Chania that does not `deny` its multicultural heritage…

Chania that does not `deny` its multicultural heritage…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

For the Bayram holidays, we fly to Chania, Crete for a wonderful five days with my husband – this is our favourite place in the Mediterranean, an island that knows what it is doing, a city full of colour and warmth, an international destination with good food, lovely scenery and a multicultural historical heritage, well preserved.
We sit in the Venetian Harbour of Chania, the harbour that had been built by the same Italian architect as in Kyrenia…
We try to enjoy walks in the harbour, among the narrow labyrinth streets, lined with pots of flowers, shops, cafes, tavernas… Walking in Chania is like walking in the past and in the future at the same time… Cretans have embraced their multiculturalism in such a refreshing way, without any prejudice that you can see this everywhere: In restaurants, in the hotel we stay we have the photographs of the Yiali Mosque from old times – the mosque stands in the Venetian harbour without the minaret – I am surprised to see its photographs with the minaret in the hotel we stay, in our room, in the tavernas or cafes we go to – we find out that the minaret had fallen in an earthquake and was destroyed but they have preserved the mosque and it is used for exhibitions of handicrafts and art…
Cretans are not ashamed of the Italian heritage they have: Almost all the names of the hotels in and around the Venetian harbour in Chania sound Italian: Bel Mondo, Villa Venezia, Porto del Colombo, Hotel Contessa, Casa Leone, Casa Latina… They do not deny their Ottoman heritage, on the contrary, they put old photos of the Yiali Mosque everywhere, keeping Turkish words like `Tamam` as the name of a restaurant…
Cretans are one of the most relaxed communities in the whole of the Mediterranean and you can see why so many tourists enjoy being here… We sit with my husband at a rock café in the Venetian harbour, Avalon Rock Café and look at the tourists passing by: So many from the Scandinavian countries, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish… I call them the `Vikings` and point out to my husband, `Here goes another Viking!` The waiter at a nearby café who came to work in Chania from Athens with only 40 Euros in his pocket tells us that some British and American tourists are also coming and staying in Chania… Lots from Holland, some from Japan, some from Italy, some from Cyprus and Turkey… Everyone has met here to enjoy the mild weather, the walk in the past and in the future – this is a dream place where cultures meet and enjoy Cretan food, music, dancing or simply sitting by the sea and enjoying the fish caught by the fishermen that day…
We come every year to Chania, sometimes twice a year, once in May and once in October to simply enjoy the harbour, to read, to sleep, to be away from the `Cyprus problem`, to relax and to see how tourism can be done… Cretans are not trying to `prove` that they are `pure Greeks` or `pure` anything… They are simply sharing all their multicultural heritage, well preserved and proud of it…
We have exactly the same harbour in Kyrenia but we cannot enjoy it the way we can here, in Chania: First of all the demographics, as well as the culture that goes with it has changed in Kyrenia. In the Kyrenia harbour, we wouldn't be able to sit so relaxed in a restaurant or in a café just being ourselves – we would hear or see things that would upset us… We wouldn't be able to enjoy a walk like this – the unspoken, unworded kind of `violence` in the air emanating from tension among people of different backgrounds would stop us from doing that…
In Chania, I realize that perhaps Cypriots are the only ones who do not feel proud of their multicultural heritage and are constantly trying to `prove` to everyone about how `Greek` or how `Turk` they are… In Chania, I remember the words of Joseph Solomo Andreou, a Maronite Cypriot whom I had interviewed and started publishing his interview during the Bayram in YENIDUZEN newspaper… Born in Agia Marina, raised in Kormakitis, sent to Lebanon to study to become a priest, he was the cousin of the famous priest of Agia Marina, Andreas Frangou who had saved the Turkish Cypriots from being killed by some Greek Cypriots led by someone from Kokkinotrimitia… Andreas Frangou was his father's brother, his uncle. Joseph Solomo Andreou in the end, did not choose to become a priest but went to London to work and then to Libya and finally back in Cyprus… I had wanted to interview him about his uncle but in the end I ended up with a wonderful interview about
the Catholic heritage of Cyprus that both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots sort of `deny` or try to make it completely `invisible`… According to Joseph Solomo Andreou, when Ottomans came to `conquer` Cyprus, there had been 180 thousand Catholics living on the island, including Maronites, Venetians and others… Surely they did not `evaporate` overnight… In a detailed interview he would tell me details of where they had been settled, the rift between the Orthodox and Catholics throughout the centuries, how an ever-changing geography forced Catholics to `adapt` to `new conditions`…
Well, the Cretans have learned to cash on it: They do not `hide` their multicultural heritage while we let the summer houses of Caterina Cornaro to rot and decay… Chania uses it to attract more and more tourists to share what they have while we argue whether the name of Piyale Pasha Avenue should be changed to something else or not… While in the northern part of the island, names of all villages and streets have been changed and `Turkified` and huge flags have been painted on mountains, huge flagpoles erected everywhere to `prove` how `Turk` this part has `become`, Cretans are offering us the calm confidence of their multicultural heritage, making us go there not only once but twice a year and yearning for more days, more holidays, more human friendly environments…
Bravo to Cretans! Cypriots are the only ones in the Mediterranean who have a lot to learn from them!...

Photo: View from the Venetian Harbour of Chania...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 26th of October, 2014 Sunday.

Story of `missing` Christos Antoni Koutalistra from Morphou…

Story of `missing` Christos Antoni Koutalistra from Morphou…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

`Dear Ms Uludag,
I have been reading your articles and articles written by others about you, for quite some time, so I am aware of all your efforts, battles and research in finding missing persons of both communities, and also your commitment to peace journalism. Giving to others seems to come naturally to you and you do not hesitate to go the extra mile, take the extra time, give the extra thought because the light within seems to guide your actions. You truly are a wonderful example to us all.
Today, I have made the decision to write to you, seeking assistance in finding the remains of a relative who has gone missing in August 1974. This person was the youngest brother of my deceased grandfather, so I am writing on behalf of his daughter Maroula who is at her early 70's.
The missing person's name is Christos Antoni Koutalistra, born in 1918 (56 years old in 1974), from Morphou. He was a civilian and he did not leave his home with the rest of his family in 15 August 1974 because he decided to stay in order to take care of his cattle. His house was situated outside Morphou, about 5 kilometres away, in a north-western direction. The house was somewhere between the village of Sirianohori and the area called Mnasi or Pnasi, a couple of kilometres away from the chapel of Panagia tou Mnasi.
His children visited the area 3-4 years ago and they said that they saw no evidence that there had been houses in the area in the past. Two of his married daughters (Maroula and Pantelou) had houses in the same area. Near the houses there was a borehole for the irrigation of the orange groves but when they visited they found it filled with dirt. The family suspects that somebody might had tried to steal his cattle and Christo's was killed attempting to stop them and then probably he was buried in the borehole.
So far, there hasn't been a trustworthy testimonial about Christo's whereabouts after August 15.
A Greek Cypriot, who had been enclaved for a short period, told Christo's family that he saw him going to Sirianohori coffee shop, at least a couple of times, riding a bike.
His daughter Maroula told me that the family had many Greek and Turkish Cypriot friends in Ayia Irini (Akdeniz) village. Their father and his mother often visited the village to sell or to buy different products. Christo's mother, a very assertive and energetic widow was known by the nickname "Makria" (the tall one). Her real name was Eleni or Elou. She died in 1972 and she was 92 years old.
These is all the information I managed to gather.
Any information on what really happened to Christos and/or where his remains are would be greatly appreciated.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Respectfully,
Maria Gavriel`
This was the first e-mail I received from Maria Gavriel in August this year… For me Maria Gavriel is a miracle person who is precise in detail and as we began investigating together – without ever meeting face to face even once, communicating only over the e-mail and the phone – she continued to put her energy and her heart to help find more details:
`Yesterday I visited Christos's daughters and wife in Episkopi village. His wife, Elengou, is 98 years old. She lives with one of her daughters who is a widow. Elengou suffered a minor stroke a couple of weeks ago but she recovered. She spends her awake hours sitting on an armchair. She cannot move around but she has a very good memory… Christos and his wife Elengou had 6 daughters and 2 sons. They all have families. One of the daughters died in an accident 25 years ago. The oldest daughter lives in Paralimni. A son and three daughters live in Episkopi. Another son lives in Kantou and there's a daughter living in Greece. I asked Victoria, the youngest daughter, to tell me how many grandchildren and great grandchildren there are in the family but she couldn't give me a number. "I have to think about it first", she said. Victoria was 13 years old in 1974. She said that for ten years she was waiting for her father to show up. She needed to believe that
he was somewhere alive. But the problem was not only emotional, she said. The family suffered a significant financial hardship because there were so many underage children in the family and only one parent to take care of them all. Victoria sent me a message this morning with the number of grandchildren (23), great grandchildren (36) and great-great grandchildren (5)…`
I would call one of my very good readers helping me in investigations about `missing persons` from the area of Morphou and Ayia Irini passing on all the information that Maria Gavriel had sent me and he would start investigating the fate of the `missing` relative of Maria, Christos Antoni Koutalistra… In a few days we would speak – he found people who had remembered Christos and he would tell me the whole story:
`Christos was the victim of looting` he would say, `Although he was innocent and had nothing to do with looting, he himself became a victim of looting and I will tell you how… You know, when the war began in 1974 on the 20th of July, a lot of Turkish Cypriots from Ayia Irini left the village. Some Greek Cypriots from Morphou, Diorios, Livera, Syrianachori came to Ayia Irini and started looting the property and animals of Turkish Cypriots. They stole goats and sheep and whatever they liked to steal… They even shot and killed two Turkish Cypriot shepherds, Mustafa Huseyin Saghir (`Moustafali`) and Huseyin Mustafa Arap (`Taraboulous`) in order to steal their animals. When the Turkish Cypriots of Ayia Irini came back to the village after the `second round` of the war in mid-August 1974, they found out that their animals and property had been looted. So `in retaliation` they went out to `loot` themselves, the stolen animals from them… One Turkish
Cypriot from Ayia Irini went to the house where Christos was – there were orange groves next to this house and from among the bamboos where this Turkish Cypriot was hiding, he saw Christos with a gun standing there. This was a special gun with a single barrel… We call this type of gun `Monari`… This Turkish Cypriot got afraid when he saw the gun and shot at Christos with his handgun and killed him. He got so afraid he ran back to the village, forgetting that he had gone there for looting… As he told his story in the village, next day one of his close relatives went back and took the watch from the arm of Christos, searched his pockets and found 30 Cypriot Pounds on him and took it and went away. The following day, another Turkish Cypriot went to where Christos was laying down, killed… He took his gun, the `Monari` and came back to Ayia Irini… As he showed the gun in the village, the villagers told him, `Vre, you will be in trouble! Go and
give the gun to the police!` so he went to the police in Myrtou and gave the gun to the Turkish Cypriot policemen in Myrtou… The person who gave the gun to the police is no longer alive but the one who killed him and the one who took his watch and money are alive…`
I would write this story in YENIDUZEN newspaper and would also call Maria Gavriel and tell her details… She would get back to me immediately:
`I asked Christo's daughters whether their father had a hunting gun and they verified it. His son-in-law gave me a detailed description of the gun but since I am not familiar with guns, I am not able to reproduce that in English. He did verified though that Christos had a single barrel hunting gun. He also said that it was a very unique gun. It had a longer and bigger barrel than the usual hunting guns. I don't know if my messages gave you the impression that Christos was a chobani. He wasn't. He had 3 cows, 6-7 goats, hens and rabbits. As you said, the house was surrounded by orange groves (pervolia). They had no neighbours (at least not nearby) except for a Turkish Cypriot guy they used to call Feizis who used to work for a Greek Cypriot from Morphou (Aniftos). Feizis lived nearby, in the middle of his boss' pervolia and he often visited Christos. He is probably dead by now.
Christos' daughters have found the gun's registration number and barrel's number.
Reg. Number: Ν448
Barrel number: 68883`
This was such valuable information coming from Maria Gavriel. Surely if the Turkish Cypriot investigators want, they can find out very easily who the policemen were serving in Myrtou police station back in 1974 and they would have records of this gun being given to the police. It was and is a very important lead to the fate of `missing` Christos… Since the police took this gun from someone from Ayia Irini, surely they must have had more details about what had happened. These are very small villages we are talking about and everyone heard everything in such villages.
I call Maria to tell her the things I found out and also speak with the Turkish Cypriot officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee – about a year ago, the daughters of Christos had gone to the area and had shown the borehole for irrigation that had been filled to the Committee, the Committee had excavations in this irrigation borehole but found nothing. We decide to go and explore the area once again and I will continue my investigations with my readers from the area who are helping voluntarily to see if we can find out where Christos has been buried… Meanwhile I thank Maria Gavriel and my reader from the Morphou-Ayia Irini area for their valuable information and investigation…

2.10.2014

Photo: Christos Antoni Koutalistra with his wife Elengou...

(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 19th of October, 2014 Sunday.

It was not easy to break the taboos…

It was not easy to break the taboos…

Sevgul Uludag

caramel_cy@yahoo.com

Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436

`I witnessed the stories of `missing persons` very closely…
This `closeness` was not due to family ties but observations as a journalist…
It was the first week where I had begun working in the YENIDUZEN newspaper as chief editor and we needed restructuring and new projects concerning the content…
And there was a wise journalist who was `hungry` and `stubborn` for research amongst ourselves, she needed to `get off her desk`, get rid of `routine`, run after real stories, produce much more…
She came to me with the project of `Missing Persons`…
As I said, the stories of `missing persons` were still a very important `taboo` - this was the beginning of 2000…
She started with the series of articles called `Oysters with the missing pearls` and after a while I realized that I should never touch Sevgul Uludag, I should just leave her alone – she would go on her journey, travel and come back to us full of stories. All we had to do was just to stand straight and firm…
Some of the relatives of `missing` were saying `I just want back the remains of my father, I want to have a grave for him`, others were bursting out with the `anger against the killers` and all of these voices were raising up, exploding against the silence of the official history…
But it did not stay there…
As soon as the checkpoints were opened, there started a massive flow of information, this flow would not stop and now Sevgul Uludag was following these `leads` and new burial sites of `missing persons` were being uncovered, the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee would be reactivated and the community was becoming aware of the truth it had been living in for so many years…
And there started pressure coming and what sort of pressures…
Maybe I am writing this for the first time – one day with the `facilitation` of a few politicians I was taken to a village, they put me in some sort of a `garage` like place and closed the doors… It was a place in the Messaoria…
Tens of men… Their eyes were full of anger and not relenting, they were almost `questioning` me… They said, `This series of articles will stop!`
I could read the `fear` in the faces of all of them!...
Because each file Sevgul would open, there would be tens of `potential criminals` in each new village she was writing about having to face the truth…
`The suffering` had opened its eyes in the consciousness, had woken up again and it had been too heavy facing the truth…
What was more, as the checkpoints opened and mutual crossings began, suspicions and fear started eating up the bodies of those who had been living for so many years in `denial`…
They knew the burial sites of many `missing persons`, they knew who had shot, who had dug, how they were buried; who knows maybe they could not forget their `cries`… They had not forgotten…
Maybe they had never spoken about these again, maybe they were just looking at each other's `faces` and making as though no such things were ever lived…
The stories that Sevgul Uludag is following `in trace of the missing` is approaching to three thousand today…
The pressures, the threats, the swearing we got from a lot of circles have come down, even disappeared now…
Taboos have been broken…`
These are the words of my chief editor Cenk Mutluyakali who wrote an article in the weekend magazine of our newspaper YENIDUZEN called ADRES KIBRIS last week: http://www.yeniduzen.com/Ekler/adres-kibris/177/kayip-la-hamlet-arasinda-kurtulamiyorsun-sonucta/1800
Cenk Mutluyakali gave me his full support, standing by me not just in words but deeds and if it was not for his firm stand, the series of articles reaching 3 thousand nowadays, we would not be able to publish in YENIDUZEN newspaper. I knew he was getting a lot of pressure to stop my articles but he never gave in…
In fact he had never told me that he was taken to a village in Messaoria and `locked` in a garage, having to face the threats from the villagers… It was the first time I was hearing this from him but I was not surprised. I guessed the village could be Chatoz or Agia Kepir in Messaoria and when I asked him he confirmed that it had been Agia Kepir… I got quite a few death threats from Agia, including from the leadership of the village in those times when I had written about a well where some Turkish Cypriots from the village had killed and buried some Greek Cypriots. They were in complete `denial` and demanded to know who had told me this. They would go all the way up to the Turkish Cypriot leader of the time and he would even call me and my chief editor about it but we would stand firm. They would hold meetings in the village and I would be intimidated on the phone… But the committee would dig and find the remains of Greek Cypriots killed and buried
in the well in Agia… In the end `truth` would find its way out of the well…
His article reminded us that it had not been easy to break the taboos, to publish the information that my readers were giving me – both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – about what had happened in their villages, how people were harassed or killed or raped and where the possible burial sites were… I was getting a lot of death threats from the killers, calling me and shouting at me that they would hunt me from behind me and would shoot and kill me or swearing at me or harass me or come all the way to my office in the newspaper threatening me… It was not easy to face the truth for many of them, for those who had been involved but also their relatives were upset and were calling me and asking me, `What is your aim in publishing such stories?!...`
Even mayors published statements denouncing me – mayor of Chatoz at the time would openly denounce me because I had written that some Turkish Cypriots from this village had executed and buried some Greek Cypriots in the well of the mosque in the village… I was writing about other burial sites in Chatoz and the mayor was so upset and was in complete denial… He tried to get off his anger on me… I was already receiving death threats from this village – I would never travel there alone but always go with someone I trusted… One day the late Sheih Nazim Kibrisi, a Nakshibendi religious leader of Turkish Cypriots was taking around some foreign delegation who had come to visit him… While going to Famagusta, he had told the delegation `See, this is Chatoz, let's go there to the mosque and make our namaz…` and they had gone to the mosque at the spur of the moment. Seeing the cars near the mosque some of the `killers` in Chatoz thought it was me
going to investigate some wells in the yard of the mosque and they mobilized calling other `friends` of theirs to go to the mosque to beat me up! They were shouting in the village calling me names you don't want to hear and when they gathered and went to the mosque, they were shocked to see it was Sheih Nazim, not me at the mosque! Some of my readers would call me and tell me what had happened and we would laugh about it imagining the shock they got finding Sheih Nazim, instead of me…
During the exhumation of the well in Chatoz, they would issue death threats under the pseudonym `Turkish Revenge Brigade` and distribute everywhere saying in essence that whoever was helping to find the `missing` would be `punished`. Stuff like that…
But the mayor of Galatia village in those years would go one step further – I had been trying to locate the burial site of Takis Hadjinikolaou, the `missing` judge from Yialousa and we had worked on this for five years together with his son Spyros… We had people helping us and we had learned that they were killed and buried in the lake of Galatia, some from Yialousa together with some others from Karpasia. Some of my readers would show this burial site in the lake to the officials of the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and soon exhumations would begin… The mayor got so upset he invited the head of the Turkish Cypriot Army to the village and asked to help him `to silence these traitors!`
The head of the Turkish Cypriot Army did not do or say anything to him and left – in the following days, the head of the Turkish Army stationed in Cyprus went to the village with a helicopter! The mayor asked him as well to `help him to silence these traitors!` The commander would not do or say anything and would leave… The exhumation would begin under big pressure and the mass grave would be uncovered…
I got threats from some of the Greek Cypriot `killers` as well and had to be creative enough in learning how to deal with them… I am thankful to a handful of Greek Cypriot friends who helped me out using their influence in trying to stop the threats, particularly I am thankful to a Greek Cypriot woman, a long-time friend whose name I will not mention here…
It was not easy to reach the point where we are now, breaking down the taboos, facing death threats, facing abuse and slander and psychological terror… I know quite well that long before I started investigating the fate of the `missing persons`, Xenophon Kallis who had done extensive work on `missing persons` were getting similar threats… Our friend journalist Andreas Paraschos was threatened severely when he began his investigations about `missing` Greek Cypriots back in 1995-1998. I am sure there were others who got intimidated by the `killers` in both `sides` of our island since we were all doing a very dangerous job: When you hide the grave, you hide the crime, when you hide the crime, you hide the criminal… We were trying to uncover the graves, therefore uncovering the crimes and the criminals although nobody has ever touched them, they still felt very upset and angry…
Now that the taboos are broken, a lot of `sharks` roam our seas, trying to bite off a piece and they keep calling me for `help` since they too want to `write about missing persons` or create `projects` about `missing persons` and they want me to give them names and help them meet people and to give them this or that information. They are not really interested in the pain of the relatives or how to cure this pain, they just want a quick, nice article, something `sensational` perhaps for their newspapers or news agencies or their TV stations and radios… I tried helping some of them only if I see that they understand how much suffering there is and if they are really serious journalists… Otherwise I try to avoid these `sharks` who are out hunting and trying to smell the `blood` for their own causes, not necessarily for the good of our communities…

28.9.2014

Photo: Cenk Mutuyakali, our brave chief editor in the Yeniduzen newspaper...

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

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.