Missing Persons Day

 

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 29th October 2014, Nicosia

 

In 2010 after a proposal submitted by the Pancyprian Organisation of Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons the House of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus established the 29th October as Missing Persons Day.

28th October 1974 was the last time when declared missing persons were set free by the occupation army. Since that day a persistent struggle begun, waged by the relatives of the missing persons, but also by the state and society for the verification of the fate of the missing persons.

However the struggle for the ascertainment of the fate of our missing persons cannot and must not be limited to the current work carried out by the Committee on Missing Persons. We must continue to assert the full information about the conditions under which each and every missing person went missing. The families of the missing persons have the inalienable right to be informed about the fate of their beloved ones, but this is also a duty towards the missing persons and an obligation towards our country’s history.

AKEL is struggling for the verification of the fate of every single Cypriot missing person, both during the Turkish invasion, but also during the bloodshed caused by the foreign-instigated nationalists in both communities. Every Cypriot has the responsibility towards the truth, our history and homeland to contribute the efforts to collect information for the investigations to move forward.

We shall continue tirelessly to reiterate that the question of the missing persons is an issue that has to do exclusively with the cooperation of Turkey and the occupational army. If Turkey continues not to allow investigations to be conducted throughout all the occupied areas, if it continues to hold the archives of its army completely inaccessible then the work of the Committee on Missing Persons will not produce substantial results.

We urge the Government to support the proposal of the Members of the European Parliament for increasing the contribution of the European Union to the Committee on Missing Persons by 300,000 Euros, which with the support of the other Cypriot MEP’S was finally approved by the European Parliament with an increase of 1 million Euros.

At the same time we call on the Government to intervene decisively, within the framework of the Ministerial Committee of the Council of Europe this coming December so that pressure is put on Turkey to show the corresponding respect; to also demand the implementation of the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights on Cyprus and in particular its recent decision within the framework of the Fourth Inter-State Application for a fair satisfaction for moral damage in relation to the missing persons and the payment of the 30 million Euros that has been awarded.

Despite the adverse conditions prevailing on the Cyprus problem and the talks we insist on underlining that the real vindication for our missing persons, for the heroic fallen for the sake of our homeland’s freedom will be the end to the crime committed in 1974, the liberation, reunification and the demilitarisation of our Cyprus.