Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

Deniz

No one can deny YOUR experiences.

ain't that thr truth

Hi humanist. Yes, the truth. Unfortunately 'History Books' are not written to tell the truth. I have been reading 'Uludags' interviews re: the missing. Bloody shocking. Oops, wrong thread. Not feeling myself lately, Some GC leaving to live in Paphos/Cyprus must have 'dropped' a few bugs around my way.

Gecmis olsun be gardas.... wondered why you were not posting as much...

[humanist]

Thanx Zan, I rather not argue here either ..... but hey can't have your cake and eat it all the time

[repulsewarrior]

...i am still afraid to tell my story. I know that there were people who hated my family because they are respected by their neighbours, and we have lived as neighbours for about 250 yrs. Mostly the aspiring politicos "Greek" or "Turk" who enjoyed using their authority for their own gain were known to all of us and they were feared.

Many in my family were made to disappear, and it is obvious from whom they chose for this that it was an issue of getting our land. If I was living in Cyprus today and I went to visit, 'they' would know that I am alive and that makes me very careful. I hope that others like me can one day stand up and say that they don't feel this fear anymore, but that would take a person in a dock for their crimes, and a society which chooses to end this denial, and which does not tolerate murderous plunderers in their midst. That is why I work very hard to remind everyone that this is not a battle of "Turks" against "Greeks", it is a battle of minds, the good against the bad.

I remember, in our "mixed" village, how much hope there was in 1960, and that hope was still there in 1974. If we had left in fear, (if we had seen ourselves as "Greek") we would still be without our Patrimony, but a whole family at least.

[Nikitas]

Repulsewarrior,

Your post is rather mysterious. Who wanted your land and how would they steal it in a country that has a land registry and every square inch of land has known and registered owners?

Can you clarify a little without naming names?

[repulsewarrior]

...obviously there is no proof, there aren't any bodies yet.

but imagine, a farmer, whose family has been a longstanding member of a community that for hundreds of years has maintained a relationship of respect and cooperation with his other neighbours. They are Turkish and Greek in origin but very close, except for marriage they share a great deal of their history with each other, and they have survived in their village to prosper because of this intimacy.

..a coup occurs, not unlike other political events it is an indirect event in these peoples' lives. some, "Greek" citizens leave in fear of the advancing Turkish Army. others like my uncle stay, having faith in the bonds of a community that has survived many attempts to divide them, and they are rounded up and kept in a school yard. soon "authorities" arrive to seperate the men and boys of fighting age from this group to be sent to prison. eventually the others, their remaining family members are "convinced" to leave, but their loved ones, those that were sent to prison, some of them, go missing.

even the trees in my great aunt's yard were uprooted. "officials" who lived in this home left it a ruin and bare.

obviously some in the neighbouring villages or perhaps in our village were directly involved in this atrocity. recruited by the advancing Army they had an opportunity to take for themselves what could not be gotten otherwise, and they most likely are enjoying the reward of their "work".

given that the Republic of Cyprus remains impotent to defend its sovereignty, there is no credible 'land registry'.
note that the Constitution of the TrNC makes no mention of what was, before its advent.

my family like many others is shattered. even with an end to this "Problem" there is a high probability that we who are left will be unable to farm this land, even if the unlikely was to occur and we were allowed to return. more importantly, the village unit as it was will not be revived, and our prosperity (and our security) as a cooperative body will not exist. It will take many generations for it to reform.