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Truth and Closure in Cyprus: An Assessment of the Committee on Missing Persons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2021

Nasia Hadjigeorgiou
Nasia Hadjigeorgiou*
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor in Transitional Justice and Human Rights, University of Central Lancashire (Cyprus).
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Abstract

There are two key limitations to the literature that explores the relationship between truth and closure in post-violence societies. The first is that this relationship has been assessed mostly as part of a larger debate focusing on the links between the truth and the seemingly related concept of reconciliation. The second is that to the extent that the literature has addressed the connections between truth and closure as such, it has focused almost exclusively on the operations and effects of courts and truth commissions. The article addresses both limitations by examining the relationship between truth and closure through the prism of a different institution, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus. Relying on 34 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including relatives of missing persons on the island, it argues that the Committee's delivery of the truth has promoted closure in three distinct ways. At the same time it acknowledges that the type of truth and the way in which it is delivered can have detrimental consequences for the promotion of closure. A short video summarising the findings of this article is available here.

Keywords

truthclosureCommittee on Missing Persons (CMP)Cyprus
Type
Articles
Information
Israel Law Review , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , March 2022 , pp. 3 - 24
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

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Footnotes

The project of which this publication forms part is funded by the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) Foundation. Special thanks to Tasos Andreou, Fezile Osum and Başak Ekenoglu for their research assistance. I am also grateful to Dr Grażyna Baranowska, Ximena Londono and the participants of the 15th Annual Minerva/ICRC Conference on International Humanitarian Law, ‘Indirect Victims of Conflict’, for providing comments on a previous draft of this article.

References

1 International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Missing Persons: A Hidden Tragedy (ICRC, 2007) 10.

2 ibid 4. See also Clark, Janine Natalya, ‘Missing Persons, Reconciliation and the View from Below: A Case Study of Bosnia-Hercegovina’ (2010) 10 Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 425CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Monique Crettol and others, ‘Establishing Mechanisms to Clarify the Fate and Whereabouts of Missing Persons: A Proposed Humanitarian Approach’ (2017) 99 International Review of the Red Cross 589, 597.

3 eg, the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team started operating in 1986; the Missing Persons Institute in Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in 1996; the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala was set up in 1997; and the Missing Persons Task Team in South Africa was initiated in 2005. These bodies started their work before the CMP became operational (and, in fact, Bosnian and Argentinian expertise was instrumental in making the CMP so), but the humanitarian vision of the CMP was set out in CMP, ‘Terms of Reference: Establishment of the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus’, 1981, https://www.cmp-cyprus.org/terms-of-reference-and-mandate (CMP Terms of Reference). To the author's knowledge, no other institution had been set up with this objective before 1981.

4 Baranowska, Grażyna, Rights of Families of Disappeared Persons: How International Bodies Address the Needs of Families of Disappeared Persons in Europe (Intersentia 2021) 199CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 eg, the CMP has provided training to Iraqi officials: CMP, ‘Partners and Cooperation’, http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/content/partners-and-cooperation.

6 The literature on closure and reconciliation is vast: Colvin, Christopher J, ‘“Brothers and Sisters, Do Not Be Afraid of Me”: Trauma, History and the Therapeutic Imagination in the New South Africa’ in Hodgkin, Katharine and Radstone, Susannah (eds), Memory, History, Nation: Contested Pasts (Transaction 2006) 153Google Scholar; Borneman, John, ‘Reconciliation after Ethnic Cleansing: Listening, Retribution, Affiliation’ (2002) 14 Public Culture 281CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bar-Siman-Tov, Yaacov, ‘Dialectics between Stable Peace and Reconciliation’ in Bar-Siman-Tov, Yaacov (ed), From Conflict Resolution to Reconciliation (Oxford University Press 2004) 61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hamber, Brandon and Wilson, Richard A, ‘Symbolic Closure through Memory, Reparation and Revenge in Post-Conflict Societies’ (2002) 1 Journal of Human Rights 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Philpott, Daniel, ‘An Ethic of Political Reconciliation’ (2009) 23 Ethics and International Affairs 389CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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9 Orentlicher, Diane F, ‘Setting Accounts: The Duty to Prosecute Human Rights Violations of a Prior Regime’ (1991) 100 Yale Law Journal 2537CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Garcia-Godos, Jemima, ‘It's About Trust: Transitional Justice and Accountability in the Search for Peace’ in Bailliet, Cecilia Marcela and Larsen, Kjetil Mujezinovic (eds), Promoting Peace through International Law (Oxford University Press 2015) 321Google Scholar.

11 Scharf, Michael, ‘The Case for a Permanent International Truth Commission’ (1997) 7 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 375, 379Google Scholar; Herman, Judith, Trauma and Recovery (Basic Books 1992) 1Google Scholar.

12 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in South Africa affirmed in its report the ‘healing potential of storytelling, of revealing the truth before a respectful audience and to an official body’: TRC, Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC 1998), Vol 5, Ch 9, para 6 (TRC Report); see also Akhavan (n 7) 766.

13 Brandon Hamber, ‘Does the Truth Heal? A Psychological Perspective on Political Strategies for Dealing with the Legacy of Political Violence’ in Nigel Biggar (ed), Burying the Past: Making Peace and Doing Justice after Civil Conflict (Georgetown University Press 2003) 155.

14 Gibson, James L, Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation? (Russel Sage Foundation 2004)Google Scholar; Robins, Simon, ‘Challenging the Therapeutic Ethic: A Victim-Centred Evaluation of Transitional Justice Process in Timor-Leste’ (2012) 6 International Journal of Transitional Justice 83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Daly, Erin, ‘Truth Skepticism: An Inquiry into the Value of Truth in Times of Transition’ (2008) 2 International Journal of Transitional Justice 23, 25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Ignatieff, Michael, ‘Articles of Faith’ (1996) 5 Index of Censorship 110Google Scholar.

17 Hunt, Tristram, ‘Whose Truth? Objective Truth and a Challenge of History’ (2004) 15 Criminal Law Forum 193CrossRefGoogle Scholar (referring to the similar concepts of ‘forensic truth’ and ‘psychological truth’); see also TRC Report (n 12) Vol 1, Ch 5, para 29.

18 ibid Vol 1, Ch 5, para 14.

19 There is vast literature on the definition of reconciliation. Some authors describe the concept as an outcome, others as a process; some view reconciliation as something that happens at the individual level and others at the social level. For a literature review and a justification of the definition proposed here see Hadjigeorgiou, Nasia, Protecting Human Rights and Promoting Peace in Post-Violence Societies (Hart 2020) 39–44Google Scholar. For an excellent analysis see also Daly, Erin and Sarkin, Jeremy, Reconciliation in Divided Societies: Finding Common Ground (University of Pennsylvania Press 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Wilson, Richard A, ‘Anthropological Studies of National Reconciliation Processes’ (2003) 3 Anthropological Theory 367CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, Fiona C, ‘On Having Voice and Being Heard: Some After-effects of Testifying before the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission’ (2003) 3 Anthropological Theory 325CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 Hamber, Brandon, Nageng, Dineo and O'Malley, Gabriel, ‘“Telling It Like It Is …”: Understanding the Trust and Reconciliation Commission from the Perspective of Survivors’ (2000) 26 Psychology in Society 18Google Scholar.

22 Dinka Corkalo and others, ‘Neighbors Again? Intercommunity Relations after Ethnic Cleansing’ in Eric Stover and Harvey M Weinstein (eds), My Neighbor, My Enemy: Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge University Press 2004) 143; Hamber, Brandon, Dealing with Painful Memories and Violent Pasts: Towards a Framework for Contextual Understanding, Berghof Handbook Dialogue Series No 11 (Berghof Foundation 2015)Google Scholar.

23 Weinstein, Harvey M, ‘Editorial Note: The Myth of Closure, the Illusion of Reconciliation: Final Thoughts on Five Years as Co-Editor-in-Chief’ (2011) 5 International Journal of Transitional Justice 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 This is not to argue that closure is a more valuable objective than reconciliation. While both are important, the relationship between truth and reconciliation has been examined to a greater extent than that between truth and closure. The article addresses this gap in the literature by focusing on the latter.

25 Gibson, James L, ‘On Legitimacy Theory and the Effectiveness of Truth Commissions’ (2009) 72 Law and Contemporary Problems 123Google Scholar; Hamber (n 13).

26 Lorna McGregor, ‘International Law as a “Tiered Process”: Transitional Justice at the Local, National and International Level’ in Kieran McEvoy and Lorna McGregor (eds), Transitional Justice from Below: Grassroots Activism and the Struggle for Change (Hart 2008) 47.

27 Boss, Pauline, Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief (Harvard University Press 1999)Google Scholar; CMP and ICRC, Needs of the Families of Missing Persons in Cyprus (2019) (CMP and ICRC Report) 5–6.

28 Hamber and Wilson (n 6) 37.

29 Keough, Mary Ellen, Simmons, Tal and Samuels, Margaret, ‘Missing Persons in Post-Conflict Settings: Best Practices for Integrating Psychosocial and Scientific Approaches’ (2004) 124 Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 271, 271CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

30 Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie, Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma (Free Press 1992)Google Scholar.

31 Republic of Cyprus Department of Statistics and Research, ‘Census of Population and Agriculture 1960’, Vol III – Demographic Characteristics, 1963, 1. This is the last reliable census of the total Cypriot population.

32 Paul Sant Cassia, Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus (Berghahn Books 2005) 35.

33 Republic of Cyprus Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘The Cyprus Question: Historical Background’, https://mfa.gov.cy/historical-background.html; Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Cyprus Issue: Historical Background’, 2011, https://mfa.gov.ct.tr/cyprus-negotiation-process/historical-background.

34 Cassia (n 32).

35 CMP Statistics, June 2021, https://www.cmp-cyprus.org/statistics.

36 Report of the Secretary General on the United Nations Operation in Cyprus (27 May 2003), UN Doc S/2003/572.

37 UN Security Council Res 541 (18 November 1983), UN Doc S/RES/541.

38 CMP, ‘UN Press Release’, 22 April 1981, http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/press-releases/un-press-release.

39 See the Preamble to UN General Assembly Res 3450 (XXX) ‘Missing Persons in Cyprus’ (9 December 1975), which called for the establishment of the CMP.

40 Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Operation in Cyprus (10 December 1996), UN Doc S/1996/1016, para 27.

41 For information on how and why the CMP become operational again see Kovras, Iosif and Loizides, Neophytos, ‘Delaying Truth Recovery for Missing Persons’ (2011) 17 Nations and Nationalism 520, 522CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Loizides, Neophytos, Designing Peace: Cyprus and Institutional Innovations in Divided Societies (University of Pennsylvania Press 2016) 157–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 CMP Statistics (n 35).

43 CMP Terms of Reference (n 3) para 1.

44 ibid para 7.

45 ibid para 13.

46 ibid para 1.

47 CMP, ‘What We Do’, http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/content/what-we-do.

48 CMP Terms of Reference (n 3) para 11.

49 Although the CMP frequently asserts that its operations promote ‘the healing of old wounds [which] will in turn favour the overall process of reconciliation between both communities’, this was decisively not within its objectives in 1981: CMP (n 47).

50 ibid.

51 Mikellide, Maria, ‘Recovery and Identification of Human Remains in Post-Conflict Environments: A Comparative Study of the Humanitarian Forensic Programs in Cyprus and Kosovo’ (2017) 279 Forensic Science International 33CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

52 Natasa Iakovou and Nadia Kornioti, Missing Persons in Cyprus: Observations from the Past and Recommendations for the Future, PRIO Cyprus Report 7/2019 (PRIO Cyprus Centre 2019) 34.

53 CMP, ‘Donors’, http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/content/donors.

54 For a comparison between the CMP and other truth-seeking institutions, see Loizides (n 41) 157–58; Kovras, Iosif, Grassroots Activism and the Evolution of Transitional Justice: The Families of the Disappeared (Cambridge University Press 2017) Chs 6–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 When the CMP was established there were no plans also to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that would supplement its work. Over the years the creation of such a Commission has been debated by civil society and a provision to this effect was included in the (Draft) Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem (Annan Plan, 31 March 2004), Annex VIII. Yet, its creation remains a distant possibility: Demetriades, Achilleas, ‘The Case in Favour of Establishing a Truth Commission for Missing Persons in Cyprus’ (2014) 3(1) Cyprus Human Rights Law Review 53Google Scholar.

56 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27).

57 Iakovou and Kornioti (n 52) 14. The two organisations are the (GC) Pancyprian Organisation of the Relatives of Undeclared Prisoners and Missing Persons and the (TC) Association of Martyrs’ Families and War Veterans. They offer psychological support, while also lobbying for greater mobilisation in finding the missing, but are not actively involved in investigation efforts or in helping the CMP. There is also no cooperation between the GC and TC organisations.

58 This became possible as, in Cyprus, an estimated one in five persons has a close family member who is a missing person: Djordje Stefanovic, Neophytos Loizides and Charis Psaltis, ‘Attitudes of Victims Towards Transitional Justice: The Case of Cyprus’, Conference on ‘Referendums and Peace Processes’ (University of Cyprus, 26–27 October 2016).

59 Şahoğlu, Hasibe, ‘One Step Towards Reconciliation in Cyprus: Perceptions of the “Other” for the Families of Missing Persons’ (2021) 10 All Azimuth 23Google Scholar.

60 For demographic information about the missing, see Cassia (n 32); Demetriou, Olga, Refugeehood and the Postconflict Subject (State University of New York Press 2018) 171Google Scholar.

61 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 9.

62 ICRC, Living with Uncertainty: Needs of the Families of Missing Persons in Sri Lanka (ICRC 2016); ICRC, Needs of the Families of the Missing in Timor Leste (ICRC 2010); Aronson, Jay D, ‘The Strengths and Limitations of South Africa's Search for Apartheid-Era Missing Persons’ (2011) 5 International Journal of Transitional Justice 262CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

63 Mnemoseno is a Christian Orthodox ceremony that commemorates the dead.

64 40 per cent of those who are still waiting for the return of their relatives’ remains express ambiguity over the fate of their loved ones. Although the remaining 60 per cent are doubtful that their missing relative could be alive today, they are reluctant to express this with certainty: CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 3.

65 This was also reported in interviews with missing persons’ families in Zimbabwe: Eppel, Shari, ‘“Bones in the Forest” in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe: Exhumations as a Tool for Transformation’ (2014) 8 International Journal of Transitional Justice 404, 416CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

66 ICRC, Families of Missing Persons in Nepal: A Study of Their Needs (ICRC 2009) 9; Clark (n 2) 430.

67 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 10.

68 This practice is mentioned in MacLean, Rory, Beneath the Carob Trees: The Lost Lives of Cyprus (Armida Publications and Galeri Kültür Yayınları 2016) 14Google Scholar.

69 CMP Statistics (n 35).

70 ‘CMP: Results in Identifying Missing Persons Remains Will Not Increase’, In Cyprus, 6 March 2019, https://in-cyprus.philenews.com/cmp-results-in-identifying-missing-persons-remains-will-not-increase.

71 CMP Statistics (n 35).

72 Relatives’ complaints about CMP delays have also been recorded in Jaquemet, Iolanda, ‘Fighting Amnesia: Ways to Uncover the Truth about Lebanon's Missing’ (2009) 3 International Journal of Transitional Justice 69, 81Google Scholar.

73 MacLean (n 68) 14.

74 The sense that the politics of the frozen conflict unduly impact the workings of the CMP was also acknowledged by the Committee employees or ex-employees who were interviewed.

75 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 3.

76 ibid 16.

77 This became possible because of the small size of Cyprus and its population, as well as the fact that many killings took place in villages, where witnesses remembered exactly how and where many people were buried, and often even their names: Jaquemet (n 72) 81.

78 This sentiment was shared by the relative of another missing person, interviewed in the late 1990s: Cassia (n 32) 199.

79 This is partly as a result of the CMP Terms of Reference (n 3) para 9 (which states: ‘The Committee's entire proceedings and findings will be strictly confidential’).

80 Crettol et al (n 2) 600.

81 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 3.

82 Examples of this exploitation are also listed in Cassia (n 32) 61.

83 ibid 62–63.

84 CMP and ICRC Report (n 27) 9.

85 For a summary of the responsibilities of these institutions see Iakovou and Kornioti (n 52) 17–27.

86 Report on the Workshop ‘Mechanisms for Missing Persons: Clarifying the Fate and Supporting Families’, 16–17 October 2019, Cyprus, 10, https://shop.icrc.org/mechanisms-for-missing-persons-clarifying-the-fate-and-supporting-families-pdf-en (CMP Workshop Report).

87 This was not always the case. One GC interviewee recalled that during the 1990s he was denied access to information about the progress of investigations relating to his father's disappearance. The CMP was only persuaded to hand over the information when the interviewee complained to the Attorney-General of the Republic of Cyprus and threatened to complain to the media about this lack of transparency.

88 In fact, this is technically an expanded definition of the type of truth that the CMP can deliver. Its Terms of Reference (n 3) para 13 states: ‘The committee will use its best efforts to draw up comprehensive lists of missing persons of both communities, specifying as appropriate whether they are alive or dead, and in the latter case approximate time of the deaths’; it does not mention the exhumation of remains at all. The exhumation and return of remains is something that gradually developed as part of the CMP's mandate when it became operational in the 2000s: Baranowska, Grażyna, ‘Advances and Progress in the Obligations to Return the Remains of Missing and Forcibly Disappeared Persons’ (2017) 99 International Review of the Red Cross 709, 730–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

89 With rumours circulating about what happened, and in the absence of definitive information to confirm or deny such rumours, relatives might continue to experience ambiguousness, even after they have received the remains.

90 ECtHR, Varnava and Others v Turkey, App no 16064/90, 18 September 2009, paras 194, 202; ECtHR, Cyprus v Turkey, App no 25781/94, 10 May 2001, para 135. The ECtHR held that investigations and possible prosecutions in cases of missing persons are necessary requirements to satisfy the deceased's procedural right to life and the relatives’ right to be free from torture. The argument that Turkey had a responsibility to investigate the fate of their relatives to a much greater extent than that carried out by the CMP has also been made in a number of admissibility cases to the ECtHR by applicants who have already gone through the CMP process (eg, ECtHR, Charalambous and Others v Turkey, App no 46744/07, 3 April 2012). See also Kyriakou, Nikolas, ‘Enforced Disappearances in Cyprus: Problems and Prospects of the Case Law of the European Court of Human Rights’ (2011) 2 European Human Rights Law Review 190Google Scholar.

91 CMP Terms of Reference (n 3) para 11.

92 Interviewees found additional information about their relatives’ disappearance in books, films or documentaries, from witnesses they had personally tracked down, journalists who had been following their case for years, the perpetrators themselves and, in one case, a private investigator.

93 This dichotomy between the ‘truth’ provided by an institution and the ‘truth’ which the relatives expect has also been noted elsewhere: Robins (n 14).

94 For an example of this rhetoric see ‘CMP Documentary’, 2010, https://www.cmp-cyprus.org/videos-new.

95 CMP Workshop Report (n 86).

96 One interviewee was among the first to receive a relative's remains. He identified several shortcomings of the process and informed the CMP of these. When the next set of remains was returned to the families a month later, his recommendations had already been implemented (such as the idea that the CMP, and not the relatives, should pay for the funeral).