SIMERINI newspaper of Sunday, issue 13 May 2018
With tears in their eyes, hundreds of Famagusta residents went to their martyrdom town last Tuesday to receive members of the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions. Images that can hardly be described. Strangers in their own house, which for forty-four years remains dumb and desolate. "Famagusta is now paraded alive" wrote the banner held by the people of Famagusta. A few tens of meters behind them is the ruined hotel "Salaminia", synonymous with the horror of the Turkish invasion of 1974. A few meters next to them a group of Turks and Turkish Cypriots were waving flags of Turkey, the pseudo-state and the Gray Wolves. These images were seen by foreign MEPs during the second official visit of the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions since 2007. Images of invasion, occupation, settlement, and human rights abuses.
Read also:
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- The people of Famagusta demanded peace during the MEPs' visit to the beach of "Glossa" (VIDEO + IMAGES)
- With emotion and banners for Famagusta (VIDEO + IMAGES)
- With the flags of Turkey, the pseudo-state and the Gray Wolves, a group of Turkish Cypriots welcomed the MEPs on the beach of Famagusta (VIDEO + IMAGES)
- Arrest of 9 Greek Cypriots in the occupied territories - What was the cause and what developed
"Soil I walked…"
The nine members of the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions went to Cyprus last Monday and Tuesday to see for themselves the situation in Famagusta. The European Parliament's Committee on Petitions was composed of MEPs Cecilia Wikström (Sweden), Committee Chair - Alberto Cirio (Italy), Member, Rosa Estaràs Ferragut (Spain), Member, Sofia Sakorafa (Greece) Igor Šoltes (Slovenia), member, Teresa Jiménez-Becerril (Spain), member, Dimitris Papadakis (Cyprus), if. member, and Taki Chatzigeorgiou (Cyprus), member. The last three MEPs participated ex officio. The Cypriot MEPs Lefteris Christoforou and Neoklis Silikiotis, the Mayor of Famagusta Alexis Galanos as well as Cypriot MPs were also present.
After their arrival, the MEPs walked around the beach "Glossa". On a beach "flagged" with flags of the pseudo-state and Turkey. Crowds of Turks rallied around the European Parliament mission, chanting slogans in favor of Turkey and division, and forming the gray wolf sign. With them, however, were many Famagustans who shouted slogans such as "peace", "peace" and "barış". Then, walking on the golden sand of Varos, where they made their first dives and spent the summer days of their carefree childhood, now, as strangers now, they spontaneously began to sing “Soil I walked, land I miss, soil I You raised me, Famagusta ". Images that can hardly be described or forgotten.
The peaceful course of the MEPs was then stopped by the "security forces" of the pseudo-state who, creating a human chain, forbade the crowd and the inhabitants of the city to enter the "military area" as they called it. In a few words, they forbade the representatives of the European people and the natives of the city to enter European territory.
© Famagusta.News
The man from whom it all began
Shortly before their arrival, the members of the mission went to the house of Loizos Afxentiou at 37 Dimofontos Street, which is today within the blocked area. With them is Afxentiou himself, who is the man who in 2004 submitted the report to the competent committee of the Parliament on behalf of the Famagusta Refugee Movement for the return of Famagusta to its legal residents.
Loizos Afxentiou described to "S" the staff of the struggle for the effort to register the issue before the European Parliament and for claiming the legal request of the people of Famagusta. According to him, in 2004, with the accession of our country to the European Union, an attempt was made to explore ways in which, as active citizens, the people of Famagusta could take advantage of the possibilities offered by the accession to the EU. to resolve the issue of Famagusta and more generally to promote and resolve the Cyprus problem, as a group of citizens who had been expelled from their city and the ongoing occupation.
The text of the petition was drafted in 2004 and a group of twenty-four Famagusta residents went to Strasbourg on their own initiative in July for the first plenary session of the European Parliament. Following the peaceful demonstration, a small group of delegates entered Parliament and presented the report on Famagusta to then-President of the European Parliament Josep Borrell.
It took almost a year for the petition to be accepted, until March 2005, and then in July of that year the first presentation was made on the issue of the return of Famagusta to its legal inhabitants as the first step for the withdrawal of Turkish troops. the liberation and reunification of Cyprus. Then in 2006 a debate was held again in plenary and in June 2007 the second presentation culminating in the first official visit of the Committee on Petitions in November 2007, consisting of two Polish MEPs Marcin Libicki, chair and chairman of the Committee, and Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg and two from Spain Carlos Iturgaiz Angulo and Willy Meyer Pleite. The first report was adopted in 2008, culminating in the European Parliament Declaration of 14 February 2012, which calls on the Turkish Government to implement UN Security Council Resolutions 550 (1984) and 789 (1992).
The arrest of Loizos Afxentiou himself and former MEP Giannakis Matsis in March 2011 is a black mark in the course of these efforts. who together with the MEP, Eleni Theocharous, tried to visit churches in Famagusta and Karpasia to find out the condition of the occupied churches and Famagusta at the same time. Also arrested were Bulgarian Maria Nevesleva, Bishop of Naples Porphyrios and Father Savvas, who works in the field of religious heritage, as well as an official of the European Parliament. All of them tried to enter the area of Agia Zoni in the blocked area of Famagusta in an attempt to determine the situation in the area.
Their true face, however, was shown by the occupation authorities last Tuesday when they arrested eight Greek Cypriots and a British woman under the pretext of taking photos on the beach "Glossa" in Famagusta. After the pseudo-police officers checked their mobile phones, they were all released after a period of fifteen minutes.
Cecilia Wikstrom: "Time is running out"
According to him, Loizos Afxentiou's hope for his return to Famagusta depends entirely on the issue of time. Time, as he states, is a determining factor in the issue of Famagusta. The statement was made by the Swedish Chair of the Committee on Petitions, Cecilia Wikstrom, when she said that time works against the issue of Famagusta, as generations go by and the issue is in danger of turning into piety of the younger generations. Loizos Afxentiou brought before the European Parliament a second factor in the matter of "time": The time that was lost and unfilled for forty-four years that passed for the generations uprooted from the city of Evagoras. Nevertheless, as he states, the struggle concerns exclusively all the people of Varos. The same was said by the Swedish philhellene Cecilia Wikstrom during the press conference with the Mayor of Famagusta on Tuesday afternoon: "Raise your voice and we will listen to you, we will become your voice", before concluding her speech and in a fluent Greek says: "I believe that one day we will go to Famagusta"!
© Famagusta.News
The visit is important
In turn, the Cypriot MEPs described the visit as important. Takis Hadjigeorgiou, one of the people who contributed to it and a member of the Committee on Petitions, noted the importance of the visit, saying that from now on we should seek the implementation of the already existing UN Security Council resolutions. He also spoke on the issue of crime on our island, stating that in order for the Republic of Cyprus to be able to overthrow the important problem of the Cyprus problem, it must first create institutions within the state itself.
In his turn, Dimitris Papadakis stated that from now on pressure should be exerted on the Council of Foreign Ministers of the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus should start claiming the return of Famagusta based on the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
Neoklis Silikiotis stood in the presence of a large number of Turkish Cypriots and representatives of Turkish Cypriot parties who participated in the visit of the Committee on Petitions in order to make their voices heard that the request for the return of Famagusta concerns both communities.
Lefteris Christoforou underlined in his announcement the efforts that will be made by the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, on his own initiative, for the European Parliament to adopt a report on the destruction of the religious and cultural heritage of our country in the European Parliament because this year is the landmark year where 2018 was designated for the EU as the year of culture. It is particularly important, as stated by the MEP and Vice President of DISY, to transfer the violence, the acts of violence but also the looting of the Christian and Greek monuments of our country in the occupied territories and the disrespect shown by Turkey itself.
The next day
According to the leader of the struggles and the efforts for the visit of the Committee of Petitions to the ruined city of Varosia, Loizo Afxentiou, the struggle is uninterrupted, hard, diplomatically sensitive and is given more behind the spotlight. He confirms that even though both his parents "left" with the pain of refugee and the desire to return, he has promised himself to continue the struggle and has passed on to his children the lessons of how and the course of races abroad. The struggle for the return of the Queen to its rightful inhabitants, the struggle for the return to the golden beach of Famagusta, where "Lord on the waters of many…"
Marinos Pavlikkas / SIMERINI Newspaper of Sunday, issue 13 May 2018