show it when I manage to arrange to go there again…
`There used to be an Englishwoman living in that house, called Sheila if I remember correctly, back in the 70s` he says…
`But it's a new house…`
`Actually it's not – it's been changed and renovated… I think the new owner was a Turkish Cypriot from London but I think he died… I don't know who it belongs to now – let me enquire…` he says.
Soon after a team from the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee starts excavations here and they start finding human remains… We need to be patient to see whether they will find only one or more than one `missing` persons' remains have been buried here…
Next week we will go to Yerolakko and Episkopi for further investigations about other possible burial sites…
The long, hot summer will end but our work and our hopes will not…

29.8.2014

Photo: View from the burial site at Aghirdagh-Boghazi.

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 21st of September 2014, Sunday.

`Peace and reunification are too precious to leave it to the negotiators!`

`Peace and reunification are too precious to leave it to the negotiators!`

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

Today I want to share with you an article by a veteran of the bi-communal peace movement in Cyprus, Christos Efthymiou where he reflects on the bi-communal relations in Cyprus and says ` Peace and reunification are too precious to leave it to the negotiators!` He wrote this article for `The Open Democracy` website where he looks back and towards the future… Christos Efthymiou who leads the `Together we can` association, a bi-communal association of relatives of `missing` Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots says:
`Reflecting on the relations between the two main communities in Cyprus invariably brings to mind one of the most remarkable Turkish Cypriot figures in history, that of Ali Dervish Kavazoglu. Not because there weren't other equally significant figures but most likely because of the impression that Kavazoglu had on a ten year old boy way back in 1964-65.
The house I was born in was just a few metres from the village centre. The village was called Dhali, 15 km south-west of Nicosia, and is the burial place of Kavazoglu. The meetings that this remarkable Turkish Cypriot was leading at the village centre were impressive to say the least. He managed to gather almost the whole village there with his audience made up of Turkish and Greek Cypriots, left and right wingers, men and women, practically everybody. He was talking about the need to reject the calls for Turkish Cypriots to move into enclaves and that Greek and Turkish Cypriots should stay united. He was talking about how partition or enosis would be catastrophic for Cyprus.
And what was even more impressive for the 10 year old kid was that he actually appeared on TV, calling again for all Cypriots to stay united and defend peaceful coexistence. Since that day of course the clock for his assassination started ticking and it was not long after that he was ambushed and killed. On the day of his burial, thousands attended both from Dhali and the surrounding villages as well as Nicosia and elsewhere. The Turkish Cypriot women were crying as if they had lost a member of their family. It was also as if they were crying for what would come next.
Following the events of 1964-1967, a lot of Turkish Cypriots moved into enclaves. At times of eased tension, contacts between the two communities were at a reasonable level. In villages like Dhali, where relations were not bad, very few Turkish Cypriots had actually moved. More people left after 1974 but quite a few never actually left the village. Nevertheless, Dhali and neighbouring Potamia were an exception. After the war in 1974, and following the Geneva accord, an exchange of population actually took place with just a few hundred Greek Cypriots staying behind, mostly in the Karpasia peninsula, and a few Turkish Cypriots scattered around in the south.
From then onwards contact between the two communities became extremely difficult. Telephones were disconnected, crossing to the other side was practically impossible and the only possibility to meet was at the British Bases in Dhekelia and the village of Pyla on the buffer zone… At times of hopeful developments for a solution to the Cyprus problem, possibilities for improving contacts were increasing. Remarkable progress was made when the pro solution forces among the Turkish Cypriots gained ground, particularly in the early nineties when CTP headed by Ozker Ozgur participated in government. At the time contacts between professional organizations were developing particularly with the Turkish Cypriot Technical Chamber and the Greek Cypriot Civil Engineers, Architects and other professions. Projects, like the Nicosia Master Plan gradually materialized and had a significant impact.
Capacity building efforts of various groups started to be organized first through meetings abroad and subsequently in places like Pyla, but of significant importance was that bi-communal groups started to develop with the British bases. Pergamos and Pyla both became meeting places towards the turn of the century. A wonderful project was the organization of meetings at Pergamos of co-villagers for the first time after 1974. At around the turn of the century, the historic mass mobilizations of the Turkish Cypriots began to peak with the formation of the Platform "This country is ours". The various Greek Cypriot groups who were engaged in bi-communal activity started making attempts to join forces with the Turkish Cypriot Platform in order to enhance the reconciliation process. The first attempt was made by the Civil Initiative for Solution and Reunification, and a couple of years later, at the beginning of 2003, the "Solution Now" Platform was set
up.
Efforts were being made to organize parallel events across the divide: exchanging messages, letting balloons float across the dividing line and much more. But real change came with the opening of check points in April 2003. The whole process changed dimensions. Masses of people went across, old friendships were revitalized, the dark side of the moon was revealed for many people for the first time.
The centre of bi-communal activity was immediately shifted to the Nicosia buffer zone at Ledra Palace. The "Solution Now" Platform became bi-communal and efforts started immediately to coordinate activities with the Turkish Cypriot Platform. Very soon the Ledra Palace buffer zone was, for the first time ever, the area of bi-communal mass gatherings for peace and reunification. Of great symbolic significance was the vigil organized on the buffer zone in July 2003 in memory of the victims from all communities – an event well attended from both sides held in a moving atmosphere.
Since that July of 2003, every year during the summer when the governing rhetoric on both sides keeps building the wall of separation, the bi-communal movement comes together to talk about the violence of the past, remember and honour the victims on both sides of the divide and pave the way to reconciliation.
The process of seeking the truth about this violent past is probably the most powerful tool for building reconciliation. The opening of the check points in April, 2003 started an unprecedented process: the relatives of the missing persons from both sides of the divide started crossing the dividing line in search of information for the fate of their relatives. The work of journalists working on the issue and spaces created by bi-communal activities provided the opportunities for relatives of the missing from both sides to meet and exchange experiences and information. Very soon these people identified with the pain of each other and remarkable friendships formed.
Sometime in 2006, Turkish and Greek Cypriot relatives of the missing and other victims of war came together to form the "Bi-communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons, Victims of Massacres and other Victims of 1963-1974 events" later called "Together we Can!". It was a ground breaking development. The victims of the massacres and atrocious crimes from both sides were coming together to challenge society to stop using their pain to enhance nationalism but face the realities of the violent past and work so that no families in the future will again have to go through the same trauma.
In a revealing piece of research by Aris Sitas, it was concluded that people's attitude towards reconciliation and compromise to reach settlement is linked to how they have been affected by the conflict. Those that have been worst affected through the loss of life are the most positively oriented towards reconciliation and compromise. This is exactly what the Initiative of the Relatives of the missing shows. From meeting to meeting, in gatherings of the missing from both communities in villages, towns, schools and elsewhere this is being proved time and time again. The relatives of the victims through sharing of their experiences, through identifying with each other's pain, easily blend together forming strong bonds, thus constituting a catalyst for reconciliation.
In July 2009, at the yearly commemoration event at the Ledra street check point, the Bi-communal Initiative of Relatives of the Missing along with the rest of the bi-communal movement honoured Greek and Turkish Cypriots that helped save the lives of people of the other community, sending very powerful messages across dividing lines. Among them, Christofis Poseidias who protected the women and children of Dhali in July and August of 1974. And through him people in Dhali that helped protect the Turkish Cypriot men held in custody that were about to be executed by a certain Greek officer. The powerful bonds of the past in this village managed to save lives.
On the following year the bi-communal movement in an event at the Peace Park of Kontea - itself a result of a bi-communal project - honoured Greek and Turkish Cypriots that provided information for burial sites of the missing persons of the other side. By now a large number of missing persons have had their remains found through information from common people.
In 1964 Michalakis Solomontos from Dhali, father of four children, went missing. It was a shocking incident at the time, in an atmosphere of rising nationalism. Last June the remains of Michalakis were identified and handed over to the family for burial. At the funeral the eldest son in his memorial speech warmly thanked investigative journalist Sevgul Uludag and other Turkish Cypriots that helped to trace the burial site. They received a warm and lengthy applause. People are indeed ahead of their leaderships.
Despite the difficulties on the negotiating table, despite the disappointment of the masses of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, still the bi-communal movement is growing with a large base of small or larger groups with the Home of Cooperation on the Ledra Palace buffer zone being a valuable contribution. Since late 2009 most organizations on both sides of the divide working for a reunification of the island have joint forces under the Bi-communal Peace Initiative "United Cyprus".
The Initiative brings together more than 50 or so organizations, Trade Unions, bi-communal groups, professional organizations, writers and artists, cultural groups and others. Despite the large number of organizations and despite the diverse character of all the groups it is remarkable that people have learned to look at the forest rather than the tree. We have all joined forces for a major cause, that of the solution of the Cyprus problem, for the reunification of the island, for reconciliation and peace. Our differences come second to that.
This July the bi-communal movement has announced its intention to work with artists from both sides to develop a common monument honouring the victims of 50 years of intercommunal conflict and war. The announcement has been very well received by society.
On 1 September, the day of action for peace, Greek and Turkish Cypriots will join hands in a human chain connecting the Eleftheria square via Ledra street crossing the dividing line to Kyrenia Gate in the North. Peace and reunification are too precious to leave it to the negotiators!`

14.8.2014

Photo: Christos Efthymiou with Leyla Kıralp...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 14th of September 2014, Sunday.

Olive trees in Koma tou Yialou…

Olive trees in Koma tou Yialou…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

We sit in the shade of two old almond trees in midday – we can see the sea further down the road and a small breeze comes to greet us…
In this village in Karpaz called `Koma tou Yialou` we sit with a reader who has opened his house for us…
His wife makes coffee and offers us figs – black and white – that ripened under the sun, sweet, tasty, cold from the fridge, so refreshing in this heat that we feel grateful to the earth for offering us such good fruits that grow on our soil…
My reader's wife shows me a little turkey, barely one month old…
`When I try to feed her, she tries to bite my ring` she says… `They love anything shiny…`
The little chick looks curiously at us and after a while my reader's wife takes her back to the hen house.
Two turkeys, one white and one black, makes a tour around our car – they run, round and round, round and round and my reader tells us that they will do this at least 20 times…
`They are chasing their reflection on the car` the wife of my reader explains…
`And then they will come to the front and when they see their faces on the front of the car, they will start touching it with their beaks!`
They do exactly as we've been told and we sit in silence watching the amazing race of the turkeys, both males… The female bird is on her eggs, the wife of my reader explains to me…
`She chooses when to lay on her eggs… You can't force them to lay on eggs…`
After a while the two big male turkeys, one black, one white, get bored and leave us to go and check on the female turkey…
The cycle of the village life takes its course…
My reader, some years ago was in London… He had gone to the opening of a Cypriot restaurant where there were Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots… He happened to sit with a Turkish Cypriot from the village Galatia at the same table… As they started speaking, talking about Galatia and Koma tou Yialou, the guy from Galatia started telling him the story some `missing` persons from Koma tou Yialou…
`On the road to the limani (little port) of Koma tou Yialou, there are some olive trees` he explained to my reader… `That's where they were killed and buried…`
They were a group of four Greek Cypriots, taken from the coffee shop in retaliation to the EOKA-B killings of Tochni and Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa according to the stories we have been hearing from those who had been present… A car had come, someone in military uniform had got out of the car with its radio on and in anger had shouted at the Greek Cypriots, speaking in very fluent Greek saying `Look what your people have done to ours! Listen to the news on Bayrak and hear what happened in Tochni! You will pay for this!`
The mother of one they tried to take had begged him not to take her son away:
`He is too young, he is only 16!` she had said but the angry Turkish Cypriot who had presented himself coming from Aloa and who had been around 45 years old at that time had said:
`I too had a wife and children… No one had mercy on them!` and had refused to leave the young boy alone… This person had come to the village that day, on the 20th of August 1974 - he had been together with some Turkish soldiers in two Turkish tanks that had come to the village that day…
It was the 20th of August 1974…
They had drank some water and cokes from the coffee shop, breaking the empty bottles… Anger was raging – perhaps it was the day when the mass murder of Turkish Cypriots taken from Tochni by some Greek Cypriots had become news on the radio…
He had taken four Greek Cypriots from Koma tou Yialou… The red Alpha Romeo car belonging to a Greek Cypriot but taken over by some Turkish Cypriots left, returning after 10 minutes without them… They have been `missing` since then and we had been looking for their possible burial sites in and around Koma tou Yialou…
One other reader had described a place to me, I had gone and checked and then shown it to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and when there was digging in that area, remains of two `missing` persons were found. But we were not sure if they had been from this group of four `missing` persons or some others…
Now a new possible burial site that I need to see: We go with my reader to look at the olive trees… There are very few old olive trees as he points them out to me…
`Look, here, here and here… Those further back are new trees…`
This is the road that goes to the fishermen's little harbour and to the empty hotel standing on the beach…
We drive down the road and check if there are other old olive trees… Close to the school we find a few other old trees…
The whole place is very close to the area we had shown and where remains of two `missing persons` had been found: It is the same `mahalle` so to say…
The Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee is on holidays until the 18th of August 2014 – so after that date, I will try to arrange to come with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials of the Committee to show them this possible burial site so that they can investigate further and if they decide, they can try to dig under the old olive trees…
More than five years ago, I had gone to visit one of the relatives of `missing` from Koma tou Yialou in Larnaka and had met his sisters who had been so sad… They only wanted to know the truth about their brother… Their mother and father would never speak about him…
`We had loved him too much` his sister had told me, `maybe because we were going to lose him, we had loved him so much…`
`We have never forgotten our village` had told me…
They had heard rumours that they might have been buried in a riverbed between Koma tou Yialou and Galatia so we need to investigate that as well… As we leave the village, thanking my reader, I see a river at the exit of the village with some eucalyptus trees. Could this be the riverbed they had heard about? We need to investigate that as well…
As soon as the holidays of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee is over, I arrange to go with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot officials to show them the olive trees that are a possible burial site… The road has been expanded after 1974 so perhaps they would need to check on the side of the road as well if there would be digging here… We go with Xenophon Kallis, Murat Soysal and Okan Oktay and I show them the olive trees in order to investigate further…
One of the relatives of the `missing` from Koma tou Yialou had told me that at the time their relatives went `missing`, there had been a Turkish Cypriot policeman from Larnaka in charge of the village so perhaps if he is still alive, the Committee could start new investigations by finding him if they have not done that already in the past…
People don't `disappear` into thin air – there must have been people who had seen what had happened – if there is a will to find out, there is always a way as my readers have proven over and over again by helping out in a very humanitarian way in order to heal the terrible wounds that our country suffers…

8.8.2014

Photo: The old olive trees in Koma tou Yialou...

(*) Article published in POLITIS newspaper on the 31st of August 2014, Sunday.

From Agios Athanasios to Aradippou…

From Agios Athanasios to Aradippou…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

I sit in the garden at early hours of the morning to enjoy the coolness – soon it will be too hot to sit outside so I would have to move in… My heart -comrade is watering the flowers in pots and the trees and cats are jumping and playing as the turtles in the pond come out to see what's going on… We have a beautiful cat now, yellow – almost a pinky white – whom we tried to save from going blind… We managed to save part of his eye sight and now he is in the garden, playing with other cats, all grey…
Wood pigeons haven't come this year so we can sit by the pond – they are such shy birds that you can't be near them if they want to come down to drink water from the pond… Last year, we could never sit by the pond but this year they are nowhere in sight – I see lots of pigeons but they too are shy to come down – the only birds that come are the doves and sparrows…
Dates on the tree are green but slowly they will become ripe… The pecan nut tree is green and nuts and dates will soon attract the crows… We will wake up to their laughter and all birds will feed on the dates…
This Sunday I am home, last Saturday I was at Agios Athanasios for the funeral of `missing` Philipos Pantazis, brother of Vasilis – the remains of Philipos were found in Synchari…
As the remains of Philipos Pantazis were being taken inside the church, his sister Anthoulla cried out loud, `Oh! My brother!` and started crying and all of us started crying and could not stop throughout the funeral… It was such a cry from the heart, the sorrow, the loss, the love she had for him that it touched everyone's hearts… I had gone to the funeral with my husband and my dear friend Christina Pavlou Solomi Patsia whose father and brother are `missing` from Komi Kepir… She too would cry throughout the funeral and I would decide from now on, not to ask her to go with me because these funerals would really tear her heart apart…
This funeral was different because Vasilis did not invite any politicians on purpose and he would make a very critical speech about how politicians had been using the pain of the relatives of `missing persons`… Vasilis said in summary:
`With reverence and modesty we came to this sacred place to honour a hero and to express, simply and humanely, feelings of appreciation and gratitude for the sacrifice of the life of Philipos Pantazis on the altar of freedom of our country.
Philipos was not known. He became known with his sacrifice and heroism. He was a young man, simple, anonymous, a fiery young man with visions and ideals.
Facing his great love for his country he did not count his life so he went into Immortality. He left as a hero, and now from up there he is urging us all to walk the path of honour and duty, which he drew.
We feel very proud of you, our brother.
No, Philipos did not die. He lives and will always live in the history of this land. He lives and will always live in the blue skies of Cyprus.
Our beloved brother,
The gratitude of all of us belongs to you. Your honour and glory is recognized. You will live in our memories and in our life, eternal, pure, heroic, wonderful son and brother.
But there will always be a big question to us all: Why did all these had to happen? Why did no one deal with those who were lost for so many years?
The dead have the laurels, the missing have the wheres and whys on the bitter lips of their loved ones, the wounded and the prisoners the scars and the wounds…
All those who passed alive amongst molten iron and bullets, that heard painful whistling by taking the mortars, without ever bravo, are not looking for praise of poets, nor monuments at the entrances of military camps. They do not look for money, or medals, or favours from the absent state. The only thing they asked for, somewhere between the lines which were not written, the stories which were not said, is the truth. So that the coming generations will know it. So that it is a sign for tomorrow, those that will follow to avoid new betrayals, and the whys, the whys which are haunting their restless evenings in the fever of the nightmare and the wounds in the soul. The wounds which do not count as wounds of war. The whys, the unanswered whys of the tragedy.
The game of war is difficult. The uprooting of refugees bitter and heavy. Death even more bitter and heavy. But most bitter and heavy is the ignorance about the father, son, brother, your loved one.
I see all which they did not manage to live... We called them missing, while we knew that they are heroes. And we continue to forget it and live our lives indifferently, while each week we bury the remains of the bones of these heroes. Murdered by the Turks in 1974, we "murder" them also today with the now usual indifference of the Cypriot society and the Cypriot state.
We leave alone the elderly parents, if they did not leave with the grief, the siblings in front of a small box, which is too small to fit their sacrifice. We leave them alone in an almost empty church to attend in silence, accompanied by the unprecedented pain, the honours which a bankrupt state formally delivers, to listen to the wooden and meaningless language of the political obituaries and not words that heroes deserve…`
On the 23rd of August Saturday I will go to the funeral in Larnaka of another `missing person` one of my readers helped to find – we had gone to Lysi and had shown the place to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and when they exhumed, they found the remains of this Greek Cypriot `missing` person… And on Friday this week on the 15th of August, there will be the funeral of 34 `missing` Turkish Cypriots from Tochni – 32 of them from the first bus taken from Tochni to Palodia and killed and later buried in Gerasa and two of them `missing` from 1963-64 from Tochni – killed and buried in a well in Strovolos, Parisinos area… 34 funerals all at the same time in a special cemetery built for them and a museum where the remainder of their clothes will be exhibited… The funeral will be in Vouno and I cannot even conceptualize what sort of pain there will be on the outskirts of the Pentataktilos while the Turkish Cypriot relatives
would bury their `missing` in this new cemetery.
And on the 7th of September, I will go to another funeral in Aradippou, to bury the remains of the brother of Takis… We had gone twice to show to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, his possible burial site close to the Saint Hilarion, on the mountains – Agios Pavlos Lapithou area… Finally they had exhumed the place we had shown and they found the remains of Giorgos Ttooulou, the brother of Takis… Giorgos was doing his military service and was about to finish on the 14th of September 1974… Then the war came and on the 20th of July 1974, on this spot we had come to at Agios Pavlos Lapithou he was killed as Turkish planes opened fire and a branch of a carob tree had hit his throat… One of his friends who was the son of a papaz had prayed and they had buried him where he had been killed.
Takis had never stopped searching for his brother and he had come at Agios Pavlos Lapithou many times to find the exact spot where he had been buried… And it was due to the efforts of Takis that the remains of his brother have been found…
40 years after his brother will come back to Aradippou, in a small coffin to be buried where he had been born… And I will go to lay flowers next to his coffin on the 7th of September in Aradippou…
A few weeks ago I went to see Takis and his wife in their home in Aradippou. His wife Eleni had cooked katimeri for me – everywhere were pictures of Giorgos… They had a lovely house and in the yard, another house, the house that had belonged to their mother… Their mother Theophania had waited for the return of Giorgos until the day she died in 1992, three years after her husband Stavros' death in 1989.
So the hot, painful, sorrowful summer continues but today is Sunday and I must rest in my garden, look at the trees, the flowers, the turtles, the cats and take some pleasure from life in order to get ready for more funerals coming up in the following weeks and months…

10.8.2014

Photo: The small coffin of Philippos Pantazis...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 24th of August, 2014 – Sunday.

Time for weddings and funerals…

Time for weddings and funerals…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

It is summer, it is blazing hot, it is time for holidays, weddings and funerals… It is time for reflection about the past and the future… Sitting in the centre of a hot sea, close to the Middle East while everything is practically burning, there is not much prospect for a starry future… All around us there is fire: Libya destroyed, Egypt destroyed, Palestine destroyed, Syria destroyed, Iraq destroyed, Lebanon destroyed – our geography in turmoil, tears and pain as death takes over all around us… The land of Aphrodite looks up towards new prospects of `gas and oil` but has it ever brought any happiness to anyone around us in this geography?
People have `theories` about how the `gas and oil` will bring about `a solution` and I certainly hope with all my heart that they should prove right… And yet, almost every week, I go to funerals nowadays, from Karpaz to Troulli to Limassol, to Larnaka… After a lapse of forty years, relatives of `missing` are burying their `missing persons` found in ditches and wells in Ornithi, in the shade of pine trees in Synchari or in makeshift shelters under the hot, burning soil of Messaoria… I go to weddings but weddings aren't enough to take away the sadness of the funerals of the `missing`… On the 15th of August 2014, Friday, we will have the funeral of a busload of `missing` from Tochni… More than 30 of them will be buried in Vouno, on the skirts of Pentataktilos… Soon there will be more remembrances, more tears, more bad memories from the past, our recent bloody past and I try to find a way out of this turmoil by reading, travelling, cooking,
watching crime serials and movies and playing with my cats and turtles…
I travel to Poland with a broken heart, terribly tired of the `Karagozi` games of politicians who seem to drag the `negotiations` for a `solution` that they see `fit` for us… I go with my husband to stay in a castle built in 1855, the hotel of one of our friends who had been inviting us all these years but we never managed to go until this summer when we decided to have a go at it… It is in Karnity, about two hours away from Gdansk or once upon a time Danzig where the Second World War started… The castle was built by an Englishman whose family probably had taken part in the Crusade and the land was taken by Crusaders to be passed on to that family… 1855: The castle saw the First World War, the Second World War and came to our days intact… Next to the castle our friend got flocks of deer, he has chicken, he plants his own potatoes, he has his own sheep and storks come to build their nests with their red beaks and legs on top of electric posts
and trees trimmed especially for them to accommodate their big nests… He has created a `survivor camp` type of game area and of course, there is the lake, just next to the castle and the horses…
We take walks in the forest where there is a small cemetery left over by the 19th century owners of the castle… I get close to the deer and feed them with fresh leaves… We sit by the lake while I read my books and we play creative, environmental card games with the grandchildren of our friend… We take a trip on canals connecting the lakes and on the boat as we pass through thousands of water lilies, we watch swan families and ducks and other birds and fish, enjoying the sun and the water…
On the terrace of the hotel, an old German couple arrives as it starts raining and we sit under the umbrellas drinking espresso and tea, talking. This whole area had belonged to Germans but after the Second World War, they were expelled from their homes… The old man tells me that his wife had been born here and had lived here until 1958 when they were forced to leave their homes… Now, every year, they come and rent a house and visit her birthplace, look at where she grew up, take long walks in the forest trying to capture memories that never left her heart… Even though she had been living in Germany for the past 56 years, her heart belongs here and she comes as often as she can to breathe the air and feel comfortable where she was born at… Germans have almost become extinct and we see that when we visit `The German House` in Ostroda – there are only 900 Germans left and `The German House` has German lessons for kids and they even have a
football team and they display their cups and medals proudly…
We move to Gdansk – Danzig – to explore city life leaving behind the so green forests and storks and deer to find a charming city that looks like Amsterdam… We walk in the streets, eat ice cream, cook chicken and read and all day long listen to street singers playing `The Four Seasons` of Vivaldi on the accordion or hard rock or heavy metal or romantic songs on Dluga Street… Dluga Street is elegant – the whole city was almost destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt but we can still see remnants from the past… I try to heal my heart from the curse of our past and remedy the wounds by listening to the chime of the city clock with a melody, by watching the beautiful people of Poland and all the other countries walking down the street, discovering the Long Street and Billy's restaurant where they serve Humphrey Bogart Salad with Halloumi, watching the pirate ships pass by with tourists and buying souvenirs for our home and for our
friends – tiny ships in bottles, a beer opener in the shape of a sailor, a tiny seal smiling, silk scarves with rainbow colours, ladybugs jumping up and down, shot glasses with the seal of Danzig… Everywhere are flowers, flowers on balconies, flowers on lamp posts, flowers in street markets – we go to visit street markets where they sell meat, fish, chicken, clothes, shoes…
It is summer, holiday time, time for weddings and funerals… So we come back to more weddings and more funerals – my pain is nothing compared with the pain of the relatives of `missing` who are getting back the remains of their loved ones, arranging funerals, saying goodbye to them… Back in Cyprus, straight to work and meetings with relatives, investigating, visiting possible burial sites, going to funerals, laying flowers, trying to find a way to survive in this sticky heat with so many stories untold, so many stories exploited, so many stories that punch nails to my heart…

1.8.2014

Photo: The beautiful deer of Poland at the Castle Zamek Karnity where we stayed...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 17th of August 2014, Sunday.