"Papatsestos: Two days after the coup, on I7 July, I witnessed Something which has perhaps never been witnessed by any mortal before. I saw a young Greek Cypriot buried alive. That was when two Junta officers came to my house and ordered me to accompany them to the cemetery. I thought they were going to kill me, but they said they only wanted me for burying some dead people. In the cemetery there were two open graves and two bodies lying beside them. I went to see if I could recognise them. One was dead. But the other, a curly-haired, fair-complexioned, I8 year old youth, was moving. Startled, I turned back and shouted: 'But Officer, this man is alive!' 'Shut up you dirty priest, or I will shut you up for good', the officer retorted. Then the youth was pushed into the open grave, which was filled with earth. I swear to God that they buried this Youth while he was still alive! (Pointing at the cemetery, Papatsestos said) Here people were buried like dogs by the Junta. 'There were also bodies, which had been dumped outside the cemetery. They were not identified, and. not claimed. As a priest my conscience is troubled but they were holding a pistol to my head at the time. I remember the day they first came to me. They said. 'Father, we have some dead bodies, which we want you to bury'. 'Certainly', I replied and asked how many bodies they had. Seventy-seven they said. An hour later a lorry arrived and I heard someone order: 'Dump them outside'. They were the dead bodies; they were all put in one common grave, without waiting for identification by their relatives. The junta men produced some small crosses (seven only!), wrote some names on them and put them on the grave. The Junta men scornfully called persons loyal to Makarios 'Muskos supporters'; and wanted to bury them 'like dogs', in a sheepfold outside the cemetery. And that is what they did in the end. They dug two graves with excavator, one inside and the other outside the cemetery. They buried their own dead (27) inside the cemetery and others (50) outside.

 

Ta Nea: Father, about the young man buried alive, could he have been saved?

 

Papatsestos: Of course he could have been saved. He had a wound in the right leg. I went to the hospital and asked a doctor there if a dead man could move. The doctor laughed and said 'No'. But I was not the one who had buried him alive.

Ta Nea: Could you recognise any of the junta men?

Papatsestos: They had all come from Greece for the coup. They were looting, they even broke into my house. They entered houses on the pretext of searching for deserters but actually stole valuable articles from them.

Ta Nea: Have you witnessed any other atrocities?

Papatsestos: I listened to telephone conversations between junta men. In one case they were talking about the people resisting at Kaimakli suburb, and saying: 'Shoot them all, have no mercy at all!' I also noticed that in the hospital they were giving polluted water to the sick.

Ta Nea: Father, could you swear that you have not secretly buried dead Turks in the cemetery?

Papatsestos: Only about 10. We did not know who they were or wear they were found.

TA Nea: How many bodies did you bury during the coup?

Papatsestos: 127, fifty of them were collected from the streets and they were buried outside the cemetery; the other 77 were buried inside.

TA Nea: If the Turkish invasion had not taken place, would more Greek Cypriots have been killed in the coup?

Papatsestos: Oh yes, many more. They wanted kill me too. It is rather a hard thing to say, but it is true that the Turkish intervention saved us from a merciless internecine war. They had prepared a list of all makarios supporters and they would have slaughtered them all.

TA Nea: Now, father tell me sincerely, were people brutally killed in those days

Papaptsestos: Yes my son. Massacres were committed outside the Kykko monastery and in Limassol I heard with my own ears the order; 'all of them, to the last man, must be killed tonight.' Those who have witnessed these crimes are afraid to speak, as a matter of fact most of them are Grivas supporters and they will never speak.

Papatsestos have declared that he would tell his story and worries to the Greek Premier, Mr. Constantine Karamanlis, because Makarios has done nothing about them.

TA Nea 28 February 1976