Armenian cemetery ‘was being demolished for a car park’

Cyprus Mail, Cyprus
June 1 2005

AN ARMENIAN cemetery, listed as a heritage site, was being demolished
to make way for a parking lot, Green party deputy George Perdikis
said yesterday.

The House Education Committee yesterday discussed the serious damage
caused to the Armenian cemetery near the Ledra Palace Hotel, when the
Armenian Prelature decided last month to dig up the remains and place
them in a communal pit in the new Armenian cemetery on the outskirts
of the capital.

But the move sparked outrage among the Armenian community, who saw
machinery digging indiscriminately, scattering remains all over
the place.

Interior Minister Andreas Christou suggested the procedure resembled
the digging of bunkers to place tanks inside.

Perdikis suggested a crime had been committed, despite the Armenian
Prelature’s good intentions, and claimed that the cemetery was being
demolished to make way for a parking lot.

Christou said the site had been listed since April 2, 2004 though
the Prelature claimed it had not known about it.

Neither did they know that the company, which took on the digging,
would have committed such unpleasant acts, the committee heard.

The Nicosia Municipality said the order declaring the site listed
had been published in three daily newspapers, though the owner had
not been informed in person.

Work at the cemetery had been halted after the Interior Ministry
secured an injunction. Townplanning department representative Athina
Aristotelous stressed that the workers doing the job were not skilled,
smashing the tombstones – some of which date back to the Middle Ages –
and collecting them in a heap.

The Education Committee asked the Prelature to inform them in writing
about what they were planning to do to restore the damage.