The bones have an identity… (*)

They come without announcement, without a telephone call – perhaps they’re sure that they would find me where I am in the newspaper last Wednesday in the afternoon…

Three retired policemen, one of them tall and dark, one of them young with white hair, one of them short and funny-looking, as though from an Italian comedy film.

They come with a few thin files, looking for me.

At first, I do not understand why they want to see me. I ask the short one whom I knew 25 years ago. He says `We come from the missing persons committee`, and me thinking that this is a new NGO. I ask him `But I never heard of this organization? What is it? When did you start working that no one heard?`

He says `About 15 days ago…`

`So now, the state is running NGOs in this field too?`

Slowly as we talk, it becomes apparent that they do not come from an NGO. They have been appointed as `investigators` for the Turkish Cypriot Missing Persons Committee, to find out information about the burial sites of the missing persons…

I remember the short one very well – I had met him about 22 years ago…

I was a young journalist then and the regime was getting really annoyed with what I was writing. I was doing series of interviews about youth – I was interviewing young workers, young soldiers, the unemployed youth, some of the unemployed youth used for exporting drugs. Young soldiers questioning the way they were treated in the army, how stupid it all was, how senseless what they were made to do… I was writing like crazy, not stopping, not breathing, not taking a break. The drug dealers were annoyed with the stories I was writing. At that time, the regime was calling me to the headquarters of the police for questioning. Later, they started sending military officers in `civilian clothes` to visit my workplace, to threaten first `with style` but later getting ugly and rude.

I remember those days, a military car parked in front of my house with a soldier in it, waiting for a few months… Not moving, not going anywhere, just waiting right on my doorstep… The neighbors feeling strange and terrified, me not caring and with a stubbornness continuing what I was doing. I remember being moved from the office where I was working to another building to work alone, just translating news, not being able to write anymore the things I wanted to write. Visits getting more and more to the office by the military in `civilian clothes` and threats becoming more open…

Much later, when my father in law retired from the police, I confirmed what was happening.

In those days, he told me in a quiet voice, `They were really after you… They listen to your phones, they open your letters… They follow you…`

But I know all of this, don’t I? He’s only confirming what I know…

I remember being thrown out of my job as the military officers `promised`, their newspapers writing tailor-made stories about me, ugly things, dirty things, horrible things you would not like to read…

He’s from that era, this retired policeman, because I remember his face and his moustache very well from a session of questioning back in the 80s in the headquarters of the police station in Nicosia, near Saray Hotel…

He’s here now, in my office, and I ask him why…

He explains that they have been appointed as the `investigators` for the missing persons and they want to find out what I know about the missing… About Assia (Pashakoy) in particular.

`We are trying to find out where they are buried and you have written about them we were told… Do you have any other information that you have not written?`

`I have written all I know but have you read the articles?`

`No` he explains…

`Then what is there to talk?`

One of them, the tall, dark one says `I have read some of them…`

The one with white hair, explains:

`We buy your newspaper everyday but I was not interested in reading this series…`

The tall, dark one says,

`But if only you had read one of them, you would want to read them all…`

`Well, they’re on the internet so you can read if you like…`

`I don’t like computers, I hate them` the one with the white hair explains.

`Don’t you have computers in the office of the missing persons? Anyone who can use the internet?`

`No` they explain…

We start talking about Assia… Apparently they have not been briefed or act as though they don’t know the details about Assia…

`It ‘s a well known story by all that they were taken to Pavlides garage twice and then they disappeared…` I tell them.

The retired, short policeman says,

`I was at Pavlides garage at that time…`

`So you should know better than anyone else. Why do you ask then?`

`But so many people came and went to the Pavlides garage, how should we know?`

`But you should go back to your boss and ask him to brief you about how the Americans came six years ago and dug the grave of the missing and found the bones of one person from Assia and took these bones and closed the grave and left… Or you can go to the Land Registry and they have a map of the mass graves and you can look at it. Or you can take the map that the UN has about 40 mass graves of the missing in the north` I tell him…

`But maybe the burial sites have changed!` he smiles…

`Why should the burial sites change?`

`So that they are not found!…`

`I interviewed the guy who dug the grave for the missing of Assia and who identified the American bones amongst the Cypriot ones… Dr. Haglund…` I tell them. `Didn’t you read the story?`

`Never heard of him` says the dark one… `I missed that interview!…`

`Do you know the story of Sevilay Berk?`

No they don’t know…

`Never heard of her` they say…

`First you must solve the case of Sevilay Berk. If you can’t solve that case, you can’t solve any other case of the missing… It would be a waste of time…`

Sevilay’s is a sad story, a tragic story, something that is the indicator whether the fate of the missing will be determined or not. She lived in Bahcheler (Pervolia-Famagusta) with four other brothers and sisters when her mother and father went missing in May 1964. After 39 years of searching for them without hope, only after the partial opening of the `borders`, she found out where her parents were buried from the Greek Cypriot Missing Persons Committee… It was a well in the north, near Boghazi (Boghaz) in Famagusta area. The Turkish Cypriot Missing Persons Committee kept this information from her for 6 years and when she challenged them, first they said `It was all lies of the Greek Cypriots` but later as she insisted, admitting that this was true but also threatening her not to do anything.

`They will cut your hands off if you try to touch that well… We will decide when it will be opened…` they told her.

She went home, accepting this piece of information. But in May this year, one of the constructors, building villas next to the well, decided to open the well and take out the bones – they could not get permission to build because of the presence of the mass grave. So they opened the grave and took out the bones and gave them to the police. Sevilay and her brother and sisters ran and tried to stop them or get back the bones. She ran to the `ministry of interior` and to the `prime minister` Talat. No one could help her. She found some small bones and brought them to the genetics institute in the south for DNA identification. They told her `We need the big bones to be sure`. The big bones are with the Turkish Cypriot police and she cannot get them back.

I tell them, `You must first of all ask your boss to investigate the case of Sevilay’s parents. The grave is in the north, the bones are in the north but she cannot get them. If she cannot get back her parents’ bones, none of the missing will get anything…`

They take my article which was published in YENIDUZEN newspaper about the missing persons of Assia and leave…

At night I feel tired – tired from such games played by the regime in the north, making as though they are `investigating` but not really wanting to go anywhere. Playing games with the relatives. Playing games with the world. Not moving, not pushing, not caring… I think of the bones of Sevilay’s parents, locked up somewhere in a police station in the north, waiting for a proper burial… I think of all the others, the 2000 missing from both communities. The bones are freezing in their graves, feeling lonely and sad… They are not just bones, they are the remains of human beings, killed and buried without ceremony… They are not a bunch of bones, they have identities and deserve respect from those who are alive… Not this farce we’re forced to play…

(*) Article published in the ALITHIA newspaper on the 28th of November, 2004.

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