The things they carry: Victims’ documentation of forced disappearance in Colombia and Sri Lanka
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1354066120946479 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066120946479
European Journal of
International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(1) 79 –101
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1354066120946479
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E
JR
I
The things they carry: Victims’
documentation of forced
disappearance in Colombia
and Sri Lanka
Kate Cronin-Furman
University College London, UK
Roxani Krystalli
University of St Andrews, UK
Abstract
Survivors of systematic violations of human rights abuses carry with them the evidence
of their victimization: photographs of the missing, news clippings, copies of police
reports. In some contexts, collecting and preserving these documents is part of an
effort to claim benefits, such as official victim status or reparations, from the state. In
others, it serves as a record of and rebuke to the state’s inaction. In this article, through
a comparative case study of victim mobilization in Colombia and Sri Lanka, we explore
how these dynamics play out in contexts with high and low (respectively) levels of
state action on transitional justice. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork in both contexts, we
examine grassroots documentation practices with an eye toward how they reflect the
strategic adaptation of international transitional justice norms to specific contexts. We
also examine how they organize relationships among individuals, the state, and notions
of justice in times of transition from war and dictatorship. We argue that, beyond the
strategic engagement with and/or rebuke of the state, these documents are also sites of
ritual and memory for those who collect them.
Keywords
Human rights, transitional justice, norms, Colombia, Sri Lanka, conflict
Corresponding author:
Kate Cronin-Furman, University College London, 29-30 Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9QU, UK.
Email: k.cronin-furman@ucl.ac.uk
946479EJT0010.1177/1354066120946479European Journal of International RelationsCronin-Furman and Krystalli
research-article2020
Article
80 European Journal of International Relations 27(1)
Presence, absence, and claim-making
Kate
Music blares as the buses full of Sinhalese tourists pass by on their way from the navy
camp to Koneswaram Temple in Trincomalee. Surrounded by pictures of their missing
sons and daughters, the Tamil mothers protesting in the road bristle at the intrusion:
“They’re enjoying themselves with their kids and look at us.”
When I meet them in July of 2017, they have been sitting in the road for over four
months. Some of them sleep, curled up on the ground, exhausted from their vigil. The
tattered United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) tarp overhead pro-
vides little protection from the heat or rain.
Across northeastern Sri Lanka, family members of the disappeared, mostly mothers,
have gathered in similar encampments. They face harassment and intimidation from the
security forces and have lost what little faith they had that the government might provide
truth and justice for the crimes committed against them. But for over a year they’ll
remain, channeling their anger and despair into a demand to know the fates of their miss-
ing loved ones.
By one estimate, more than 146,000 Tamils went missing in the final phase of the war.
But many others disappeared earlier, or later—forced into a white van, detained at a mili-
tary checkpoint, or called in for questioning at the police station and never seen again.
Whole families vanished without a trace, including tiny children whose grandmothers
now grimly display their photographs.
Introduced to a visitor, each protestor reaches for a plastic bag. One at a time, they
show their documents. Photos of the missing, labeled with names, date of birth, and date
of disappearance. Copies of government ID. Xeroxes of forms submitted to government
commissions and statements given to the police. Disintegrating newspaper clippings.
Tangible proof of an absence.
As I examine each piece of paper, we talk about the new Office of Missing Persons
the government has announced. They have “no hope and no expectations,” they say.1
They’ve filled out so many forms, petitioned so many officials and commissions,
what’s the point of another? When I ask one woman how many times she’s given evi-
dence, she says at least 20, no, 50. Relatives of the disappeared throughout the north-
east echo this estimate, noting that in all the years they have been searching, the
government “hasn’t managed to give a single answer.” They’re exhausted; worn down
from the protest, the years of uncertainty, the endless backtracking and obstruction
from the government.
Nearly all of them say they’ll go to the Office of Missing Persons anyway.
* * *
Roxani
On a March afternoon in 2018, I am standing under a tapestry of photos at Medellín’s
Museo Casa de Memoria, the Memory House Museum.2 This space declares itself to be
a site of “living memory” with threefold objectives: to be recognized as a house that can
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