By ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ (GREEK) TÜRKÇE (TURKISH)
When the week of 15 November arrives, jingoism goes through the roof…
Rampant nationalism loses control…
In this atmosphere of ‘toxic smoke’, no one talks about what declaring a ‘separatist’ state in the northern part of Cyprus has cost us.
No one questions why we have not travelled the distance of ‘a stone’s throw’ in the past 41 years.
Of course, after 2020, those who turned Turkish Cypriots into a ‘can’ on the tail of AKP with their dreams of ‘two states’ that defy the UN and the whole world will be talking a lot this week…
Of course, they will just be ‘blathering’.
Now let’s leave this atmosphere of ‘jingoism’ and look at some historical facts…
Let’s look at a different kind of 15 November, which led to a great ‘transformation’ in terms of our societal existence…
15 November 1967 was a dark day when Greek Cypriot armed forces under the command of Grivas attacked Kofinou and Agios Theodoros villages, and 24 Turkish Cypriots were martyred…
In those days, my family lived in Köfünye [Kofinou], located in the middle of the Nicosia-Limassol main road in the south of Cyprus…
We had migrated there from Lefkara…
On the morning of 2 January 1964, when more than four hundred villagers made an adventurous eight to ten-hour hike over steep mountains from our village, I had not even finished primary school yet…
Köfünye [Kofinou] had become the centre of a ‘ghetto’ formed by those who migrated there from the surrounding villages.
Just south-west of the village was the mixed village of Aytotro [Agios Theodoros].
On 15 November 1967, the Greek Cypriot National Guard wanted to enter Agios Theodoros with military vehicles.
Around 5000 Greek Cypriot and Greek troops, led by General Grivas, surrounded Köfünye [Kofinou] and Aytotro [Agios Theodoros], ‘occupied’ both villages, and captured the civilian population after days of military amassing. Grivas thought there was a professional army of ‘Yörüks’ [Editor’s note: Turkish ethnic subgroup of nomads] in the region.
However, trenches over the hills around the village were manned by none other than ‘mujahideen’, the age of children…
The total number of mujahideen was 313, anyway. Twenty-four people, almost all of whom I knew closely, were martyred during these attacks…
İsmail Bozkurt, who was the Turkish Deputy Commander of the region at the time, explains in detail in his book ‘Zirköy’den Mermertepe’ye’ [From Zirköy to Mermertepe] that he did not follow the ‘orders’ from the Larnaca Sanjak regarding the ‘closure’ of the Turkish barricade at the entrance of Agios Theodoros village to Greek Cypriot military vehicles in order not to cause a disaster. (Page 528)
Bozkurt says that on 15 November 1967, at the Mujahideen Headquarters in Köfünye [Kofinou], Turkish Commander Mr. Deniz was waiting by the radio, Candemir Önhon and Ünal Ünsal from the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia were accompanying him, and that Mr. Deniz looked at Candemir Önhon’s face as if to say “What should we do?”, and when Önhon nodded his head “yes”, the order to “fire” at Greek Cypriot vehicles coming to the barricade was given… Bozkurt also tells in detail in this book, as someone who took part in the events, that “all hell broke loose” when this order of “fire” was given, that the valley of Pendaskhinos turned into hell, that the ring of fire surrounded both villages…
After the villages of Kofinou-Agios Theodoros came under the control of Greek Cypriot armed forces, Turkey gave a strong ultimatum, and Greek soldiers and Grivas had to return to Greece.
In the aftermath of these events, the Greek Cypriot administration removed the barricades it had set up on the roads since 1963, the tension between the two communities diminished, and a period of ‘détente’ commenced. Subsequently, negotiations between the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot sides began.
For years, the ghetto of Kofinou was almost like a ‘hot potato’ in the region… The region was ruled by commanders sent from Turkey and some of them exerted ‘unfettered power’… Just before the clashes of 15 November, a Turkish officer with the code name ‘Çetin’, a commander in the region, had turned the area upside down and established an ‘empire of fear’… He constantly harassed the Greek Cypriot villages in the vicinity, putting the people of the region at risk. Due to some of the commander’s actions, the Greek Cypriot police started to ‘retaliate’, arresting, taking hostages and punishing innocent people on the roads…
During the term of this Commander, who remained in office until September 1967, the region had turned into ‘hell’. There were booby traps, roadblocks, detentions… The villagers called this Commander ‘Çetin the Lunatic’… In fact, underlying this ‘harshness’ was the fact that Mr. Günay, the first Turkish Commander who came to the region on 15 November 1966, exactly one year before the Kofinou incidents, had fallen victim to an organised murder while trying to overthrow the ‘squiredom’ in Kofinou. Upon the murder of the Commander, the Larnaca Sanjaktar Office took very harsh measures, imposed very severe measures of ‘Martial Law’ in the village, and started a manhunt. The fate of some of the villagers associated with the murder remains unknown, even today. On 15 November 1967, exactly one year later, before the deep traces of the murder of 15 November 1966 had cleared, the people of the region, especially those who lost family members and friends, lived in the grip of this deep ‘trauma’ for years…
It is not possible to understand how the Turkish Cypriots got to this point without knowing the effects of the ‘Kofinou incidents’ on our recent history.
Source: THE OTHER 15 NOVEMBER: KOFINOU-AGIOS THEODOROS INCIDENTS…
