The Search for the Disappeared: Struggle, Recovery, Resolve
Photo courtesy of Mirak Raheem
As news of a mass grave breaks on television in a household in the North, its residents, a family of the disappeared, try to find ways of coping with this information. A little girl goes to sleep with her father’s sarong under her pillow. Her mother overcomes her reluctance and approaches a lawyer as to what steps she should take in case her husband is one of the victims in the mass grave. “How can I rest until I know where he is?” she asks rhetorically, even as she continues to believe he may be alive somewhere.
At the other end of the world, in a make-believe country in Central America, a woman is searching for her brother and is informed that his identity card was found in a mass grave in a former military camp. The ID was discovered by forensic archeologists and forensic anthropologists during the excavation of the gravesite. Staff from the forensic NGO that is conducting the investigations explain the process and what information that they need from her, which includes a sample of her DNA. “If he is dead I want to bring him home to give him a place to rest where we can bring flowers, light candles and visit him”.
An older mother in the South of Sri Lanka is still looking for her soldier son who disappeared during the war. The Army is not giving her any answers. “Even if he’s dead I have to find him. I have to know,” she says.
The three stories are featured in an animated video entitled The Search for the Disappeared: Struggle, Recovery, Resolve, conceptualized by Mirak Raheem, who has been researching enforced disappearances and mass graves in Sri Lanka and been undertaking training abroad over several years. It is intended as a tool for the public to understand why the truth is so important and to acknowledge the importance of family participation in such processes, while providing a basic explanation of the mass grave investigation process. The video is accompanied by a booklet entitled “Understanding Clandestine Gravesite Investigations: Guide for Families of the Missing and Disappeared” written by Mirak and available in English, Sinhala and Tamil, which offers a more in-depth explanation on the process.
Enforced disappearances have a long history in Sri Lanka, dating back to 1971 as a large-scale phenomenon. They became a prominent tool of warring parties during the civil war from 1983 to 2009 and during the second JVP insurrection in 1988 to 1989. Besides agencies of the State, armed groups were also involved in carrying out disappearances where people were abducted, and held in secret detention centres, without their families being informed. As a result, many families have spent years, if not decades, searching for their loved ones. Tens of thousands of families from all parts of the country and from every major ethnic community have been made victims of the crime of disappearances and there is still no truth or justice.
Mirak spoke to Groundviews on why he chose animation as a medium, the specific themes that he has highlighted and the wider issue of searching for the truth on enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka. Groundviews watched a preview of the animation prior to the public release of The Search for the Disappeared which will soon be available online in English, Sinhala and Tamil.
Why did you choose animation as your medium?
As a medium it lends itself to engaging different audiences, especially a younger generation, and provides an entry point to a difficult topic. For families of the disappeared, it allows them to watch the content without feeling directly implicated, offering a level of emotional distance. As an awareness-raising tool the animation is intended to work at two levels: addressing some of the hard, emotional issues of the search for the disappeared and providing a narrative that is accessible, relatable and less confrontational. The characters I present are fictional but I use actual scenarios that families are faced with and sentiments expressed by them. I wrote the script but ran it past several individuals including international forensic experts, community-level activists, theatre practitioners and families of the disappeared, which definitely improved the tone and technical accuracy of the films.
There are three main characters in the video. What do their different reactions depict in the context of enforced disappearances?
The three main protagonists in the animation are all women, which reflects the reality that the burden of searching for the disappeared often falls on women – mothers and wives in particular. This is true not just in Sri Lanka but in other countries such as those in Latin America. The animation shows some of the emotional, physical and administrative challenges these women face. Two of the stories are set in Sri Lanka and focus on how families respond to news about mass graves and the difficulty of finding information, especially given how opaque these processes are here. It also tries to show the emotional toll and strains within families as to how to continue the search and to cope with the uncertainty of not knowing whether their loved one is alive or dead.
The third story is set in a fictional country in Central America and highlights the technical side of searching for the disappeared. It shows how with the right structure and approach it has possible to find the truth in other contexts. But this story has a second side to it, the emotional and spiritual part of the search, while also highlighting the critical role that families play in the investigations. All three stories try to speak to this aspect of mass grave investigations as not just legal and technical processes but also emotional ones. So it is incumbent on those involved to find ways of keeping families informed and to find ways of involving them in the process.
The process of identification and handing over remains is stressed in the second video. How important is that for families?
In Sri Lanka, the demands of families of the disappeared are often oversimplified as either justice or compensation. However, it’s more complex and involves a spectrum of needs and hopes. Families should not be made to choose between them. It is their right to be able to claim justice, truth and reparations. Governments and politicians sometimes try to focus on compensation and dismiss victims’ demands for justice and the truth as to what exactly happened to their loved one, where their body is if they were killed and who exactly was responsible for this crime. Unfortunately, in Sri Lanka the process of mass grave investigations has a terrible legacy where there has been almost no, bar one case, no successful prosecutions nor identification of the individual victims in the grave.
The process of identification and handing over remains can be crucial for families in their journey to come to terms with their loss. The second story in the animation stresses why it is important for families to be able to claim the body of their loved one and conduct funeral rites. Talking to families of the disappeared in Sri Lanka there are so many who have yet to conduct mourning rituals as they have no body nor concrete answers as to what happened to their loved ones. For instance, some families have refused to even give an almsgiving as per Buddhist tradition. This is critical not just for families but also at a community level as disappearances have left an unhealed social wound.
What is the public perception about enforced disappearances and the need for the truth?
Although there have been significant campaigns and efforts to raise awareness, especially by families of disappeared, like the on-going protests by families in the North and East, the widespread public response has often been one of indifference. In some cases, not just the state and armed groups, but also other actors seem to wish that this issue would just go away. This has created a hostile context. The continuing harassment and even arrests by the authorities of families of the disappeared and activist attempting to protest and highlight their demands has restricted space for and curtailed rights of families of the disappeared.
There have been moments, like during the Aragalaya movement, when the space opened up for families to discuss their loss and suffering, and their demands, but the context keep shifting. What we need is a more empathetic environment, or at least one that isn’t actively hostile of or dismissive towards these families. They are not only waging their individual struggles, but carry the burden of other victims and larger collectives attempting to secure truth, justice and acknowledgement of what happened.
