A story from Komikebir...

Christina calls like that – she couldn’t get through to the programme so she calls me next day...

Christina is from Komikebir (Buyukkonuk) and she is three years younger than me. Both her father Pavlos Solomi and her brother Solomi Pavlou are `missing` from Galatia (Mehmetchik). Christina and her mother Panayota are living in Limassol. Together with my friend Panicos Chrysanthou, the film maker, we go to Limassol to meet them...

And to learn their astonishing story...

Pavlos Solomi and his son Solomi Pavlou had been arrested and brought to Galatia. At one point, they were taken from there, together with some others and put on an old village bus. A bulldozer followed the bus... They had gone towards the lake in Galatia... Then people had heard shots... Then the bus and the land rover that had carried the Greek Cypriots kept at Galatia had come back empty... Since then, Pavlos Solomi and his son Solomi, who was barely 16 years old, are `missing`.

Mrs. Panayota is living in a tiny refugee house in Limassol – it is as though her face is shining with light... She has lost everything – her house, her land, her husband, her son... The only thing that remains is her daughter Christina... What is even stranger and more difficult for me to swallow is that this particular family of Solomi had been an AKEL family – they had never had any conflict with the Turkish Cypriots in the mixed village Komikebir. Since the Solomi family was considered to be one of the richest families in the village, they had helped a lot of Turkish Cypriots throughout their lives... When it was time for Turkish Cypriots to celebrate `Bayram` (a religious holiday) Mrs. Panayota would bring them various things like sesame to use in the sweets they would make. The Solomi family had an olive oil factory and olives and carobs and fields full of these so they would have a lot of Turkish Cypriots working for them, eating their bread. But when the time came when Pavlos Solomi and his son went `missing` and harassment of Mrs. Panayota and Christina began, in every sense of the word, none of these Turkish Cypriots from Komikebir came to help or at least to console them...

People would come at night, knocking on their door, to frighten them; people would come and steal their things... The whole idea at that time was to try to push Greek Cypriots from Karpasia to leave their villages and go to the southern part of the island. Mrs. Panayota remained in the village until 1976 when they told her she had to leave... Earlier, Christina was told in May 1975 to leave so she had to go to distant relatives living in the south... A girl of only 13 years old, I can’t imagine the horror she had to go through all those months when they would take her to Ephtagomi (Yedikonuk) to wash cars or clean the streets and she would not know what they would do to her or why they were taking her... They would force Mrs. Panayota to work for them in her own olive oil factory and when she would have no more strength, they would try to beat her up or try to kill her... They even tried to rape her, she told me so you can imagine what sort of horror she had gone through...

And yet, both Christina and her mother do not carry the idea of `vengeance`. Christina starts crying when she speaks of her childhood friends from the village, Sevim and Hatice... Mrs. Panayota, when asking about her Turkish Cypriot villagers’ lack of help during difficult times, says `But perhaps they wanted to help but couldn’t...`

It is only now, becoming clear, what has happened in Karpasia and how the Greek Cypriots who tried to remain in their villages have suffered... And how they were terrorized in order to make them leave their homes, their land, their gardens, their income to become refugees and start from nothing to try to build a new but miserable life in this country...

After publishing the story of Christina and Mrs. Panayota, I get quite a mixed reaction... Some people call to tell me off, to say it is not true what I have written, that all of this is a bunch of lies! Some try to say that `they did not do anything` and some try to find `pretexts` for what has happened in Komikebir and Eftagomi... I tell them there can be no `pretexts` - that this family had never been mixed in any conflict and had only helped the Turkish Cypriots of the village and where were their villagers to help them in those difficult times?...

But there are some readers who call in to say that every word that Mrs. Panayota and Christina has spoken is true and they even want to help to try to find those `missing` from Komikebir... Some readers call in to say that it is unacceptable what they had done to the Solomi family – they are very sad and want to express their sadness... And some readers call in to give information about some possible burial sites...

So we publish these possible burial sites...

Hopefully, digging will begin in Karpasia... And hopefully, we will find those `missing` so they would be returned to their families after so many years...

But what remains in my heart is Christina – I have found a new friend who is so strong and so gentle at the same time – strong enough to overcome what she has gone through and gentle enough to be able to call me, a Turkish Cypriot journalist, to share her story, without hatred or feelings of `vengeance`... She is, for me, a symbol of courage when everything in her life was shattered and she had the strength and the kindness of the heart to be able to go on... And to be able to overcome what her family has gone through in order not to keep hatred in her heart...

30.6.2008

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