Call from the son of a `missing person`

`Confess and clean up!...` 

`At the end of the 70s there was a popular song: `Whoever I see looks like you… This cloud, that sky..` This song reminds me of our country… A voice in my ears say `Wherever I dig, there comes out a body… The bottom of that well, under that tree..`

What sort of a situation is this, the people of Cyprus, who presents itself as civilized to the world but who has a barbarian past… The Missing Persons Committee makes statements that they are finding the graves of the missing and these statements don’t have an end… According to official records there are more than 2 thousand missing. What have we done! Together, hand in hand, as the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, we have turned our heavenly island into a bit cemetery of the missing! Sevgul Uludag has recently written about the `Fig Tree` that SABAH newspaper from Turkey made headlines… But despite this, we continue to live on this soil, without feeling any shame!

To agree? To reconcile Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities? No, friends, these are things for much later.

First of all some people must settle accounts internally in the name of both communities. Taking into account today’s conditions, they must judge themselves and then turn to face each other, bend down on their knees and apologize and promise, in front of the world, that such things would never happen again. This task is with the generation that had no responsibility with the events of the past but we must understand that, unless this happens, `peace` or `solution` would have no meaning.

Such a `facing of the past` must not be personal but communal. Because the people you would find guilty today, had been declared as `national heroes` under those days’ circumstances by no other than their own communities. Just as the new German generation is paying for the crimes committed against Jews in the past that they had nothing to do with, accounts of the past before us, must be settled by the present generations of the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot communities. This must be done in the name of humanity, without vengeance. Without forgetting the past but not allowing the past to come before our future…

If this internal facing of the past and mutal apologies do not happen, it is not possible for any agreement on this soil to bring peace. In my name, I do not see this as possible. No matter how perfect, any solution brought to us by the EU or the USA or the UN, would not be agreeable, would not be sustainable… So long as the bottom of the wells, inside of the caves and the earth below the olive trees are full of dead bodies, this cannot be possible.

I bend down my knees. I turn my face to the southern part of my island. I apologize for the things that took part, that has taken part beyond my will. I know that my apology would not be enough. A lot of others need to do that as well. But what can I do, we need to start from somewhere… At least for this once, there must be a positive, similar and even stronger reply to this…`

This has been written by Bulent Dizdarli, former President of the Turkish Cypriot Doctors Association, in the newspaper Halkin Sesi in February 2008.

Another article, written some days ago, in Afrika newspaper, by Yalchin Okut, also invites all those involved in the murders of the past, to `Confess and to cleanse themselves…`

Yalchin’s father, Veysi Huseyin, was taken off a bus coming from Akacha (Akaki) to Nicosia on the 24th of December 1963 – his sons were studying in Nicosia so he was worried about them because of the intercommunal fighting and he was coming to check whether they were okay. The Akaki bus belonged to a Greek Cypriot. They were stopped, on the bridge, not far from the Nicosia General Hospital and the guy who stopped the bus, with the nickname `Johnson` (he was in the Cyprus Army, with a position) had asked whether there were any Turkish Cypriots on the bus. No one spoke. But one Greek Cypriot, without speaking, pointed Veysi with his finger – so `Johnson` took him down and executed him then and there… A Greek Cypriot witness to this murder spoke to me a few weeks ago:

`I was there… The same guy set up an ambush to two Turkish Cypriots returning from their work from the airport, at the same spot. Later he would call the ambulance to come and pick them up. Next day we would read in the newspapers that `terrorists` had been killed! These people and `terrorism`? They had nothing to do with `terror` - they were civilians, just taken and executed… I kept this to myself last 45 years but now I want to tell you the story because I read your articles in Politis…`

So I called Yalchin and gave him the witness to speak with but the witness got frightened. He did not know that Yalchin was a progressive person and would never be after `revenge`. So Yalchin sat down and wrote an article that was published in Afrika newspaper on the 11th of April 2008:

`When Sevgul called, I told the witness that I wanted to meet him – I was not after revenge. I wanted to have coffee with him but he did not accept. He told me if he told me who the killers were, he would be considered a traitor…

Even after 45 years, one is deeply affected. Our villagers had told me about the murder but I wanted to listen to it from him as well. Even the fact that he had come voluntarily to Sevgul to tell these, is an important step. It is a sign that the TMT and EOKA phase is over – but what I do not understand is the fact that they could not overcome their fears. This also shows that both organizations have instilled such deep fear both in their own and other people that, after so many years, people still feel this fear…

The murderers and death squads of both those years and the bloody 74 are freely roaming amongst us. And it is well known that some of them have been awarded and put to important positions. There is no authority to put them on trial. And even if they were put to trial after this hour, what would happen?

If we could overcome the fear deriving from EOKA and TMT, we would travel to a much better Cyprus.

If those who have committed crimes could confess and clean up, like they did in South Africa, this would be a grave step towards peace.

In South Africa, the torturers of the apartheid regime were pardoned with the condition that they would confess to their crimes and in this way, internal peace came to the country.

Such a campaign can be started in Cyprus:

Confess and clean up! Do something good both to Cyprus and to yourself!`