By Dr. Petros Papapoliviou (Associate Professor of Modern Greek History, University of Cyprus) *:
Two months ago, on November 20, 2012, with a simple event, the Municipality of Sotiras honored the memory of Iakovos Koumis, who was assassinated in November 1980 by the MAT in the center of Athens, after the march for the seventh anniversary of the Polytechnic. The event was attended by members of Koumi's family, among them his father, and his wife Maria, who came especially from Athens. One of the most moving moments of the night was the screening of a TV show of RIK, of 1973, where the short-sleeved Iakovos Koumi dances Cypriot traditional dances with the band of the Famagusta Technical School.
Iakovos Ioannou Koumis was born on October 17, 1956 in Sotira, to farming parents and studied at the Technical School of Famagusta. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, having the desire to study in Athens, he attended a night high school to get his diploma, while working in the refineries of Larnaca. In 1980 he passed the entrance exams and enrolled in the Law School of the University of Athens. He arrived in Greece on September 24, 1980. He had previously married Sotira, with his fellow villager, Maria Kaikki, his childhood love. They rented a small apartment in Sepolia, secured some small student furniture and began to attend classes while, at the same time, he systematically studied and closely followed the political developments in Greece and Cyprus, while looking for a job.
A few weeks later, during the large demonstration for the seventh anniversary of the Polytechnic, on Sunday, November 16, 1980, clashes broke out between police forces and protesters, causing widespread police violence, while in the center of Athens, groups of protesters lit fires and set cars on fire. It was the last year of the New Democracy government in power (under Georgios Rallis), since Andreas Papandreou's PASOK would win the elections in October 1981 and the political climate was intensely charged as the opposition reacted strongly to the new agreement with NATO. It is worth noting that during the clashes, many Cypriot students were beaten by the Police and several were taken to hospitals with minor injuries. In these episodes, the twenty-year-old worker Stamatina Kanellopoulou was killed by MAT.
Iakovos and Maria Koumi also took part in the long march from the Polytechnic to the American Embassy. According to Maria Koumi, “In the morning, Iakovos brought home a used refrigerator and repaired it to work. "We used to take pictures of our wedding brought by a friend and we laughed." It was an ordinary Sunday for a newlywed student couple. They went down to the demonstration together and when the incidents stopped and the crowd began to disperse, Iakovos Koumis, a newcomer to Athens, after leaving his comrades with whom he had taken part in the march, sat outside a patisserie in Syntagma Square. Maria had left earlier for their home. Shortly after 10.30:23 pm, a large group of police officers attacked him unnecessarily, and beat him severely on the head and other parts of his body. Still conscious, Iakovos Koumis was taken to the People's Hospital where he fell into a coma and fought to the death for a whole week. He expired on the afternoon of Sunday, November 1980, XNUMX.
In the following days, a lawsuit was filed by Maria Koumi, "against the Chief of the Athens Police Directorate, the MAT and against anyone responsible" for the death of her husband. Seven years later, as is usually the case - we saw it the day before yesterday with the case of the brutal beating of the Cypriot student Augustinos Dimitriou in Thessaloniki - the police officers accused of their involvement in the deadly beatings were acquitted. The case was filed. Most likely, later the perpetrators will be proposed for andragathia…
A few days ago, my good friend Christodoulos Koutsou - Pitsiris from Frenaros and today in Ayia Napa, a classmate for a few years with Iakovos Koumis at the Technical School of Famagusta, sent us a valuable gift: Some photocopies from the magazine "Akmon", of Famagusta Technical School, issue 11, of the school year 1973-1974. There, on page 83, the photo of the graduates of the Department of Technical Assistant Mechanical Engineers is published. Standing, first on the left, the smiling Iakovos Koumi, sixth in the alphabetical list of his class.
To remember him, to read him and to mention him. Because as Iakovos Koumi himself wrote on March 28, 1979:
* Dr. Petros Papapoliviou:
Petros Papapoliviou was born in Nicosia in 1960 and until the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, he lived in Lapithos in the province of Kyrenia.
He is a graduate of the School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a doctor of philosophy of the Department of History and Archeology of the same school. He has been teaching at the University of Cyprus since 2002, where he is currently an Associate Professor of Contemporary Greek History.
His research interests and writing focus mainly on contemporary Greek history and the political history of Cyprus 1878-1960.