Confronting the horrors of the past
WHEN Dr Andreas Demetriou returned to the north earlier this month with his brother and sister-in-law to find their home in Kyrenia, he never imagined he would come face to face with a victim of the island's troubled past.
Arriving at the house where his brother had lived
before the invasion, the trio went to the door. A Turkish Cypriot woman, Yuksel
Veli, was now living at what used to be 13 Thomas Jefferson Street, but she did
not look pleased to see them.
On enquiring, it emerged that, like Demetriou, Yuksei
was originally from Famagusta, and that she had lost her husband in the
troubles of the 1960s. Her young husband had been working at Barclays Bank,
defying the orders of the Turkish Cypriot leadership not to mix or work with
Greek Cypriots at the time.
But
in a cruelly ironic twist of fate, Greek Cypriots abducted him and killed him,
leaving Yuksel and her three young children to suffer the agony of his loss.
The realisation that the woman standing before
.him was the widow of the murdered bank employee brought memories flooding back
to 59-year-old Demetriou, formerly Director of Research and Publications at the
House of Representatives in Nicosia.
"I remember, the murder was condemned by all the
people in Famagusta at the time," Demetriou told the Sunday Mail.
"And we couldn't go out and speak against it because we were truly afraid
for our lives."
"But no
more," he said. "Now, we have to speak out."
Meeting the widow of
the unfortunate Turkish Cypriot was harrowing, Demetriou said: "It was a
shocking experience because the first thing she said was ‘you murdered my
husband. He was working for you Greeks and you took him away and killed him ...
I want my husband back. At least tell me where they buried him so I can collect
his bones ...’
"I stood speechless in front of her for I don't know how long. I said ‘I apologise on behalf of
our people, I apologise for what they did to you’. And then she said ‘can you
get my husband back? Can you?’ and I said ‘I cannot but I wish I could a
million times ...’ "
Though he did not know it at the time, Demetriou later
discovered that the timing of his visit to Yuksel's home may have doubled her
feelings of anger and bitterness.
"I found that the date of my visit coincided with
the date he vanished ... It was almost to the day that he was abducted and
murdered, and this was even harder for her."
Demetriou shook his
head as he recalled the encounter.
"The poor man wanted the well-being of his family; he had a good job, he was a white collar worker for Barclays Bank. It was so sad to hear his wife say she didn't want to live with Greek Cypriots."
"What makes me sad is that she was married for
only four years, and in between she had three children. I wonder if she raised
the children with the same bitterness. I would like to show them that very few
Greek Cypriots are the bad guys, just as very few Turkish Cypriots are the bad
guys."
The encounter has also made Demetriou determined to
locate Yuksel's husband's remains, and to meet her again.
"I will try hard to come into contact with
her again i feel so sorry for her - - no human being can
live with this bitterness for so many
years. I would say to her once more that I apologise on behalf of the community
I represent. I regard both communities as belonging ID the same nation,"
he said. "We live in Cyprus and we have to hold this feeling of living
here together above the feeling that we (have an affinity) to Greece or Turkey
- - first and foremost we belong to Cyprus."
He believes the tragedies of the past must be confronted so that they can never happen again, but he also feels that Cypriots must embrace the future.
"We have to discuss the problem with Turkish
Cypriots. We must confront the problems of the past and apologise to each
other. We cannot be fossils of the past any longer. Things have moved on. With
technology, the whole world has become a small village, so how can we divide our small island?"
For Demetriou, a refugee from Famagusta now living in Strovolos, the time has come to forgive and forget,
"Although I don't like having to show my passport
to go into my own country it's worth it to just to share the company of Turkish
Cypriots," he said. "It's worth going there to meet and make
friendships.
"And I will be very happy when Turkish Cypriots come over to my
house and have lunch and dinner with us. This is what brings people together.
We are Cypriots! We have to eat - that's how we socialise."