The heritage of silence…(*)

In which language does he pray? Who is his `God`? Does he ask for forgiveness for his sins? Does he pray day and night for the crimes he has committed or does it not matter anymore? Has he found `peace` in his soul and heart and could he digest the things he has done after so many years?

Does he hear the cries of the kids at night? The begging of the women, the terror in their eyes?… Does he hear still, the noise when he was pulling on the trigger and the realization of what was happening in the eyes of the children? Does he think of those faces, do they come to his dreams, does he have nightmares or has he put all of this behind him? Does he sleep at night, like normal people do and does he stroke the hair of children? What does he feel when he touches the heads of children? Do they remind him of other children, who were crying and shouting when they were dying? A whole classroom of kids, barely 8 or 9 or 10, all killed, all gone, all buried in a mass grave…

How does he feel after so many years?

Looking from the outside, you might not realize who he is… He is a teacher of theology in a school in Limassol… He was one of the four persons, belonging to EOKA-B, the ones who did the massacre in Maratha-Sandallaris-Aloa back in 1974… The went from Piperisterona to Maratha-Sandallaris, to kill the women and children and bury them in mass graves… Some women were raped, the heads of some children cut off… After they finished at Maratha-Sandallaris, the four went to Aloa to do the same thing… Only a few persons remained alive, those who were hiding in some caves which they could not find… They went looking for bulldozers to bury the women and kids they had killed, argued with some owners of bulldozers in surrounding villages, had to take the shiro themselves because the owners were refusing to bury the dead… Does he remember all these things?

He was in his early 20s back then and now he must be in his early 50s… He goes to school every day, teaching kids lessons of `religion`… What sort of `religion` does he teach, what does he tell his students? Does he tell them `not to kill`? Does he tell them `not to hate`? Does he tell them to `love their neighbor`? What does he tell them, with so much weight in his soul of so many corpses and bodies, mutilated and tortured, killed and buried? How does he justify the killing of children?

Does he joke with his fellow teachers? What sort of jokes does he make?

In Palekythro, another man is so afraid for his own life that he hides when Greek Cypriots visit the village… During the process of the Annan Plan, he was thinking of leaving Cyprus, in case both sides said `yes` and in case there was a solution… He was going to sell everything he owned and just go away, go to Turkey or to London or somewhere far away, where they wouldn’t find him, they couldn’t find him… Does he sleep at night, properly, like normal people do? Does he remember the 21 persons he killed in Palekythro, mostly women and children, babies smelling of milk? Does he remember the cries of kids, of mothers, holding their babies close to their bosoms, in order to try to save them? Does he remember how his hands held the gun and how he pulled the trigger, together with his two other Turkish Cypriot friends? Does he also have nightmares or has he forgotten all of this?

Some Greek Cypriot families go to the village, looking for him and they visit his father because he is not there… Does he hide, each time he sees a Greek Cypriot car plate? What does he think today, walking around freely but in his own prison because both of these men have gone a bit crazy according to their acquaintances… That they don’t act normal but continue to walk around and continue their lives, pretending that nothing has happened, trying to `save face`…

Of course their villagers hate what these two men and the other killers have done… If you speak with ordinary Greek Cypriots from Piperisterona, they would tell you this… If you speak with ordinary Turkish Cypriots from Palekythro, they would tell you the same thing… Ordinary people would damn them under their breath, whispering the `bela` but not daring to shout out loud their names and their crimes… They would admit quietly that they hate them for what they have done to `the other community`… Deep in their hearts, there would be no forgiveness because it is extremely difficult to forgive those who have killed children… Deep in their hearts, there would be no mercy for these killers, who had their own `pretext` to do massacres… In Palekythro, they would talk of a story of one of the killers – that his fiancé was shot in the eye by Greek Cypriots and he was so upset that he took two of his friends and killed all those Greek Cypriot kids and women who had remained in the village… The Suppuris family and the others… But there can be no pretext for taking lives, lives of children, our innocent babies smelling of milk with cheeks like peaches and cream… Babies have no nationality, babies are just babies – they smell of milk and peaches and cream and are so innocent that you hold them with care… Not kill them…

So they hide, these men, who have committed these crimes, behind what is called `the Cyprus problem`… They hide behind checkpoints, they hide behind mainstream politicians who are there to elongate the problem, not solve it because they would be out of a job, if problems get solved… They hide behind millions of pretexts but most of all, they hide because their societies allow them to hide… The communities living in Cyprus allow them to live and hide and not go to prison or ask for mercy publicly, admitting what they have done.

We have a heritage of silence – we pretend to speak but we don’t… We pretend that everything is fine, when it’s not… We pretend to have `democracy` when those who have created mass graves in this country are `free` to do what they like, without being held responsible for their crimes… We pretend to have a dialogue with each other, avoiding carefully, dangerous ground, where such issues might come up…

We have a heritage of silence that’s difficult to break – we want others to speak up, others to take the risk, not ourselves… We want everything to look nice and tidy, the house clean with flowers in the vase, the family car, spotless, shining, bright…

Kids have been killed and buried in this country but we pretend not to see, not to hear, not to know…

We plan our holidays, we celebrate Christmas and Bayram and namedays, we look at the sky and try to guess how the weather will be today and tomorrow… We take our kids to school, to private lessons, we cook, we clean, not thinking of the murderers who are free in our communities…

We don’t have the guts to set up `Truth Commissions` like they did in South Africa so people can come and tell what they have seen, what they know, what they did…

We have a heritage of silence – we are afraid of mirrors… We pretend to look but with blind eyes…

(*) Article published in the ALITHIA newspaper on the 29th of January, 2006.

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