"I'm 30 years old and I feel like the three decades of my life have taken place in different places, with different people. At the end of the day, the memories a person has, if he cannot share them with those who have lived them, do not have the same value and weight for his own path", Dimitris Kotsiekkas, born in Rizocarpasso in 1993, to a family of stranded Greek Cypriots.
Dimitris is one of the seven brothers of the Kotsiekka family, which has been living in Rizokarpasos since 1974. He is a law and PhD student. He was born in Rizokarpasos in 1993. In 1996, when his older brothers had to start secondary education and since there was no Greek high school in the occupied territories, he moved with his mother and brothers to the free areas, where they stayed until he finished his studies. the elementary school. When he was going to high school, the high school of Rizokarpasos was reopened, and the family returned to the occupied village, where Dimitris spent his adolescence. He returned to the free zones to study law at the University of Cyprus.
"The memories I have of the family and life in Rizokarpasos before the first transition to the free areas, are mainly childhood memories, scattered images that I combine today with the information I receive from the elders. Certainly, I remember my family more," he told KYPE, talking about his first memories before the family moved to the free zones.
Separation from the father
When they had to move to the free zones so that his siblings could continue their education unhindered, the family decided to split up, with the mother and seven children coming to the free zones and the father staying behind, "to keep the house." .
"The transition from the occupied to the free areas during the period when we were moving because of the schools before the barricades were opened, was a situation that we dealt with as a procedural one. We had to go to school. We combined our bus transportation in the free zones with going to school. We didn't put in any coloring, in relation to political events", he says.
Dimitris remembers that what impressed him, when the family temporarily relocated to the free zones, was the cultural difference. “In the occupied territories there was the Muslim element and the way of life that the people who live there to this day had. When we came to the free areas and saw the Christian and Greek element more widespread, it was as if we were going out of our waters", he says, noting, at the same time, that they suddenly felt more integrated.
"Growing up, we began to realize that it is not normal for a family to be separated so that the children go to school and the father stays alone in Rizokarpaso to keep the house. We started to realize all this much later," he continued.
This transition, in addition to causing hardship to families, also caused distancing from the family members left behind, he says. Some families chose to send all the children to the free areas and leave one of the two parents behind, usually the father, while others chose to separate the children, leaving the children who go to primary school in Rizokarpasos and the adults with one parent. in the free zones. "So families were separated in this way and it caused the embarrassment of being related to the other but not knowing them. And it's something we face to this day, not feeling comfortable with our relatives because we haven't lived them as we should," he says.
“I bring to mind the image of us sitting in a line from the youngest to the oldest, waiting to talk to our father, because the line would fall, which was vulnerable. It is an image that I have and carry, I think I will have it in my mind forever," he said, answering if there was a possibility of communicating with his father who stayed behind.
The return and separation from friends
In 2003, the six-grade high school reopened in Rizokarpasos. The Kotsiekka family decided to return and the children to continue their education in their village. Dimitris remembers how he lived this new transition from the free areas, now, to the occupied ones, but also the experience of the education in the occupied Rizokarpasos.
"It was very difficult for us who had built our life and circle in the free zones. I had started for two weeks at the Lefkara High School and left on Friday night, without informing my friends that I was leaving, I was going to Rizokarpasos, and I saw them after 6-8 years, when I had finished school, when I had returned from Rizokarpasos for my studies", he says.
Regarding the Gymnasium in Rizokarpasos, he said that the occupying regime caused and is causing difficulties. "We expected this," he said. He noted, however, that the teachers who had come to Rizokarpaso to teach were inspired people who wanted to give. Especially in the first years, they tried to cover the many learning gaps of the children of the trapped, in order to achieve the best possible result.
"The main thing they were trying to achieve through education in Rizokarpasos, beyond the reopening of the Gymnasium, which had its own importance, both for national and political reasons, is to give hope to these people that their stay is not in vain . It has some value and you are rewarded with the reopening of the Rizokarpasos Gymnasium," he said, adding that "this is how the trapped perceive all these big things that are discussed behind the doors of political offices: when they are applied to their lives. The reopening of the Gymnasium in Rizokarpasos was something that came to stimulate life in Rizokarpasos as well as the mentality of the trapped".
Commenting on relations with everyday people in Rizokarpaso, he said that as a rule people live and used to live as neighbors live among themselves. "Simple, poor people trying to survive, on both sides," he said, underlining, however, the restrictions on the exercise of religious freedoms by the occupying authorities, which he sees as something in which they differed from their Turkish Cypriot neighbors.
He notes, however, that at least the young captives of his own generation, after 2003 and the opening of the barricades, were able to perceive what they had been deprived of before. "Until 2003, there were some realities we were facing. There were restrictions on various rights and freedoms until 2003 very strongly. Due to the fact that many of us did not know the existence of these rights, that for example I have the right to go to school in my place, I have the right to go to church every Sunday, if I want, we treated the ban by the regime as a fact that we accepted" , he reports, pointing out that when "someone is unaware of the existence of their violated rights they do not complain about them."
"The older of us, who had lived through the times before 1974, were aware of the limitation. But the youngest of my age, we were born and raised in this environment," he says.
With the opening of the barricades, Dimitris records that the daily life of the trapped people changed for the better. "We are gradually seeing an attempt to improve the living conditions of those trapped in the occupied territories", he says, noting, however, that this also has a political connotation, because if until 2003 there was an attempt to expel them, "now there is an attempt to assimilate the trapped, which is very dangerous" .
"The trapped people, however, perceive the facilities that come into their lives as a blessing to continue as close to normal as they can, their life in Rizokarpasos", he said, noting that the trapped people measure the opening of the barricades by the fact that now they can all to the doctor of their choice in the free zones, to see their relatives without restrictions.
Notes to the School and to the company
In 2011, Dimitris studied law at the University of Cyprus. Once again, he makes the transition from the occupied to the free areas, alone now. Referring to the difficulties he encountered, he tells KYPE that "it was like I was traveling back in time from the 80s, to 2011. Many of the experiences I lived in Rizokarpasos were closer to the 70s-80s, not the city , but of the countryside", while adding that he also had to cover all the gaps he had in his daily life, in order to be able to come to the same point of communication with his peers.
"Many parts of the discussions were unknown to me. I heard them discussing various topics of everyday life, songs, football, movies. I didn't know any of that. In order not to be the one sitting in the corner, never participating and being marginalized, I had a notepad with me. I always took notes and jotted down what I heard so I could go home and look it up so that I could participate in the conversation next time,” he said.
Dimitris, with his experiences and experiences, proposed corrective measures to the Minister of Education so that the trapped students can integrate more smoothly into their studies and the reality they encounter when they come to the free areas. As he said, a process needs to be instituted in universities, through which guidelines and support will be offered to these students, in order to bridge their gaps.
In addition, he suggested that facilities be given, both in the pan-Cypriot and university exams, but also in the future, when claiming a professional position, in order to "claim their future in the free areas, on equal terms".
As he said, these problems led to many of the trapped students not being able to stay in the free areas. "Not many stay in the free zones, because many don't finish university. By 2017, 9 out of 10 university graduates were people who went to primary school in the free zones, so they got the first foundation of education the right way and it was easier for them. Those who have completed primary, secondary and high school in Rizokarpasos, especially before 2017, no one has finished university", he says.
"Where are you from;"
In 2019, Dimitris shared his own experiences, those of his family and other trapped people, in his book entitled "Where are you from?". As he said, the book was an effort that began after an incident at the university. "One night when I was very emotionally charged, and I had packed my suitcase and was about to go back to Rizokarpaso, a friend of mine said to me 'if you leave what story will you have to tell'?".
"From that point I started through family and friends, and then the circle widened, to collect stories of the trapped, with the aim of first understanding what we were experiencing myself and I tried to record them. Then this effort I thought should be divided into some periods: 1974-1990, 1990-2003 and 2003 to date. In all three time periods we see the stories of ordinary everyday people who did nothing wrong in relation to the war and the suffering it brings, but unfortunately they are the ones who suffer the consequences,” he said.
The book has so far been available in three editions. All net proceeds go to charity and from 2021 it has entered Secondary School libraries.
Neither stranded, nor a refugee
Dimitris today lives, works and continues his studies in the free areas. His family remains in Rizokarpasos. "Are you trapped?" we asked him. "I am nothing. We are not refugees because refugee status is inherited from our parents. Since our parents are trapped, we are not refugees. We are not stranded either, because according to the Service, stranded is the one who receives the stranded allowance. They are erasing the path of the person coming to the free zones," he said.
He noted that in order to be considered a refugee, he must apply and be granted exceptional status by the competent Minister, with the approval of the Council of Ministers, and then he will be considered a first-generation refugee.
He referred to the proposed law that is before the Parliament for the creation of a "registry of trapped people" in order to register the trapped people and to make their status independent of the benefit.
The fading temporality
Dimitris says that one of the reasons why those trapped in 1974 stayed in their villages was "temporarily, until things calm down", that is, until we return to the conditions we lived in before 1974. "The approach to temporality was enriched each time with a fact that confirmed that the situation is temporary, for example that in six months we will go for negotiations, and every time they gave the impression to the trapped people that something will be done with the Cyprus issue", he says.
Fifty years later, "most of those who stayed temporarily have died and those who continued their journey have not lived to hear the reasons for the stay of the first stranded. And this is also a reason why we have to run to see what we can gain from this situation, to reunite our country", he said.