Abstract
Ininriarum remedium est oblivio (The best remedy for injuries is to forget them).1
The case of missing persons in Cyprus constitutes one of the most tragic aspects of the recent history of Cyprus, and one which is both a symptom and a cause of relations of hostility between the two groups. Like most aspects of the ‘Cyprus Problem’, to which it contributes, as well as derives its intractability, the case of the missing have been used as a mirror of the barbarism of the ‘other’, a means whereby each side has constructed an image of victimhood for dubious propaganda purposes, and a justification of the maintenance of an unyielding stance in negotiations. While it is a ‘humanitarian issue’, the way it has been dealt with is both an indication that humanitarian issues are easily ‘politicized’ and politicizable, and an indication that the ‘nature’ of humanitarian issues is itself deeply cultural through its contentiousness. Caught in between are the families of the missing, doubly victims of events beyond their control: by losing their loved ones, and by not being adequately represented by their politicians who have to juggle with other more pressing items on their agendas. Yet at the same time the families are not totally powerless. They are also semi-voluntarily engaged actors on the political stages of both communities.
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Notes
For a good discussion on this period see, S. Panteli, A New History of Cyprus (London: East-West Publications, 1984);
C. Hitchens, Cyprus (London: Quartet Books, 1984), pp. 61–100.
R. Patrick, Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict, 1963–71 (Dept of Geography Publication Series No 4. University of Waterloo, 1976), p. 69.
For a discussion on views of history see Y. Papadakis, ‘The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting in Cyprus’, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 1993, pp. 139–54. For a discussion on the role of the missing as ethnomartyres, see Sant Cassia, ‘Missing Persons in Cyprus as Ethnomartyres’, Modern Greek Studies Yearbook, vol. 14 (1998).
A. Robben, ‘The Politics of Truth and Emotion Among Victims and Perpetrators of Violence’, in C. Nordstrom and A. Robben, A (eds), Fieldwork Under Fire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).
G. Clerides, Cyprus: My Deposition, vol. 1 (Nicosia: Alithia, 1989), p.196.
A. Blok, ‘The Peasant and the Brigand: Social Banditry Reconsidered’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 14:4, 1972, pp. 494–503;
E. Hobsbawm, Bandits, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985). See also Sant Cassia for a discussion on violence and complicity:
P. Sant Cassia, ‘Banditry, Myth and Terror in Cyprus and Other Mediterranean Societies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History. 35:4, 1993, pp. 773–95.
S. Panteli, The Making of Modern Cyprus. From Obscurity to Statehood (New Barnet: Interworld Publications. 1990), p. 198.
H.S. Gibbons, The Genocide Files (London: Charles Bravos, 1997), p. 113; Panteli (n.15 above), p. 199. The Guardian later quoted a secret report from a Commander Packard sent to Cyprus to trace missing persons: ‘It appeared that the Greek medical staff had slit the Turkish patients’ throats as they lay in their beds. Their bodies were loaded on to a truck and driven to a farm north of Nicosia where they were fed into mechanical choppers and fed into the earth’ (quoted in Gibbons, op. cit., p. 204) It is highly doubtful that these were the medical staff. Other accounts point to EOKA men who forcefully entered the hospital. The identification of hospital staff transforms them into exterminating angels.
C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, orig. publ. 1961. (London: Faber and Faber, 1966), p. 50. See also
J. Bowlby, ‘Processes of Mourning’, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 44, 1961, p. 431.,
Colin Murray Parkes, Bereavement. Studies of Grief in Adult Life. orig. publ. 1972, (London: Penguin), 1991.
P. Loizos, The Heart Grown Bitter (Cambridge: University Press, 1981), p. 95.
R.S. Dillon, (Retired Ambassador), The President’s Report to Congress on the Investigation of the US Citizens Who Have Been Missing from Cyprus Since 1974 (Washington: State Department, 1998).
P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: University Press, 1997).
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Cassia, P.S. (2001). ‘Waiting for Ulysses’: the Committee for Missing Persons. In: Richmond, O.P., Ker-Lindsay, J. (eds) The Work of the UN in Cyprus. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287396_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287396_7
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