It could have been a screenplay: An interview with Meletios Apostolides
The following is my translation of an interview with Mr. Meletios Apostolides, the Greek Cypriot architect whose family had been forced to abandon their house, orchard and land in Lapithos, north Cyprus in the wake of the Turkish military operation in 1974. Mr. Apostolides recently won the case against the Orams, a British couple who had built a holiday home on the land. This interview was published in Cyprus last Thursday, the 28th of January.
In a Cypriot village a young boy, our hero, is looking at his neighbours, families and kids, squeezing into some old buses and escaping/fleeing the village. Houses are left empty and after a while they’re pillaged, their contents stolen and slowly destroyed. As our hero is gradually grows to become a young man, he hears there is a war about to break out . Out of nowhere, some of the ‘neighbours’, among those who had left, return, armed to the hilt. This time it is our hero’s family that is forced to leave. The young man is enlisted and fights in this war….many of his friends and comrades die….our hero, disgusted with it all, leaves the island and goes to London. To study and to forget…..
There, in the University, he meets some of the neighbours’ kids - those who had fought on the other side….those who had left the village and then came back and took it over.
Discussion brings thoughts and memories….our hero and a young man become friends and attempt to understand how and where all this hate came from….that venom that divided the village but also the entire island.
Time passes. Attitudes soften. Roadblocks come down and people can circulate a bit more. Our hero, a grown up now, visits his village and discovers that some of his old neighbours are living in his old house, while in the land with the lemon trees around it there are now foreigners who have taken over and built a lovely villa. They’re British - English in fact. Frothing in the mouth he decides he is going to chase them away. Not with guns or bullets but legally - through the courts.
People laugh at him. You can’t win this one, they tell him. The English settlers have plenty of money and employ the British PM’s wife, Cherie, as their attorney. Another David v Goliath situation on the cards. But as it happens in some movies, there is an upset - David wins. The foreigners are instructed to leave the village and our hero becomes front-page material even in the UK. And funny thing, instead of punching the air and somersaulting two or three times, as millionaire footballers do, our hero starts thinking, which brings back memories. He thinks of his family and his neighbours and starts responding to this interview by saying things only real heroes ever dare to point out:
You were a soldier during the war?
Yes, I had just finished my third year in the Higher Technological Institute, I was about to graduate as a civil engineer, when I was conscripted. And enlisted in the 70th Mechanised Division
Tell us about the war…
There were fifty men in my section. When the war was over, there were 18 of us left. Most of them perished around Liapithos - my very own village.
What was your relations with Turkish Cypriots till then?
Nothing in particular…..It was a mixed village but not much interaction. Anyway, I was very young when the Turkish Cypriots packed up and left in 1963.
What do you mean by ‘mixed’ village?
From the 4,500 inhabitants in Liapithos, 250 were Turkish Cypriots.
Did you start hating them after the invasion?
There was no time to even think about hating…..In a war you fight. We hardly knew who was on the other side or why we were fighting. I went through so many nightmarish situations I began to believe that I would never be able to laugh again. It was much later, when I was in London studying, in a student gathering…I was sitting lonely and quiet in a corner and saw another young fella also sitting quietly full of his thoughts. I discovered he was a Turkish Cypriot. We started talking and tried to answer each other’s question. We became friends.
Were you very suspicious towards each other?
We discovered we had been 200 metres from each other in the war. He was inside Ammohostos defending it - me outside. We were both slightly wounded. But we kept asking each other what was it that divided us…. so that we understood each other.
In London, did Greek and Turkish Cypriots hang together? Were there mixed groups?
No, such groups were not very popular. Some thought that mixing with the other side was almost being a traitor. We wanted though to understand what had happened. There is always truth on your side but the other side may also have some truth in their arguments.
Would it have been possible for one community to listen to each other and discuss things before 1963 or before the war started?
I think yes. I will describe for you an event that took place in 1963. I was a young fella. The Turkish Cypriot had squeezed themselves in two old decrepit busses and were preparing to leave. One of their hotheads was directing operations and asking them to hurry up and get out as quickly as possible. And I can see a Turkish Cypriot lady, arm in arm with my aunt, Areti, cuddling each other. My aunt was given the Turkish lady’s house keys promising her she would look after the house.
“Everything will be in order as you left when you come back” my aunt told her. Of course, we all discovered that in 3 months there were no doors or windows in those houses while all the contents had vanished.
Are you saying the Greeks behaved horribly then?
Yes. But the pain we all suffered should have allowed the two communities to understand each other. The question is why we failed to achieve that.
Who was to blame. The leaders? Athens and Ankara?
All of them but, of course, the people’s inability to act correctly was also important. I remember some old fellas talking in the bar of the village saying that all this nonsense and the destruction of the Turkish Cypriot houses by 5-10 hotheads, we will pay dearly one day.
So, in your opinion, it was not only the leaders but the citizens too….?
Yes, a lack of maturity at every level led us to these cul-de-sacs. I believe we should have supported and protected our Turkish Cypriot neighbours in 1963. We didn’t and our silence was a guilty one. We have a saying here in Cyprus: ‘Human beings constitute a place but a place is empty’……if you disrespect people you disrespect the place.
A Turkish Cypriot politician was saying recently that we must build high walls - that there isn’t any other solution.
I say that we must find solutions to co-exist. There is no point sharpening our knives until we, or they, find an opportunity to sort out our differences. That’s not the spirit of either the Greek or the Turkish Cypriots who are looking at the European Union. The people of Europe, after rivers of blood, have reached a level of civilisation allowing them to sort out their differences in a peaceful way. Why not us?
Would you be prepared, however, to accept, a Turkish Cypriot to become a President of the country, even temporarily, and decide matters on your behalf? Would you ever accept that?
I say we must have confidence in each other. We must find ways to make each other feel that we have a future ahead of us and not look always at the past.
Isn’t co-existence, however, a very brittle process? Isn’t it a fact that a small event could allow conflict to flare up again?
I don’t know - nobody knows the answer to that question. I believe we have to try and take risks to build a common future together. For me, it’s worth the risk attempting to discover the possibility of co-existence. Let’s hope that as laws and structures are now determined by Brussels, and not Nicosia, that we will be able to overcome our past experiences.
What position did you adopt on the Annan Referendum?
Allow me to say that both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ belong to the past. What is important is to look forward and find a common denominator.
What are you going to do with your land now that it may be returned to you?
To begin with, I don’t believe that the occupying regime will allow me to get my land back - especially as they now have more than 10,000 foreigners who have acquired land in this illegal way and are waiting to see what’s going to happen. They will be given some kind of document that is going to say that they won’t be allowed to get rid of the buildings. They will be probably be given funds to pay the fines and thus dispose of the implications of the UK Appelant Court.
If there ever was a solution found would you be prepared to live in your village along with Turkish Cypriots?
That would be the best outcome - to be able for everybody to live securely anywhere on the island
Why did you decide to start the legal battle and confront the Blairs?
When we were finally allowed to go back and visit our village, in early 2003, and I saw the villas built on Greek Cypriot land, I decided that this monstrosity had to stop. This process had not only taken our properties but had increased the divisions.
Some people say that Cypriot Greeks have also taken over Turkish Cypriot properties?
It is true that a number of Greek Cypriots are using and managing Turkish Cypriot properties. However, the legal situation is that the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Cypriot Republic, is, technically, in charge of those properties. If the original owners of those properties request it, these properties will be legally returned to them.
How much money have you spent on this case?
Nearly £1 million. From the moments the Orams employed high level attorneys such as Cherie Blair, I was forced to involve the big legal outfits in London too.
Did Mrs Blair’s presence scare you?
Yes, I was scared. Yet, employing Cherie Blair boomeranged on them. The case assumed an unbelievable importance and I don’t think there is anybody in the occupied territories now who doesn’t understand and recognise the implications of the Appelant Court decision.
What are your feelings towards the Orams?
I don’t know them. I met them for 5 minutes in the courthouse and then watched them from afar as the case unfolded. I am not happy they lost but I’m delighted my human rights have been vindicated. It’s the European Union values that carried the day - so, to that extent, it’s a victory for Turkish Cypriots as well. Ms Linda Orams herself accepted at the witness box that she was fully aware that the property on which they were building their villa belonged to Greek Cypriots but added that she thought the risk of losing it was small!
Have you ever considered starting a case to sue the Turkish Cypriots who are living in your old family home?
I understand them to a certain degree - I don’t like it but there is a logic there…but I will never understand and accept the existence of foreigners on my land.
Discussion
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Comment by: Leyla
Feb 3rd 2010 at 21:02
I say that Apostolides lies! He does not know the Orams and yet spent a million euros to get them out of the land that he can neither live on nor enjoy in any way. This is not about the Orams or foreigners; it is about the desperation of the Greek side who feel things are slipping out of their control and cannot accept that they have no sovereignty over the north of the island. Despite the embargos and difficulties the Turkish Cypriots have had to endure, they have survived and continue to be self supporting and building their lives. The property mess in the south of the island is worse than the north. Take a look at the man’s case
who is permanently camping outside the Greek Cypriot embassy in London!
Apostolides may have won the war but he has certainly lost the battle for his side. He has put the peace process for the island back a decade!
He is lucky his old house is still standing; at least
he has a link with the past when he visits. Some of us don’t have this luxury. When I visited my parents’
property in Tera, near Paphos recently, not only our house but the entire village had been burnt to the ground.
Perpaps your newspaper should interview a prominent
Turkish Cypriot landowner with property in the South to give your readers a more balanced viewpoint of the Cyprus property problems.