Many names one city
Every grain of sand and every drop of sea has a story to tell. Not one of those sweet-salts, which one will read in the cheap pocket books, to fill the hours of an indifferent day. Not even from those in which in the perpetual conflict of white and black, the good always emerges victorious against the evil.
By Manolis Kalatzis
Stories, which became stitches in the embroidery christened Ammochos. A city buried in the sand, no matter what name they gave it, it always remained what it was. Famagusta.
For half a century, its glitter and its noise and its smells and its people were covered in dust. It didn't sink into the sand. It was buried in the brutality of those who did not respect its history and did not feel the weight of the concrete coffins that still stand at the edge of the sea.
They called it a ghost town, but nothing that happened since August 1974, it wasn't a fantasy game. A monument to brutality and the spoils of a raid, but not a ghost.
They may have stopped her heartbeat, but they could never steal her soul.
There is still a beating heart in Varosi
In fact, Famagusta is not the ruined hotels and the few grassy streets with the historic buildings that remained empty. It is a city that has been subjected to daily rape for half a century. The only thing left forgotten in time, is Varosi. They are the neighborhoods outside the walls of Famagusta, in which, during the Turkish occupation, the Ottomans had settled, with the will of the Christians. “Varos” from the Turkish word that describes the suburb. An Ottoman firman has been preserved ordering the Turkish governor of Cyprus in 1573 to move the Greek population outside the city walls. The firman translated by I.K. Peristianis, mentions among other things: “As for the infidels who live in Famagusta, drive them out from there and after making a suburb in a place that is not 'meteris' (fortified and domineering), to settle the infidels in that suburb.
This suburb alone has remained uninhabited since 1974 and has been the bargaining chip of Turkey's blackmail to this day. Everything shows that the time chosen for the opening of the crossing to the beach and the exemption from the status of a military zone for 3.5% of the area, was not accidental. Turkey, after achieving its goal of promoting Ersin Tatar to the leadership of the Turkish Cypriots, decided to play the Famagusta opening card in conjunction with the proposal to change the basis of the intended solution to the Cyprus problem. Despite the fact that the international environment is not favorable for Ankara, the fact that it has officially raised the issue of revising the resolutions on Famagusta and changing the framework of the solution, is a first step in consolidating what has been done, betting on the “alliance” of time.
Many names one city
The first reference to the name of Famagusta is in a writing of the 4th century AD, which is preserved, but the name of the geographer who wrote it is not preserved. The unknown geographer who circumnavigated Cyprus mentions that there is an area, which he places at the point where Varosi is located, which “is a desert city called a sandy beach”. That is, a city buried in the sand. It defines this point at a distance of about 9.5 kilometers from ancient Salamis, where the ruins of the city have also been discovered. Salamis was built by the descendants of Aedes after the Trojan War and was named after their place of origin, Saronic Salamis. However, four centuries earlier, by the unknown geographer, Strabo, describing the area, mentioned that after Salamis there was a city called Arsinoe. Arsinoe was one of the cities founded in Cyprus by Ptolemy II Philadelphus, naming it after his wife. The historical evidence showed that it was Famagusta which was the port of Salamina. Due to the geographical location of the city, it was constantly the target of raids and for this reason it is also protected by huge walls. When Arab influence in the Mediterranean weakened in the middle of the 8th century AD, the Byzantines were able to dominate Cyprus as well. During that period Famagusta flourished and continued to grow even after its capture by Richard the Lionheart in 1191. The city as Famagusta became a bone of contention among the great naval powers of the time with Franks, Genoese and Venetians claiming it and acquire from time to time. The Genoese took it from the Franks in 1373 to be recaptured by the Franks in 1464. In 1489, Famagusta surrendered to the Venetians and the city fell to the Ottomans in 1571 after an 11-month siege.
It was called Gazimagusa. Seven years later, in 1578 the inhabitants of Famagusta revolted against the Turks at the instigation of the Venetians and the revolt was drowned in blood. Several rebellions followed until 1668 with the same always unsuccessful result. Famagusta remained in the hands of the Turks until 1878 when they sold all of Cyprus to the British. During the period of the Turkish occupation, the city had fallen into withering and its development was marked by the infrastructure projects carried out by the British. The Turks remained in the walled city, while the Greeks developed the coastal area, Varosi. During that period, the port was modernized and became one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean, while a railway connecting Famagusta with Nicosia was created, facilitating movement and trade. In 1960, with the independence and establishment of the Republic of Cyprus, Varosi became the tourist center of the region. This development continued until 1974 when the city was occupied by the Turks, who entered without resistance as the inhabitants, fearing massacres, found refuge in neighboring areas. From then until today, Varosi, as Gazimagusa, remains deserted. The first move was marked by the opening of the beach front and the Erdoğan picnic. This was followed by the announcement to open 3.5% of the closed city, which was not well received by the international community, with the UN and the EU calling for the immediate withdrawal of all actions taken since last October.
Captive
Varosi is only 17% of the Municipality of Famagusta, all in all a little more than 6 square kilometers. Only this part has not been settled until now as it was purely Greek until 1974. It is also the showcase of the city, with large hotels and tourist businesses. On August 16, 1974, when the Turks entered, after previous bombings, they found empty houses, abandoned hotels, full refrigerators and people's food on plates. The 43,000 inhabitants left the city with a suitcase with the certainty that in a few 24 hours the storm will pass and they will return. 46 years have passed and the return suitcase is still next to the door of their new homes that they consider temporary. During these years, many times they prepared to return and always the disappointment succeeded the longing and the nostalgia. Day by day there are fewer and fewer. Time is the greatest enemy and the Turks know this very well. In 1974, Varosi was sealed off and no one entered the city without the permission of the Turkish army. The houses were ransacked and what was left standing was “eaten” by the rain, the wind and the sun. It was first described as a ghost town in 1977 by the Swedish journalist Jan-Olof Bengston, who visited it together with the Swedish detachment of the UN peacekeeping force. He had written in the newspaper Kvallsposten: “The asphalt road was filled with cracks and bushes grew on the sidewalks. Today – September 1977 – the little tables where breakfast is served are there, the laundry spread out on the lines, and the electric lamps on. Varosi is a ghost town”.
The situation in the enclosed city of Famagusta, Varosia, is vividly described in the report of the European Parliament's Committee of References on Famagusta which was made public in 2008 following the fact-finding mission to Cyprus in November 2007: “From the fence that prevents pedestrians from having access to Varosi, the beach hotels, apartments and restaurants are nothing more than flimsy concrete skeletons – huge urban tombstones standing resolutely against the passage of time. Nature also owns Varosia. Trees and bushes have sprouted through the cracks in the worn roadways, where the soil has sunk and filled the underground drainage system. Cats and rodents roam the streets. The churches have suffered the same fate as the other buildings: they were desecrated and left to stand as silent witnesses to the once dominant Christian community. Schools and children's parks also remain abandoned. a story of missed opportunities”. Such opportunities were lost for Famagusta as well, and as many appreciate each new development is worse than the previous one.
In 1978 the Turks had proposed that the city remain under Turkish Cypriot control and return only some businessmen to a few hotels. Their proposal essentially provided for the legalization of the occupation with the retention of the entire economic fabric of the city (hotels, public buildings, port, churches, schools, etc.). The proposal was rejected by the Greek Cypriot side and in the same year the Anglo-American-Canadian plan was submitted which provided for the return of all Greek Cypriot residents to the city and simultaneous negotiation for a comprehensive solution to the Cypriot conflict. However, the government of Spyros Kyprianou rejected the plan only because it came from Western countries and this would create a problem in the relationship with the UN and of course the Soviet Union. The specific plan did not satisfy the Turks, who breathed a sigh of relief when the Greek Cypriots rejected it and thus could blame them for showing intransigence.
In 1979, the Secretary General of the UN, Kurt Waldheim, visits Cyprus and in a meeting with the then President Spyros Kyprianou and the Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas, manages to reach an agreement for Famagusta disconnected from any developments for a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus issue. The agreement stated: “Priority will be given to reaching an agreement on resettlement in Warsaw under the auspices of the United Nations at the same time as the interlocutors begin to study the constitutional and territorial aspects of a comprehensive settlement. As soon as an agreement is reached on Varosia, it will be implemented, without waiting for the outcome of the discussions on other aspects of the Cyprus problem.” The Turkish side did not honor its signature, as it did many times, threatening to settle the Varosians.
Resolutions… unsolicited
In 1983, Denktash proclaimed the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (a pseudo-state), creating new complications and Famagusta was out of the frame of its return to its legal inhabitants. In 1984 the Cypriot government appealed to the UN Security Council which adopted Resolution 550 which has an explicit reference to Famagusta. In article 5 it states that the Security Council “considers the attempts to colonize any part of the Barosians by people other than their inhabitants as unacceptable and requests the transfer of this area to the administration of the United Nations”. This was followed in 1992 by resolution 789 which requests the transfer of Famagusta to the UN. In the same year, in the context of the efforts for a solution to the Cyprus issue, the “Bundle of Ideas” of the then UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali was submitted. The package also included a map that provided for the return of Famagusta to the Greek Cypriots. However, the presidential elections of 1993 intervened and Glaukos Cleridis, in order to win the support of the centrist forces, promised to “bury” the Galli ideas, which were rejected. In 2004 the Annan Plan also provided for the return of the Varosians to the Greek Cypriots, but it was rejected by the Greek Cypriots with a percentage of 76%. Since then, in all rounds of negotiations, Famagusta has always been a key point, with the Turkish side asking for more and more in exchange for its return. Recently, a different page began to be written in the history of Famagusta, which as many believe is also the tombstone of the Cypriot as we knew it until today, since the Turks are determined to settle it completely, having put an end to any negotiation or discussion on Construction Measures Trust that include the return of legal residents to their homes.
