Where are the bodies buried in Colombia?

When members of Colombia’s Crime Scene Investigators (CTI) removed a section of topsoil indicated to them by a demobilized paramilitary member as being the site of a mass grave, they were expecting to unearth skulls, bones and fragments of clothing. Instead what they came face to face with were multiple round holes of medium depths.

“What happened here? Did you bury them standing up?” asked one CTI officer.

Far from it. The bodies of the deceased had been hacked into pieces and placed in tall milk urns and doused in acid. Once the human contents had dissolved and become liquid, the urns were then disinterred and their contents poured into the nearby Magdalena River. No trace no foul and another reminder of how far Colombia has yet to go to reconcile an uncompromising and bloody past. In this particular case, the number of people to have been killed in this fashion near to the colonial town of Guaduas, barely 77 miles northwest from the capital city of Bogota, is based on hazy recollections gathered from former combatants in Colombia’s conflict looking to reduce their sentences through an admission of guilt in participation in such heinous events. Sadly, these tales are the norm rather than unique.

That was in 2010 and as the Colombian government’s negotiating team grapples with members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC guerrillas) in on-going peace dialogues in Havana, Cuba in an attempt to bring stability to much of the country, there is still the issue of thousands of missing people, many forcibly disappeared, resulting from more than 50 years of conflict. So, exactly how many people have disappeared in Colombia’s long-running conflict and where have they been disposed of? While the answer to this question in unknown, human rights groups estimate there to be 4,649 common graves across the country.

Through tearful eyes Margarita Restrepo shares with reporters that not a day passes when she doesn’t think of her daughter Carol who disappeared in Medellin in October 2002. 13 years is a long time and Margarita is just one of a group of family members here on the location of a former landfill known as La Escombrera at the westernmost edge of the city and above the infamous Comuna 13 barrio. There has been a ceremony of remembrance and on Monday July 27 authorities began an excavation which will reportedly take five months, in the hope of finding and identifying as many as 100 bodies expected to have been buried here between 1999 and 2004 when paramilitary groups took control of this strategically located district.

Unmarked graves, mass graves and common graves abound in Colombia. The puzzle is finding those who know their whereabouts and who they contain. There’s a discrepancy in numbers as victims’ groups such as Asfaddes Medellín, Movice, Familiares Colombia and las Madres de la Candelaria which all believe there to be as many as 45,000 forcibly disappeared people across Colombia in contrast to the government’s figures of 15,000. Families seeking the whereabouts of loved ones also consider la Escombrera to be of significance in that it could hold the answers to an estimated 300 missing individuals and therefore garland Medellin with the unwelcome fame of being home to the world’s largest urban mass grave.

“They will find some things, but not the quantities that they are suggesting,” said a criminologist knowledgeable in the city and who preferred to remain anonymous in an exclusive interview. “This search is a sophism to create a distraction as the Comuna 13 has become something of a myth,” he continued.

So what is the myth surrounding Medellin’s Comuna 13, a district once routinely believed to be amongst the worst in Colombia’s second city due to gang warfare and drugs? Perhaps the answer is precisely that it has gained its notoriety for being the principal Comuna—of Medellin’s 16 Comunas—which was targeted by former President Alvaro Uribe as the one which required military intervention to pacify it. Thus, the infamous Operation Orion in 2002 was carried out and it is known that the military sent in right wing paramilitary groups first and then followed them up with an all-out assault to wrest this district from the control of leftwing guerrillas such as the FARC and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN rebels).

Certainly, this scarred hillside which for so long was a dumping ground for construction materials, household waste and even chemicals, will hold its fair share of secrets, as after Operation Orion, Comuna 13 was run by a ruthlessly savage paramilitary group known as the Bloque Cacique Nutibara under the leadership of alias “Don Berna” or Diego Murillo who was later extradited to the US in 2008 for drug trafficking and money laundering.

The excavations are not without their challenges, requiring digs to 8m in depth and which will focus on three points based on testimonies. To begin with, teams will have to move 24,000m3 of rubble and earth with heavy machinery for a period of two months before even studying the debris.

“No one can really know what they will find and what the state of preservation of the remains will be unless they attempt to excavate and recover the remains. Paleontology and Archaeology teach us that human remains (in particular bones) can survive at great depths, for hundreds of thousands of years, and that sometimes even soft tissue and clothing survive, and DNA can also be extracted. I would like to reiterate that the preservation will depend on the type of soil and whatever was dumped on the remains,” said Dr Karina Gerdau Radonic, Lecturer in Biological Anthropology at the UK’s Bournemouth University.

This situation is hardly unique to Medellin. La Escombrera itself has been visited on no less than four occasions by experts from the Attorney General’s Office since 2004 and as yet nothing of use has been uncovered. Then there are the environmental and geographical elements to consider. Colombia is home to various mountain ranges, is tectonically unstable and at the mercy of landslides, floods and heavy rainfalls across much of the country. There’s the very real fear that many remains will have shifted position from their original burial sites or have been lost altogether.

But, it’s a start down the road which hopefully can lead to closure for families and perhaps reconciliation in Colombia. While members of the leftist FARC guerrillas, involved in the peace dialogues since November 2012, have expressed their solidarity with the victims of the paramilitary killings believed to be in la Escombrera, the rebel group will be forced to recognize those disappearances carried out by members of their own.

It’s a grim reality in today’s Colombia. Killings by illegal groups in the Pacific city of Buenaventura in so-called “casas de pique” or “chop houses”, where the dismemberments of opponents occur, continue as the struggle for control of this strategic port heightens. Body parts are then bagged up weighed down with rocks and tossed out to sea. Where will forensic investigators need to look next? Grave sites attributed to the rise in gangs born from the shells of former paramilitary outfits, have been found in neighboring Venezuela as well. Nowhere, it appears, is exempt from this scourge.

The Attorney General’s website warns that some contents of their pages could be sensitive and may not be apt for minors. Here one can conduct a search through a macabre database showing items of clothing retrieved from common graves and posted online in the hope that a family comes forward to identify the missing person last seen dressed in these items. Another page offers up facial reconstruction renders, there are 64 images from the southern coca-growing department of Putumayo alone.

So, will this excavation at La Escombrera encourage further investigations around Colombia or will it lead up a blind alley and discourage the authorities from pursuing further cases? It’s hard to say. And are demobilized guerrillas or paramilitaries providing the authorities with accurate locations or leading investigators on a ruse? Unsubstantiated rumors abound that a stretch of land near to Medellin known as the Curva de Rodas was another infamous place used by gangs as a disposal area. What is not covered by new-build apartment blocks is a delicately landscaped park. In Bogota, after the military stormed the Palacio de Justicia in November 1985 in response to the siege by M19 guerrillas; those killed in the attack were supposedly unceremoniously dumped in an unused lot near to the Central Cemetery and in a more humble district of the south known as Matatigres.

Unmarked graves, mass graves and common graves abound in Colombia. The puzzle is finding those who know their whereabouts and who they contain. This is clearly easier said than done.

As the Criminologist said: “These groups are organized, the idea is to leave no evidence and no witnesses.”

It is clear that La Escombrera is just a start as thousands of Colombian families yearn for closure in a process which could easily take decades.

Sunday 2 August 2015

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/02/where-are-the-bodies-buried-in-colombia.html

continue reading

The Disappeared: work to identify remains begins

Investigators who have uncovered remains in a search for one of the Disappeared say two bodies have been found in a single grave.

The Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR) initially thought the remains found at a bog in the Republic of Ireland on Thursday were those of Joe Lynskey.

He was abducted, murdered and secretly buried by the IRA in 1972.

There was "surprise", an investigator said, when another body was found.

Two more of the Disappeared, Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee, were believed to have been buried close to the site that was being searched in Coghalstown, County Meath. The term the Disappeared refers to victims who were murdered and secretly buried by republicans during the Northern Ireland conflict.

Geoff Knupfer, the head of the ICLVR investigation team, said the "assumption" was that the first body discovered was that of Mr Lynskey.

"But as our archaeologists continued to excavate they found further remains in the grave," Mr Knupfer said.

"Because there are two people in the same grave, clearly there's a distinct possibility that what we have here are the remains of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee. "But that remains to be seen.

"So, we're just saying that we have two victims in the same grave, which fits the profile of the Wright and McKee abduction and murder," he added.

Mr Knupfer also said that an adjoining plot of land had been searched "some years ago" for the bodies of the two men.

While the remains have not yet been identified, Mr McKee's sister Maria said she was feeling a mixture of emotions after being informed that one of the bodies could that of be her brother.

"It's a happy time, but it's also going to be a sad time," Ms McKee said.

"The sad thing about it is my mummy only missed it by three years. On her deathbed she did ask for Kevin.

"It's unreal, it's surreal to us."

Jon Hill, a senior investigator, said that due to the passage of time there could have been confusion among those who had provided information to the ICLVR on the where bodies of the Disappeared had been buried.

"It's so long ago that this happened and this ground where we're searching has changed dramatically from when these events occurred," he said.

Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright were both IRA members who were abducted and murdered by the organisation in 1972.

Mr Lynskey had been a former Cistercian monk from the Beechmount area of west Belfast, and later joined the IRA.

Once the remains have been recovered, they will be taken to Dublin for examination by the state pathologist.

Mr Hill said it would be "some weeks before the DNA can give some more clarity" as to whose bodies had been uncovered.

Maria Lynskey, a niece of Mr Lynskey, had travelled to the site after the initial discovery. null

Joe Lynskey was a former Cistercian monk from west Belfast.

Anne Morgan, the sister of another of the Disappeared, Seamus Ruddy, has been supporting the Lynskey family.

She said Ms Lynskey had "thought the whole day that it was her uncle" who had been found, but has "come to terms" with indications that now may not be the case.

Excavations had started at the bog in March in a search for Mr Lynskey.

Mr Knupford said that if it transpired that his body was not among those that had been found a search of the site would continue.

The ICLVR was set up by the British and Irish governments in 1999 to liaise with former paramilitaries to find the Disappeared.

Any information provided to the commission cannot be used in criminal proceedings.

Over the past 16 years, the ICLVR has searched for 16 people who were officially listed as the Disappeared.

The remains of 10 of the victims have been recovered and formally identified to date.

The most recent confirmed discovery was that of Brendan Megraw, whose remains were found in Oristown bog, also in County Meath, last October.

Saturday 27 June 2015

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-33280808#_=_

continue reading

99 percent of missing persons in Mexico stay missing

Over the last two years, Mexican law enforcement has managed to locate less than 1 percent of all disappeared people in the country, according to a recent report by El Daily Post. The Mexican daily came to the conclusion by comparing data from two different federal government bodies.

According to figures from the Special Unit for the Search for Disappeared Persons, which was created by the office of the attorney general, Mexican law enforcement managed to locate 112 disappeared people over the last two years.

Only 77 of them were found alive. In the same time period, however, the National Register of Missing and Disappeared Persons documented 26,928 missing people (this number does not include the found 112 people).

The numbers unfortunately suggest if people go missing in Mexico, they are more than likely to stay missing. While the 112 people were found predominantly within the country — in 19 different states of Mexico’s 31 plus the Federal District of Mexico City — three cases were found abroad, in Guatemala, Turkey and the United States, according to national attorney general data.



The missing persons register showed that Mexico's eastern border state of Tamaulipas had the highest number of disappeared people in the last two years, with 5,379 reported cases. Mexico has long been criticized for its high level of violence, disappearances, police corruption and impunity.

This has been compounded since the forced disappearance of 43 students in Guerrero state last September, which has caused massive uproar across the country and international condemnation. Of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa teacher training school, just one was found, dead; the rest remain missing.

Earlier this year, Mexico's National Public Security System reported equally startling figures: 1,360 people were reported disappeared in the country in the first four months of 2014 alone – an average of 11 new disappearances a day.

Wednesday 24 June 2015

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/99-Percent-of-Missing-Persons-in-Mexico-Stay-Missing--20150623-0009.html.

continue reading

Forensic science in search of the ‘disappeared’

During Guatemala’s internal armed conflict (1960-1996) almost 200,000 people are thought to have been killed or 'disappeared' at the hands of repressive and violent regimes. Those lives matter. Their families’ demands are clear: they want to know what happened to their loved ones and they want their remains returned. They need truth and justice.

Guatemala’s method of uncovering human rights violations can help other post-conflict areas, says Fredy Peccerelli.

Using forensic sciences, the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala (FAFG) is assisting families by returning their loved ones’ remains, promoting justice, and setting the historical record straight.

A multidisciplinary process

The FAFG is a civil-society scientific organisation that works to strengthen the judicial system and respect human rights by investigating, documenting and generally uncovering evidence of human rights violations — particularly massacres and enforced disappearances — from the conflict.

The FAFG team applies techniques drawn from criminology, forensic anthropology, forensic archaeology, forensic genetics and social anthropology in a multidisciplinary human identification system.

Our investigators explain the process to families and family organisations using presentations. We speak to them as equals and give them information so they can make decisions about their participation. If we gain their trust they will share information with us about the victim, the event, and family genealogy. We also ask the relatives to provide DNA reference samples. “The FAFG’s multidisciplinary methods and approach are transferable to other post-conflict countries and situations with missing people, such as migration or natural disasters.”

Archaeologists then locate the graves using witness testimony or archaeological field surveys for depressions and other signs of graves. They then excavate, document, and exhume the remains. The grave is treated as a crime scene, so a forensic archaeologist will record all the details, such as any associated artifacts and other evidence to help determine how people were restrained and killed. This can include metal fragments (usually ballistics), rope, cords tying hands and/or feet and neck, blindfolds and gags.

Forensic anthropologists then analyse the skeletal remains to establish the biological profile of the victim. They determine characteristics such as age, height and sex based on features such as tooth development in children and differences between male and female pelvic girdle. This examination also reveals other individualising characteristics such as whether the person had previously broken bones or recovered from a disease. Forensic anthropologists also investigate the cause of death.

As part of this process a small piece of bone is cut from the left femur or tooth, as studies have shown that DNA is best protected in these dense areas of the human skeleton. The sample is then brought to our lab for analysis.

At the lab forensic geneticists compare the genetic profile of the victim obtained from the bone sample to the genetic profile of the families. Both are stored and continuously compared in our National Genetic Database of Relatives and Victims of Enforced Disappearance.

We use all of the information gathered throughout the entire process to ensure the victim’s identity is returned with dignity and certainty, thereby reconnecting families.

Setting the record straight

The FAFG’s evidence supports findings by Guatemala’s Historical Clarification Commission, that most victims of the civil war were Maya indigenous people living in the rural highlands, including women and children.

In Guatemala City the ideals and dreams of academics, religious leaders, student leaders, unions, and other politically motivated individuals frightened the regimes. The state responded to this fear disproportionately, killing and massacring 160,000 people and ‘disappearing’ 40,000 — rupturing Guatemala’s social fabric and forever changing the future and geography of the country.

The objective, rigorous investigations conducted by the FAFG clarify the truth so that history is properly acknowledged and recorded. The physical evidence proves what happened, supports the testimonies of families, and can be used in a court of law to hold the intellectual authors and perpetrators of the crimes responsible more than three decades since their crimes were committed.

Justice beyond Guatemala

Apart from empowering families in Guatemala, the forensic work has provided prosecutors with evidence in other parts of the world too. For example, in Bosnia FAFG personnel helped with the exhumation and the forensic investigation process that provided evidence in four genocide trials in The Hague. FAFG personnel investigated and contributed to these trials to gain justice for the families, just as we are doing in Guatemala.

As funding priorities shift according to the international development priorities that are in fashion, transitional justice (the process of coming to terms with human rights abuses) must not be pushed off the funding table — it is currently transitioning off the agendas of major donors. Civil society organisations like FAFG, that conduct forensic investigations into human rights violations, provide concrete evidence of the brutality of the past and have a huge impact on the families affected.

The FAFG’s multidisciplinary methods and approach are transferable to other post-conflict countries and situations with missing people, such as migration or natural disasters. Local capacity must be built according to local legislation, and it must involve passionate and dedicated individuals because searching for the missing is a long-term process. Once started, the process must be sustained. The families will expect it, they deserve it, and they can be empowered by it.

We must continue to listen to the demands of family members because their lives and the lives of those disappeared and killed matter. We cannot move forward as long as the disappeared and missing remain undignified and unidentified in clandestine graves throughout Guatemala and the rest of the world.

Wednesday 10 June 2015

http://www.scidev.net/global/conflict/opinion/forensic-science-search-disappeared-guatemala-conflict.html

continue reading

Commission: Mexico has 'serious problem' with disappearances

Mexico has a "serious problem" with disappearances and lacks a comprehensive national list of the missing to effectively deal with the problem, according to a report the country's National Human Rights Commission will present Monday to the U.N.Commission chairman Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez will ask the United Nations Committee On Enforced Disappearances in Geneva to make several recommendations to Mexico's government on the issue, said the document, which The Associated Press was allowed to see.

According to the latest official figures, there are 23,271 people missing or not located in Mexico, of which 621 are being sought by the federal Attorney General's Office's Search Unit.

The numbers were provided by the office's general prosecutor for human rights, Eliana Garcia, on Jan. 19 to a forum in the Chamber of Deputies.

But in its report, the human rights commission says there are no clear criteria for establishing how many people are missing and stresses that the "impunity" surrounding forced disappearances in the 1970s and 1980s created the conditions for the crime to continue being committed today, as can be seen with the 43 students who disappeared in September in southern Guerrero state.

Gonzalez Perez said officials needs to systemize and debug various existing databases because there is no "effective, comprehensive and transparent national" registry that would allow officials to know the real number of people who have disappeared in Mexico.

The commission will ask that authorities in Mexico continue the search for clandestine graves, identify the bodies found in them and create a unified system for building a reliable national list of the disappeared with a genetic registry.

It will also call on lawmakers to complete pending legislation related to the National Registry of the Disappeared or Missing Persons and the law on forced disappearances.

The government of President Enrique Pena Nieto promised that on taking office it would release verifiable figures on the number of the disappeared in Mexico. In August 2014, it published a list of 22,322 persons missing since 2006.

A total of 9,790 of them had disappeared since the beginning of his presidency on Dec. 1, 2012.Eliana Garcia, speaking to lawmakers in January, gave the new official figure with roughly 1,000 more missing without explanation.

But a legislative press release that day said the new registry of the missing dates back to 2003.

The attorney general and six of Mexico's 32 regions have begun working on a unified database, but the process is slow.

For example, as of last September, Mexico City's Federal District, one of the most capable regions, had only entered data for 20 of the 13,000 unidentified bodies it has in its files.

Relatives of the missing, including family of the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa rural teachers college, have traveled to Geneva to share their experiences with the U.N. committee.

The relatives have questioned the government's conclusion that the students were killed and incinerated after being seized by police in a city controlled by a drug cartel.

Monday 2 January 2015

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2015/02/01/3618690/commission-mexico-has-serious.html

continue reading

Searching for El Salvador's disappeared

Inside their tiny home in a poor neighbourhood of San Salvador, Ana Elizondo and her husband hold religious celebrations for their friends and neighbours, singing and praying several times a week.

It's a chance for them to find comfort through their faith. Outside Elizondo's front door, street gangs run the neighbourhood, and maintain their grip through fear and violence as they do in many other communities throughout this country. "My children are running a risk every day but I can't lock them up. They must confront the life we are living every day. And that is, you go out and may never return".

That is what happened to her son over three years ago, when 14-year-old Josue went out and never came back. "Someone was going to introduce him to a girl," Elizondo says about the day her son left.

She began her frantic search that night and hasn't stopped since, despite threats from gang members. She and her family believe the meeting with a girl was a trap set by the gangs, and that Josue was killed because he refused to join their ranks. He has yet to be found.

Standing in front of a map dotted by the secret graves he has discovered throughout El Salvador, Israel Ticas tells Al Jazeera, "This is their modus operandi." According to Ticas, who works as a forensic archaeologist and criminologist for the main prosecutor's office, the violent gangs' strategy is a simple one: "If there is no body, there is no crime."

From every wall of his office, faces of the dead look out. The graphic images consist of people disappeared by gangs, most of them dismembered, and all of them hidden until Ticas and his team finds them. He has exhumed thousands of bodies at over 800 grave sites.

A collection of soil samples from different sites sits on one shelf in Ticas' office. In a jar, a small, dismembered hand of a young woman is almost perfectly preserved; her nails are still painted red. Ticas tells Al Jazeera that 75 percent of the gangs' victims are women. "A woman in my country is more vulnerable," he says. "First, because of the culture. A woman is a sexual symbol, an object, and the degree of barbarity used to kill a man is often not as extreme as that used to kill a woman."

On his Facebook page, under the name "el abogado de los muertos", or "the lawyer for the dead", he posts pictures of clothing, possessions and any clues he discovers to help families identify their dead. Many come to the sites where he digs. "They tell me please find at least some of my child's bones so I can die in peace."

Others phone him and urge him to search in specific places, but he says he cannot unless they have made a criminal complaint and the case is under investigation, which many families won't do. "People say nothing," he says. "People are afraid."

In this tiny nation of just over six million, assistance in helping families search for their loved ones has not been a priority due to fear of reprisals. According to police figures given to Al Jazeera, crime related violence has claimed the lives of an estimated 21,394 people since 2009, and the majority were victims of gang related violence.

Police also say at least 2,166 people have gone missing since the beginning of 2013. But with so many graves still to be discovered, and not all families reporting a missing relative, those numbers are likely to be much higher.

"In reality it's very difficult to give a concrete number," El Salvador's Human Rights Ombudsman David Morales says. He is critical of the lack of support for suffering families, and adds that "for decades the state has not made victims a priority".

"In El Salvador, historically, victims have been discriminated against; the victims of armed conflict, of political violence after the civil war and victims of violent crime," he adds.

'Tortured and dismembered'

As a result, families and mothers in particular have now become the primary point people in searching for the missing. They go from hospitals, to the police and prosecutor's offices, and to the morgue, photos in hand, to plead for information.

At San Salvador's morgue, Maria Eugenia Ayala is looking for her son, who has been missing since January. Another parent, Jorge Alberto Perez, says he and his wife have looked everywhere for their daughter. "We are looking for her, whether she's alive or dead. And if she's dead, I want the authorities to turn her over to us," he tells Al Jazeera,

Inside the morgue, at least 80 boxes are stacked in two small rooms, each containing the bones of a person. Oscar Armando Quijano, who manages the morgue, says identifying the remains is a challenge. "We can see they are tortured and dismembered, so we can only find body parts. By doing this, the criminals are sending the message of what they are capable of doing."

In a cell at the back of a local police station, 18th street gang member Alfonso tells Al Jazeera that he can't comment on the disappeared. "These are things that only we know. I can't explain it to you. It's a rule of the gang," he says. For the second time in two years, the 18th street gang and its rival, Mara Salvatrucha, agreed to a truce on August 31. But their pledge to stop the killings didn't include an offer to help find the dead.

"Before the [last] truce we had 12, 13 murders a day nationally, and then it dropped to five," says Howard Cotto, the deputy police chief. He also adds that when the murders started to drop, the cases of disappeared persons began to rise.

Meanwhile, on a bus ride to her local prosecutor's office, a journey she makes every two weeks, Ana Elizondo has little hope investigators will bring her news of Josue's whereabouts. "The authorities tell me to be patient, nothing more," she tells Al Jazeera, as her meeting once again yields no results.

"Each time they tell me to bring them some new information, but I don't know anything."

Saturday 13 September 2014

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2014/09/searching-el-salvador-disappeared-persons-gang-violence-201491212519331225.html

continue reading

Families of Colombia disappeared see little hope of justice

After 22 years, Mayerlis Angarita has finally given up hope and stopped searching for her mother, who disappeared one afternoon when Mayerlis was just 11.

“There comes a moment when you stop looking and searching for the truth. I know it will be difficult, if not impossible, to ever know the truth about what happened to my mother,” said Angarita, 33, who heads a women’s rights and land campaigning group, Network for Life.

“You learn with time that if a person doesn’t return home it’s because something has happened to them, that they’re dead,” she said.

Angarita blames her mother’s disappearance on right-wing paramilitary groups which were formed in the 1980s and backed by landowners and politicians to protect them from attacks by leftist rebels.

Around 35,000 paramilitary fighters demobilised as part of a peace deal with the last government, but thousands have since returned to crime and formed new gangs.

Angarita says her mother was last seen being grabbed while washing clothes in a river and bundled into a van by several paramilitary fighters near the town of Monteria in western Cordoba province, a paramilitary stronghold in the 1990s.

“When someone disappears it’s a permanent crime ... The worst thing is that at the time we couldn’t even say my mother had gone missing because it would have been seen as a rebellious act by the paramilitaries. I remember going to school and people asking where my mother was. I had to say she died of natural causes,” Angarita told Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Angarita is one of more than 30,000 people in Colombia whose relatives have disappeared without trace since 1977, victims of five decades of civil war between government troops, paramilitary groups and leftist guerrillas, according to government estimates cited in a new report on Colombia's missing people.

The four-volume report by the National Centre for Historical Memory says that all the warring factions were involved in forced disappearances from 1970 to 2012, but that state security forces, allied with paramilitaries and drug traffickers, played a “notable” role in forced disappearances from the 1980s onwards.

“An attitude persists that denies forced disappearances have been, and are, a reality in Colombia,” the report by the independent research group said.

Over the decades, tens of thousands of innocent people, including trade unionists, poor farmers and other civilians accused of being informers or of sympathising with rebel groups, were killed and dumped in mass graves around the country.

The report cites numerous cases where state security forces tortured civilians and hid their bodies to destroy the evidence, making it almost impossible to trace their crimes.

In 1998, for example, the report says government soldiers and paramilitary fighters were responsible for the torture and disappearance of 26 members of the Embera indigenous tribe and farmers, including nine women, who were suspected of collaborating with rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group.

One of the worst atrocities involving state security forces was the “false positives affair”, the report said. In 2008, security forces were accused of murdering civilians and passing them off as rebels killed in battle to inflate the body count in the government’s war against the FARC. The killings involved scores of innocent men, some as young as 16.

Dozens of army officials have been imprisoned for these crimes and investigations and trials of soldiers suspected of involvement in the scandal continue.

The report said families looking for missing relatives faced “massive obstacles from the state apparatus,” and that the authorities’ response to the families had been “defective, erratic and inadequate.”

Forced disappearance was only recognised as a specific crime in Colombia in 2000, even though the first case was officially registered in 1977, the report said.

Few families have found the truth about what happened to their loved ones.

Of the 28,000 cases of missing people being investigated by the attorney general’s office, only 35 have led to convictions, the report noted.

The attorney general’s office only set up a special unit to investigate forced disappearances four years ago, it said.

A government peace accord with the Marxist FARC rebels might help throw light on some of the forced disappearances. Peace talks between the two sides have been under way in Havana, Cuba, since November 2012, though fighting continues.

A peace accord might persuade FARC rebels to say where bodies are buried and might also encourage people who have never reported disappearances to come forward, rights groups say.

While the peace talks continue, forensic teams and around 20 state prosecutors from the attorney-general's office are searching for the disappeared and exhuming bodies.

State prosecutors say it could take 10 years to find and open the estimated 30,000 unmarked graves.

So far, around 4,000 missing people’s graves have been discovered and 5,000 bodies found, thanks to the confessions of scores of paramilitary warlords who laid down their weapons and received maximum 8-year prison sentences in exchange for confessing their crimes.

But Angarita has little hope of ever recovering her mother’s body.

“I’m still waiting but I've almost no hope left. It’s been known for the paramilitaries to cut up bodies and dump in them in rivers,” she said.

Thursday 29 May 2014

http://www.trust.org/item/20140528174236-km7tz/?source=hpeditorial&siteVersion=mobile

continue reading

Report criticizes Mexico for lack of accountability on 'disappeared' people

The Mexican government has reported but not accounted for thousands of people who were reported "disappeared," according to the U.S. State Department "2013 Country Reports on Human Rights" released today.

"In February the Secretariat of Government (SEGOB) reported that 26,121 individuals had disappeared between 2006 and 2012, although government officials acknowledged the figures were not precise," according to the report.

"According to criminal justice experts, most of these were likely to have been perpetrated by TCOs (organized crime organizations). The SEGOB report identified the groups most vulnerable to forced disappearance as human rights defenders, political and social activists, migrants, men living in areas of conflict, and women and children trafficking victims."

The report mentions the status of Luz Estela "Lucha" Castro Rodriguez, a prominent lawyer and human rights activist in Juarez and Chihuahua City, who was threatened. Castro is well known in the El Paso border region.

Last year, the Inter-American Court for Human Rights granted precautionary measures to Castro, who, according to the court, faced "extreme risk" as a result of her work with a women's rights organization in Chihuahua, the U.S. report said. In August, the court extended the precautionary measures, requirement that the government provide security, through at least Sept. 30.

Although Mexico established a national registry for missing or disappeared persons in 2012, the government did not adopt measures to update the database of such persons, the U.S. report said.

The registry did not distinguish between people who went missing and those who were disappeared or kidnapped by criminal groups, the report said. Additionally, the report said the Mexico's National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) reported that "there were at least 7,000 unidentified bodies of persons killed between 2006 and 2012 in morgues and common graves."

"Kidnapping remained a serious and under reported problem for persons of all socioeconomic levels," the report said, "and there were credible reports of police involvement in kidnappings for ransom, primarily at the state and local level. The National System for Public Security reported 1,032 reports of kidnapping filed between December 2012 and June 2013, although official estimates placed the number of unreported kidnappings considerably higher."

Mexico's violent drug cartel wars also led to displacements in various regions of the country, the report said. "According to the CNDH, approximately 120,000 individuals were internally displaced as of July, most of whom fled their communities in response to violence related to narcotics trafficking."

Friday 28 February 2014

http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_25242123/report-criticizes-mexico-lack-accountability-disappeared-people

continue reading

Mali: Big Step for Justice in ‘Disappearance’ Case

The decision by a judge in Mali to charge and detain three security force members and summon for questioning 17 others for their alleged role in enforced disappearances is an important step for justice in Mali and for the victims’ families. Malian authorities should urgently ensure security for the judge and other judicial personnel investigating the case, and witnesses, and protect the rights of the accused.

The three suspects, a gendarme captain and two soldiers, were taken into custody on October 23 and 30, 2013. They were charged with complicity to commit abduction in the 2012 enforced disappearance of at least 20 soldiers. On October 31, the judge issued mandatory summonses for 17 other soldiers for their role in the same crime, including General Amadou Haya Sanogo, who led a coup in March 2012, when he held the rank of captain.

“The courageous work of Malian authorities investigating this prominent case is a significant and encouraging advance for justice in Mali,” said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The families of the ‘disappeared’ soldiers have endured terrible suffering and deserve to know the fate of their loved ones.”

In the early morning hours of May 2, 2012, soldiers who had taken part in the March 2012 coup against then-president President Amadou Toumani Touré forcibly disappeared at least 20 soldiers they had detained for their alleged involvement in an April 30, 2012 counter-coup. Most of the disappeared formed part of an elite unit of paratroopers known as the Red Berets. The then-authorities did not acknowledge detaining the men or provide information on their whereabouts, and they are feared dead. Numerous other soldiers who had been apprehended were subjected to torture and inhuman treatment in detention.

Human Rights Watch interviewed 32 people, including 10 victims and 13 relatives of victims, about the enforced disappearances and torture. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that members of the security services loyal to Sanogo carried out the torture and other abuses. The 20 “disappeared” soldiers were last seen alive on May 2, inside Kati Military Camp, 15 kilometers north of the Malian capital, Bamako, which was then the headquarters of Sanogo and his loyalists.



The torture documented by Human Rights Watch and other national and international organizations took place over several weeks in May 2012. The victims described being handcuffed and hogtied, beaten with batons, sticks, and gun butts, and kicked in the back, head, ribs, genitals, and elsewhere. Others said they were stabbed in their extremities and burned with cigarettes and lighters on their backs, hands, arms, and ears.

Several witnesses saw the disappeared men at Kati camp, including one who described seeing military personnel transfer the detainees to a military truck. “They bound their hands and legs, ordered them onto a truck, covered their eyes, and took them away,” the witness said. Another witness provided Human Rights Watch a hand-written list of the soldiers seen in the camp and now disappeared. The mother of one disappeared soldier said that her son had gotten access to a cell phone and told her that military personnel were arguing among themselves about whether to kill him.

There are unconfirmed reports that the men were executed and buried near the town of Diago, 12 kilometers from Kati. In 2012, Human Rights Watch spoke with Diago residents who said rounds were fired on the night of May 2, 2012, but they were too terrified to provide further details. Mali’s donors, including the United Nations, should assist the government with forensic expertise should possible graves of the men be located.

Under international law, an enforced disappearance occurs when the government or its agents take a person into custody but refuse to acknowledge doing so or do not provide information about the person’s whereabouts or fate. Among the rights an enforced disappearance may violate are those to life, liberty, and security of the person, including protection from torture and other ill-treatment. Family members whose loss of their loved ones goes without explanation or redress are also victims of enforced disappearance.

The Malian authorities should broaden their investigation into the other alleged military abuses during this period, Human Rights Watch said. For instance, in July 2012, two journalists writing about abuses following the failed counter-coup were abducted. Abrahamane Kéïta, editor of L’Aurore newspaper, and Saouti Labass Haidara, publisher of L’Independent were taken away by armed, masked gunmen driving pickup trucks with no license plates. The journalists were severely beaten and dumped on the outskirts of Bamako after being warned to stop criticizing the military. Haidara suffered a fractured arm and multiple contusions.

The Malian authorities are also investigating a spate of killings and abductions allegedly carried out between September 30 and October 3, 2013, in and around Bamako by members of the security services who remain loyal to General Sanogo. Sources investigating the case told Human Rights Watch that the bodies of at least four soldiers have been found and at least seven others have been reported missing.

Justice Ministry officials told Human Rights Watch in Bamako on October 30 that the 2013 abuses were under investigation and that they would ensure that justice is done irrespective of the rank of the alleged abusers.

“Respect for rule of law in Mali was grossly undermined by the often outrageous and violent behavior of soldiers loyal to General Sanogo,” Dufka said. “As a matter of urgency, the judge and other judicial personnel working to investigate the abuses must be ensured adequate protection.”

Friday 01 November 2013

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/11/01/mali-big-step-justice-disappearance-case

continue reading

Slow justice for Peru's disappeared

On Sundays Rubén Villanueva Toro liked to escape the small village of Buena Vista nestled high in the Andean mountains where he was a school principal. On the afternoon of March 30, 1990, he was in the nearby town of Lircay. He was near the main plaza with friends when a group of military officers stopped them and asked for their identity cards. Ruben did not have his electoral card. He was detained and taken to the military base in Lircay. "It’s just a routine detention", his friends were assured. But the hours passed, and Villanueva Toro remained in custody.

The following day, Ruben’s identity card in hand, Wilber Villanueva went to the Lircay military base to try to get his brother released. To his surprise, he, too, was arrested on the order of Army Captain Carlos Paz Figueroa, head of the base. He was savagely tortured. Released the following day, he went to a hospital to have his injuries tended to. But Wilber Villanueva got no information about the whereabouts of his brother. On the contrary, he was told by Paz Figueroa that his brother was not being held at the base.

Villanueva Toro’s relatives decried his disappearance and reported it to local and national authorities, but to no avail. He remains missing to this day.

Delayed justice

Some measure of justice was handed down on September 23, when two military officers - including Paz Figueroa, now an active-duty brigadier general - were found guilty of the crime of the forced disappearance of Villanueva Toro and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

It was a split 2-1 decision. The dissenting opinion, written by Judge David Loli Bonilla, said that contradictions in the testimonies of the eyewitnesses made conviction impossible. The two judges voting in the majority, Marco Cerna Bazan and María Vidal, following precedents in international law, argued that minor contradictions in eyewitness testimony does not invalidate the testimony itself, especially when the essence of the testimony about a human rights violation remains coherent over time.

The core testimonies of eyewitnesses, along with other important evidence, provided sufficient evidence to convict the two defendants, in their majority opinion. Two people testified that they saw Villanueva Toro being detained by the military, and a woman testified that she saw him being taken into Lircay's military base. Wilber Villanueva had the hospital records attesting to his having been tortured. That the judges considered these eyewitness testimonies as valid evidence is important; in previous rulings, other judges have acquitted military officers charged with grave violations of human rights based on tiny contradictions or discrepancies in eyewitness testimony.

Such discrepancies are in fact not uncommon in the testimonies of victims of traumatic events, as has been noted by the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. In a ruling against the state of Mexico in a case of sexual violation - Rosendo Cantú et. al. versus Mexico [Sp] - in which there were minor discrepancies in the testimony of the victims, the Court ruled that inconsistencies were to be expected in the aftermath of such traumtic events, and especially after so much time had elapsed since the occurrence of the trauma. In such cases, the Court ruled, minor inconsistencies do not invalidate the value of victim testimony when the essence of the testimony is consistent over time.

A crime against humanity

The September 23 ruling also determined that the forced disappearance of Villanueva Toro is a crime against humanity because it took place during a period of massive forced disappearances committed by security forces against unarmed civilians in the context of a counterinsurgency war against armed subversive groups. During each of the latter years of Alan Garcia’s first presidency - 1987 to 1990 - Peru registered the highest number of forced disappearances in the world, according to UN's Working Group on Enforced Disappearances.

Beyond these stultifying numbers, the verdict identifies the specific mechanisms by which crimes against humanity occurred in Peru in the 1980s and especially during the Garcia government.

Since late 1982, successive constitutional governments decreed states of emergency in conflict areas, establishing “emergency zones” that were then put under the control of the armed forces. The Working Group found that the majority of the forced or involuntary disappearances documented in Peru - primarily between 1983 and 1992 - occurred in these emergency zones, including Ayacucho, Apurimac, San Martin, and Huancavelica, where principal Rubén Villanueva Toro was last seen alive.

Also, a 1985 law decree determined that any military or police infraction would be adjudicated by military rather than civilian courts. This undermined the ability to conduct impartial investigations of accusations of human rights violations allegedly committed by security force personnel, a sure-fire way of guaranteeing impunity.

Echoing the findings of the Peru's Truth and Reconciliation Commission - whose Final Report was published ten years ago last August - the judges found that forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution, and the use of torture were “criminal acts that were perpetrated constantly” during this time period. The ruling sharply criticises the “indolence, ineptitude, and the indifference” of those who could have avoided this “human catastrophe” but chose not to.

A third presidency in 2016?

Alan Garcia has never faced criminal prosecution for the massive violations of human rights that occurred during his first presidency (1985-1990). Despite a number of on-going investigations of crimes committed during this period, he has yet to be successfully charged with any crime. In 2006, he was elected to a second term, and he is gearing up for a third term in 2016.

But things may be catching up with Garcia. One on-going case involves the murders of several regime opponents in the late 1980s by a death squad that went by the name of the Rodrigo Franco Command[Sp]. Among those on trial are Garcia’s Minister of Interior, Agustin Mantilla, and several members of his Peruvian Aprista Party (APRA) party who are accused of ordering and carrying out a number of murders. Victims included presumed members of Shining Path, but also regime opponents, including trade union leader Saúl Cantoral, who was killed in 1989.

Trials for other human rights cases from the first Garcia presidency are due to open soon, among them the 1986 Fronton prison massacre, when more than 100 inmates were executed by security forces, and the 1988 Cayara massacre, in which dozens of indigenous peasants were murdered by security forces in retaliation for a Shining Path attack on a military convoy. Several eyewitnesses to the Cayara massacre were later killed off, one by one. The state prosecutor in that case, Carlos Escobar, sought asylum in the United States when his investigations got too close to the powers-that-be.

Peru’s Constitutional Tribunal recently ruled that the Fronton massacre does not constitute a crime against humanity, but that ruling has come under fire by human rights groups for prejudging a case currently in litigation. Regardless of whether it is a crime against humanity, it no doubt constitutes a grave human rights violation, and under international law, states are obligated to prosecute such crimes and hold these responsible accountable.

No solace for families

Few want to remember the days of violence in Peru. But most of the 15,000 disappeared remain missing, and their family members are in anguish about their fate, and are waiting to bury their bodies. How much longer will Peru continue to deny them their right to truth and justice? And how long with the international community continue to ignore the very real and very present effects of this human catastrophe?

Villanueva Toro’s sister was at the hearing the day the verdict was handed down. “We still don’t know where his body is,” she said. “That is the most important thing - to find out where his body is, so we can bury him. That is our right.”

Tuesday 29 October 2013

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/slow-justice-peru-disappeared-201310278226105412.html

continue reading

Investigator makes appeal over cases of Columba McVeigh, Robert Nairac, Joe Lynskey and four other IRA victims

Time marches on but there are still people alive who must have knowledge about the seven disappeared whose bodies remain missing, says Geoff Knupfer, the English forensic scientist and chief investigator of the North-South Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains.

He wishes they would come forward.

Mr Knupfer, who was involved in the 1980s in the searches for the victims of the Moors murderers, says at least six and up to 12 people would have participated in each abduction, killing and secret burial of the disappeared. “Just to think about,” he says. “There must have been between a dozen and half-a-dozen people involved. There would be a driver, guards, people who dug the graves, often there would be pilot [scout] cars as well . . . ”

How could there not be people out there who could end the torment of the families of the victims, he wonders. Ten bodies have been recovered but seven remain missing. Of the seven, the commission has no leads on Joe Lynskey, a man in his 40s who disappeared from west Belfast in 1972, nor on Capt Robert Nairac, shot dead just south of the Border in 1977. Both were killed by the IRA.

Former monk

Mr Lynskey was one of the first of the people know as the Disappeared to be killed but was one of the last to be known about. It was only three years ago that the IRA admitted he was one of these victims.

A former Cistercian monk, he was killed because, the IRA decided, he was seriously compromised due to an alleged relationship with the wife of an IRA prisoner. While the IRA admitted the killing in 2010, the commission still has not been able to persuade former members to provide details of where he is buried. Mr Knupfer was emphatic that the body of Capt Nairac – who was killed by the IRA in Ravensdale, Co Louth – was not destroyed, as has been reported and rumoured.

“We are absolutely confident that this story of his remains being put through a meat processing factory are just pure myth. We are happy that wasn’t the case,” he says. “We are confident he is buried south of the Border and that his remains are recoverable.”

South Armagh IRA members are notorious for their reluctance to yield up their secrets. Nonetheless, Mr Knupfer appealed to their humanity: “This is not about Robert Nairac, soldier, it is too late to help him; it is about his family who are grieving just like any other family would do.”

Information had been received on Seamus Ruddy, who was killed by the Irish National Liberation Army in Paris in 1985 due to an internal feud, but it appeared to be incorrect.

“A location was pointed out to us. We searched it and not only were we able to say Seamus Ruddy wasn’t there but that the ground had never been disturbed. The assumption we draw from that is it was the wrong place,” says Mr Knupfer.

‘First-hand knowledge’

The commission is convinced that Columba McVeigh, who went missing in 1975, is buried in Bragan bog in Co Monaghan, but despite several digs since 1999 his body has not been found. Mr Knupfer wants more specific information. “We believe there are other people out there who have first-hand knowledge, and we appeal for them to come forward,” he says.

The commission also believes Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright, who went missing from west Belfast in 1972, are buried in the bog at Coghalstown in Co Meath. But, again, finding more specific information is the problem. It has “high-grade information” that Brendan Megraw, who disappeared from Twinbrook in west Belfast in 1978, was buried in Oristown, Co Meath. There is a concern, however, that due to previous bulldozing his secret grave could have been destroyed, according to Mr Knupfer.

“We know in some cases there are people alive who we have not managed to speak to us yet; for whatever reason they won’t engage with the commission. It would be helpful to speak to people with primary knowledge,” he adds. Anyone with any information is guaranteed absolute immunity and anonymity, Mr Knupfer stresses.

Tuesday 1 October 2013

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/investigator-makes-appeal-over-cases-of-columba-mcveigh-robert-nairac-joe-lynskey-and-four-other-ira-victims-1.1545312

continue reading

Georgia: Two decades later, still searching for the missing

The last time 76-year-old Venera Oshoridze saw her son, Kakha, was September 15, 1993.

A pensive 20-year-old who loved his friends, his mother’s fried potatoes, and dreamed of going to college, Kakha volunteered to fight in the Abkhaz war just days before Tbilisi lost the battle for Sokhumi on September 27, 1993.

“He wasn’t like the others. He was a quiet boy, always thinking about something,” Oshoridze said, pointing to photo of a serious young man with solemn brown eyes.

Both of Oshoridze’s sons went to war, but while her elder son returned, Kakha vanished without a trace. Like nearly 2,000 other men and women (most of them Georgian) from the 1992-1993 war between Tbilisi and separatist forces in Abkhazia, he has been missing for the past two decades.

Immediately after the conflict, Oshoridze started looking for her son, as scores of Abkhaz and Georgian parents joined forces to locate, identify and, when possible, rebury their children.

The grassroots effort, eventually led by the Georgian non-governmental organization Molodini (Expectations) and the Abkhaz NGO Mothers of Abkhazia for Peace & Social Justice, used personal connections and references from government officials to find answers.

Georgian parents like Oshoridze traveled to Abkhazia to search, learning firsthand of their children’s deaths through scraps of clothing and body remains. Working together with the Abkhaz, they unearthed and identified bodies based on fragments -- a bandaged arm, dollars folded in a pocket, the remains of a synthetic jacket.

Eventually, the bilateral search helped return 314 bodies to Abkhaz and Georgian families, according to historian Vladimir Dobordjginidze, who, together with the current Georgian state minister for reintegration, Paata Zakareishvili, was involved in the initial project.

Finding the missing and returning the dead, noted Dobordjginidze, whose son, Zura, disappeared during the fight for Sokhumi, is a non-political issue that provided a connection between Abkhaz and Georgians. “We had great contacts [with the Abkhaz],” he said. “My son died, but that does not mean I am mad at them. We met as ordinary people.”

The Abkhaz also emphasize the “humanitarian” nature of the initiative. “In the Caucasus, it’s important to go to your loved one’s grave. [It’s] like a birthday,” said Asida Lomaia, a project associate for the Mothers of Abkhazia for Peace & Social Justice. Her cousin, Arzamet Tarba, is among those missing.

“It doesn't matter what nationality -- you keep hope that they may be alive.”

The 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, which resulted in Moscow formally acknowledging breakaway Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, has complicated the search for the missing.

The last exchange, in 2006, involved the return of 62 bodies from a mass grave of 95 Georgians at Sokhumi’s Babushera Airport. (And the return of the living as well -- two young women, said Dobordjginidze).

Another two bodies from Sokhumi were sent to Georgian families “via independent channels” this spring, according to Leonid Lakerbaia, Abkhazia’s de-facto prime minister.

The 2008 war heightened the sensitivity of these joint searches for both sides, but also provided a new urgency for finding the missing. Inspired by the success of an ICRC-organized mission in breakaway South Ossetia, the Abkhaz and Georgians agreed to a Red-Cross proposal for a similar format for identifying the missing from the 1992-1993 war.

Kakhaber Kemoklidze, head of the analytical department at the Ministry of Interior Affairs in Tbilisi, said the ministry, which keeps records on missing individuals from the Abkhaz war, is willing to help efforts to locate and identify the missing. But, Kemoklidze added, it is as much an issue of trust as it is of political will.

Cooperation with de-facto Abkhaz authorities has not always been easy, Kemoklidze noted, adding that the ICRC’s role as mediators is “really important and invaluable.”

Lakerbaia agreed that the present operation would not be possible without the Red Cross’ help. “I don’t see any straight cooperation with Georgia possible,” he said, “but we have a common goal -- to find unknown remains, identify them and return them to their relatives. That’s the main task for all of us.”

Under the ICRC’s oversight, two official representatives from each side meet once a year in neutral locations, such as Istanbul, Kyiv and Yerevan, to compare and exchange lists of names and information on gravesites. The information includes how bodies were buried, their condition, and the names of any witnesses of the death or burial.

Agreement now has been reached to continue the search at Sokhumi’s Glory Park, where the bodies and remains of 63 unknown individuals are buried. The ICRC recently sent DNA samples from this first batch of remains, exhumed by Argentine forensic scientists, to Zagreb, Croatia for comparison with DNA from families of the missing. Russia, which has troops stationed in Abkhazia, is not involved in the process.



Meanwhile, the families wait. “The exhumation process for many mothers is a starting process of non-acceptance to acceptance. The families need some sense of closure,” said Khatuna Logua, a psychologist at the ICRC office in Sokhumi.

Psychological counselling for these families, whether in Sokhumi or Georgian-controlled territory, has not been an official priority. “Some people don’t want to believe their relatives are dead,” said Logua. “You hear people talk of fantasies of secret prisons [containing the missing] on both sides.”

So far, noted Oshonidze and other Georgian parents, time has worked against identification efforts. Surviving family members of the missing have died or moved, taking with them vital information that could help identify bodies.

For Georgian pensioner Tristin Andriadze, whose son, Konstantin, went missing in October 1993, the only hope is that families on both sides will be given another chance to find their loved ones. “After so many years, it is likely they are dead, but, in my heart, I still have hope that something will be found; at least, where they were buried,” he said.

Saturday 28 September 2013

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67558

continue reading

U.S. migrants' DNA could help ID missing Guatemalans

Aracely Garrido returned to her native Guatemala last month to bury one of 13 family members who disappeared during the country's decades-long civil war and was identified years later through DNA from surviving relatives.

The 55-year-old tax preparer now living in a Los Angeles suburb is among a small group of Guatemalan immigrants in the area who have given DNA samples in hopes of finding loved ones who vanished during the fighting from 1960 to 1996. Many more soon will be able to do the same as forensic experts who run a Guatemalan lab that matches victims' remains to the living are expanding their outreach to Guatemalans abroad.

"Being able to find him was at least some relief," Garrido said of her cousin, a construction worker and political activist who she said was seized by authorities along with his teenage son.

She hopes the Forensic Anthropology Foundation will locate the remains of her other missing relatives, many of whom were targeted by the government because they were politically active.

"It is important to clarify the past, to try to find out the truth. That will at least give us a personal sort of peace," she said.

For the last two decades, the foundation has exhumed the remains of victims from mass graves. More recently, it has searched for victims of "forced disappearances" carried out by wartime governments by matching DNA from the remains of unidentified victims found in military installations and cemeteries with samples from living relatives.

More than 7,000 survivors have given DNA samples, including about 20 Guatemalans in Los Angeles when foundation members made a brief trip here last year, said Fredy Peccerelli, the organization's executive director and a Guatemalan who grew up in New York.

The move to expand efforts abroad comes as the Guatemalan conflict takes center stage in a California courtroom. The trial and its intersection with the DNA program underscore that while the conflict that killed an estimated 200,000 people has ended, the effects of the war endure for survivors.

While ex-military personnel have been convicted in recent years in Guatemala of atrocities committed during the war, one of the country's former soldiers is preparing to stand trial in the U.S. on charges of lying on his American citizenship application about his role in one of the era's most violent episodes — a massacre that killed more than 200 people in the village of Dos Erres in 1982.

One of the key witnesses for the U.S. government's case against former special forces commander Jorge Sosa is Oscar Ramirez, a Guatemalan immigrant living in Framingham, Mass., who learned two years ago — through the DNA program — that he had been seized as a toddler and raised by one of Sosa's comrades after nearly his entire family was killed in Dos Erres.

Sosa, 55, was arrested in Canada last year and extradited to the U.S. to face charges of lying on his naturalization application. His trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday in Riverside, where he lived.

Federal prosecutors say Sosa was one of the commanders of a special patrol that descended upon Dos Erres on Dec. 7, 1982, and oversaw the killings. Men, women and children were bludgeoned with a sledgehammer, their bodies falling into a well. Sosa fired a rifle and threw a grenade into the well to kill any victims who were still alive, according to federal court filings.

While he is not being tried for war crimes, the case is expected to include testimony from former members of the Guatemalan special forces and survivors of the conflict, including Ramirez.

If convicted of making a false statement and procuring naturalization unlawfully, Sosa also could face up to 15 years in prison. Federal prosecutors also want to strip Sosa of his American citizenship, something that could pave the way for his return to Guatemala.

A spokesman for Guatemalan prosecutors says they will seek to extradite Sosa to face charges for "crimes against humanity."

While the trial will bring Guatemala's gruesome past to an American courtroom, 50 miles away in Los Angeles, Peccerelli will be continuing his work to bring closure and answers to survivors.

He hopes Ramirez, who will also speak with community members about the DNA program, can help win the trust of Guatemalans still scarred by the war. Since learning his true identity, Ramirez met family he never knew he had — including his father, who was not in Dos Erres the day of the massacre — and obtained political asylum to stay legally in the U.S., something his lawyer, Scott Greathead, said might be a possibility for other survivors.

Monday 23 September 2013

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/migrants-dna-id-missing-guatemalans-20334605

continue reading

Plea to continue Disappeared search

The struggle to find the bodies of seven people abducted and murdered by the IRA has been passed to a new generation, campaigners said.

Relatives of the Disappeared will gather for a ceremony on Saturday near where one of the victims is thought to have been secretly buried in the Irish Republic. Catholic Bishop of Meath Dr Michael Smith will lead prayers.

Newlywed Brendan Megraw, 23, vanished from West Belfast in 1978, and is believed to be interred near Kells, Co Meath.

Sandra Peake, chief executive of the Wave trauma group, said: "The journey of the families of the Disappeared will not end until they all can take their loved ones home.

"Many of the mothers of the Disappeared put their son's name on the family headstone, in effect passing on the responsibility for continuing the search to the next generation.

"We owe it to those mothers to do everything we can to end this torment."

Between 1972 and 2003, 17 people have been acknowledged as "disappeared" during the conflict, having been kidnapped, murdered and disposed of in unmarked graves by republicans. The remains of 10 bodies have been recovered.

As well as Mr Megraw, at least two other bodies are thought to be buried in Co Meath. Kevin McKee and Seamus Wright were taken from West Belfast in 1972 and searches have been carried out at Wilkinstown, a short distance from Oristown where Saturday's prayers will be said.

Saturday's event is organised by the Wave Trauma Centre, a charity which supports those bereaved or injured during the conflict.

Mr Megraw's brother Kieran will attend Saturday's ceremony along with members of the families of the Disappeared.

"All of the families have embraced the Good Friday Agreement and the newfound peace that has been created," he said.

"We have moved on with our lives as best we can but this nightmare doesn't go away. For us to fully move on we need to bring the bodies home and we will continue to fight until that happens."

Saturday 21 September 2013

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/plea-to-continue-disappeared-search-29591822.html

continue reading

Human rights group: Thousands of N. Korean prisoners 'disappeared' from gulag

Tens of thousands of North Korean prisoners have “disappeared” from an enormous gulag situated in a region where there were known food shortages, prompting fears that they may have starved to death before it closed last year, according to a human rights think tank.

Camp 22, a vast labor camp that sprawled across 700 square miles –- making it larger than Los Angeles –- used to hold around 30,000 prisoners, the Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Human Rights in North Korea (HRNK) said in an August report entitled, "North Korea's Hidden Gulag: Interpreting Reports of Changes in the Prison Camps."

But that dwindled to only 3,000 in the months before its closure at the end of 2012, it said. At around the same time there were reported food shortages in the area, raising the possibility that large numbers of inmates starved to death, according to investigators from HRNK.

Defectors told them that as many as 8,000 prisoners may have been transferred to other camps, leaving a shortfall of up to 22,000 -- and there are no suggestions that any inmates were released, according to the report.

"North Korea's 2009 currency devaluation (whereby camp authorities were reportedly unable to purchase food in markets to supplement the crops grown in the camps), combined with bad harvests, resulted in the death of large numbers of prisoners after 2010," it said.

The report details the situation in penal colonies called kwan-li-so -- literally translated as “managed places” -- as Kim Jong Un consolidated his power after taking over as leader from his father, Kim Jong Il, who died in 2011.

HRNK, which gathers information from defectors, including former guards and survivors of prison camps, as well as examining satellite imagery, is demanding an inquiry into the fate of the prisoners.

"If even remotely accurate, this is an atrocity requiring much closer investigation," concluded the report's author David Hawk, a former United Nations human rights official and executive director of Amnesty International USA.

HRNK co-chair Roberta Cohen echoed his appeal. "An accounting of the fate and whereabouts of all of North Korea’s political prisoners, including those missing and those who have died in detention should be of highest priority to the U.N. commission of inquiry and the entire international community,” she said in a statement.

"International arrangements should be negotiated for the entry of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) into the camps,” she said.

Prisoners at Camp 22 mined coal that was shipped to the Chongjin thermal power plant to provide electricity for the Kimchaek steel mills. The camp also had extensive collective farm areas for growing corn, potatoes, beans and numerous vegetables, according to the report.

But while satellite imagery shows that some activity farming and mining activity remains in the area, it stated that it is considerably smaller than in years gone by.

The report disclosed that two camps have been closed in the past year but that up to 130,000 individuals are still being held in penal labor colonies.

"They are deemed 'wrong-thinkers', 'wrongdoers', or those who have acquired 'wrong knowledge' or have engaged in 'wrong associations,'" it said.

"Through this vast system of unlawful imprisonment, the North Korean regime isolates, banishes, punishes and executes those suspected of being disloyal to the regime," the report added.

Detainees are "relentlessly subjected to malnutrition, forced labor, and to other cruel and unusual punishment", the report said, with thousands more forcibly held in other detention facilities.

Some are held under the yeonjwa-je system, a “three generation, collective punishment system,” which can see children held because of the “real, suspected or imagined” political disloyalty of the grandfathers or fathers.

Activists say that as many as 40 percent of the male, female and child inmates die of malnutrition, while others succumb to disease, sexual violence, torture, abuse by the guards or are worked to death. Some are required to work for up to 16 hours a day in dangerous conditions, often in mines or logging camps.

Saturday 7 September 2013

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/06/20353287-human-rights-group-thousands-of-n-korean-prisoners-disappeared-from-gulag?lite

continue reading

Enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka

As the world marks the International Day of the Disappeared today the London based human rights group Amnesty International (AI) called on the government to investigate thousands of cases of enforced disappearances reported in Sri Lanka.

According to AI, in Sri Lanka, some 12,000 complaints of enforced disappearances have been submitted to the UN since the 1980s – making it second only to Iraq. But it says the actual number of disappeared is much higher, with at least 30,000 cases alleged up to 1994 and many thousands reported after that.

“The number of disappeared people in Sri Lanka is astounding. The government has to stop making empty promises and once and for all seriously investigate the tens of thousands of cases of enforced disappearances,” said Yolanda Foster, Amnesty International’s Sri Lanka expert.

This year’s Day of the Disappeared coincides with the visit of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to Sri Lanka. She met the family members of some of the disappeared.

Amnesty International has documented several new case studies of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka that have never been published before.

On 26 July 2013, the Sri Lankan government announced that it will establish a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to look into enforced disappearances from the final years the conflict (1990-2009), but AI says there are questions about the commission’s independence from the government.

Similar commissions appointed in the past have accomplished very little and some have had close ties to the authorities, undermining their independence. There have been ten commissions on disappearances since the early 1990s, but their recommendations have largely been ignored, and few of the many alleged perpetrators they identified have been brought to justice.

During the final bloody months of the armed conflict in 2009, thousands of people disappeared after their arrest or capture by the Sri Lankan security forces or abduction by the Tamil Tigers. Very few of those cases have been resolved. In addition there has been blatant intimidation reported against families and others seeking to take remedial action.

The Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) gives the security forces wide powers to arrest suspected opponents of the government and detain them incommunicado and without charge or trial for long periods – conditions which provide a ready context for deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture.

Victims and their relatives have faced enormous difficulties in seeking redress. Hundreds of relatives have filed habeas corpus petitions in an attempt to trace ‘disappeared’ prisoners but the procedure has proved slow and ineffective.

Friday 30 August 2013

http://colombogazette.com/2013/08/30/ai-tells-lanka-to-probe-missing/

continue reading

Enforced disappearances still an appalling reality in the Americas

Enforced disappearances in the Americas are not only an inheritance of the dark past of the authoritarian governments of the 1970s and 80s, but also an appalling ongoing practice, Amnesty International said as it marked the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances.

“In Colombia and in Mexico, the authorities aren’t facing up to a serious ongoing problem of enforced disappearances,” said Guadalupe Marengo, Amnesty International’s Americas Programme Director.

“Both countries’ governments are failing to effectively investigate these cases and bring those suspected of criminal responsibility to justice. This impunity only fuels new enforced disappearances, as the perpetrators believe there are no consequences for their actions.

Meanwhile in other countries in the region – including Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, Peru, El Salvador, Guatemala and Haiti – thousands of people are still missing decades after internal conflicts and political repression.

“For truth and justice to prevail, it’s absolutely essential that the victims’ relatives find out the whereabouts of their disappeared loved ones,” said Marengo.

“Each person matters. Within the horrific figures of thousands of disappeared, lies the pain and trauma of the relatives searching for their loved ones.”

Mexico

In Mexico, more than 26,000 people were reported missing or disappeared between 2006 and 2012 – many at the hands security forces or criminal gangs. The almost complete failure to investigate most cases has prevented the true number of enforced disappearances, in which public officials are implicated, from coming to light. However, the National Human Rights Commission is just examining 2,400 ongoing cases of enforced disappearances.

In a report launched last June, Amnesty International documented more than 85 emblematic cases of enforced disappearances out of 152 cases of people reported disappeared or abducted.

“Impunity remains almost total and, in spite of repeated promises from the authorities, the search for the victims is still ineffective. The Mexican government does not seem to be really committed to end enforced disappearances,” said Rupert Knox, researcher on Mexico for Amnesty International.

“The authorities are keen to blame criminal gangs for all disappearances, ignoring their direct responsibility to prevent and punish the cases in which public officials are implicated and their obligation to investigate all cases before ordinary civilian courts. The relatives of the disappeared are frequently denied any information and families are often forced to carry out their own investigations at great personal risk. It is the brave and constant demands of relatives for truth and justice, that keeps the flame of hope alive,” said Knox.

In the northern city of Nuevo Laredo alone, four people disappeared in the space of six days from 29 July-3 August this year after marines stopped and detained them at different checkpoints around the city. Despite eyewitness testimony confirming the detentions, the naval authorities continue to deny responsibility for the disappearances and the government has done nothing to locate the victims.

Colombia Colombia’s long-running internal armed conflict has left at least 25,000 victims of enforced disappearances in its wake since 1985. According to official figures, there were more than 190 suspected cases in 2012.

“Enforced disappearances carried out by paramilitaries and the security forces, either acting alone or in collusion with each other, have been a hallmark of the country’s 50-year-old armed conflict, and many cases continue to be reported,” said Marcelo Pollack, Amnesty International researcher on Colombia.

“Very few of the perpetrators have ever been brought to justice. Recent legislative measures to broaden the scope of military jurisdiction are likely to make it even harder to bring to justice those suspected of criminal responsibility for human rights abuses, including enforced disappearances.”

Both Mexico and Colombia have ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance but have failed so far to recognize the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances to receive and consider individual complaints, placing in doubt their commitment to uphold their treaty obligations in practice.

In other countries across the region, enforced disappearances are no longer as prevalent as in the past, but they do still happen.

Brazil

In Brazil, the whereabouts of Amarildo, a bricklayer from Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro’s biggest favela, are still unknown after he was detained by police officer on July 14 after he was reportedly mistaken for a wanted drug dealer. Several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International have denounced his disappearance.

Police say he was released after a criminal records check, but none of his relatives or friends have seen him since, and surveillance cameras installed near the entrance to the police station recorded Amarildo’s entry, but not his exit.

Dominican Republic

The case of Juan Almonte in the Dominican Republic is as emblematic as Amarildo’s, but older and more complex. An accountant and a member of the Dominican Committee of Human Rights, Almonte was last seen on 28 September 2009, when witnesses say he was detained by police officers while walking to his office in Santo Domingo.

The police have always denied arresting him and the authorities have not complied with repeated calls from the Inter-American Commission and Inter-American Court of Human Rights to investigate his case. Following his disappearance, his relatives and lawyers reported being monitored by police, both in cars and in the street in front of their houses. Juan’s sister also received anonymous telephone calls asking her to stop publicizing her brother’s disappearance.

Friday 30 August 2013

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/enforced-disappearances-still-appalling-reality-americas-2013-08-29

continue reading

Nepal marks Int'l Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

Nakkali Budhamagar had given birth to her first child, when the ‘people’s war’ was launched in Rolpa in 1996. She was so focused on raising her child that she hardly noticed the rebellion around her. It was only when her husband Buddhiman, a school teacher, was interrogated by security forces on charges of being a Maoist sympathiser that they decided to move to Kathmandu in 2003.

Buddhiman left for Malaysia after that. However, when he returned in 2005, he could not make it beyond the airport. His whereabouts remain unknown to this day.

Nakkali’s story is one of the 932 cases (INSEC data) of disappearance during a decade-long Maoist insurgency. According to a report of the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) released on the eve of the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances on Thursday, about 90 percent of the missing are males, while 66 percent of them were married when they disappeared.

Seven years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), the government has not made public the whereabouts of the missing. Although families of the disappeared find the government’s interim relief package ‘ridiculous,’ the bankrupt wives of the missing men are left with no option but to accept it. “I had to take the money despite that fact that I lost my husband. It was never a bargain for money but the state treated like one,” she says. “Accepting the amount was painful, but I had no other option.”



The CPA had committed to make public the whereabouts of the disappeared within six months of the signing of the accord. However, nothing of that sort has happened so far. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) identified 846 cases of disappearance s and recommended the government take action, but in vain.

The bill for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was brought in through an ordinance. However, that too landed into controversy for failing to meet international standards. Legal experts and rights activists say the bill is fraught with problems.

A group of victims jointly filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court in March, challenging the ordinance. Among other things, they demanded that the provision of blanket amnesty on serious human rights violations be scrapped. The SC has postponed hearings on the case five times.

International rights institutions, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights‚ Human Rights Watch and International Commission of Jurists, have already objected to the ordinance.

“We are not hoping for anything to happen from the government side as the chief justice himself is the executive head,” says Ram Kumar Bhandari, founder of the National Network of Families of Disappeared and Missing. Bhandari’s father was detained and disappeared by the state in 2001. “The government has violated our cultural rights and snatched away our dignity by not making public the whereabouts of our family members,” he says.

While the families of the disappeared are in a limbo as they don’t know whether they should be performing the last rites of their loved ones, this fact has exposed women in particular to abuses and social discrimination.

The ICTJ report says that the wives of the disappeared are considered neither ‘wives’ nor ‘widows’ and that they lack a ‘recognisable social status’ in Nepali society.

“It is hard to accept that my husband is dead until I see his body,” Nakkali says.

Transitional Justice Advocacy Group, a loose network of NGOs, INGOs and victims’ groups actively working in the field of human rights and transitional justice, is organising a series of programmes to commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances. Through the programmes, it plans to raise awareness on the issue of enforced disappearance s.

“Political parties tried to protect their interests instead of protecting the rights of the victims,” NHRC member Ram Nagina Singh told an interaction organised by the NHRC here on Thursday.

And now with the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, there is no parliament to discuss the non-compliance of recommendations made by the NHRC to take action against those responsible for the disappearances, Singh said.

Friday 30 August 2013

http://ekantipur.com/2013/08/30/headlines/Disappeared-mens-wives-bearing-the-brunt-Report/377222/

continue reading

In Kashmir, 'half-widows' suffer in silence

Forty-year-old Haleema Begum was once a proud and happy homemaker, but now she lives on the support of her parents and neighbours.

Haleema became a half-widow 12 years ago when her husband, Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat, was abducted by gunmen. Half-widow is a term used to describe the women whose husbands are missing in Jammu and Kashmir.

According to the Association of Parents of Disappeared People (APDP), more than 8,000 people have gone missing in J&K during the last two decades of turmoil. “One morning he left home to drop tiffin box at his brother’s shop. But he never returned. He was abducted by masked gunmen and taken to unknown place. For 12 years we have been going from pillar to post but to no avail,” Haleema told dna.

Tragedy struck again for Haleema when her son fell from a tree some years later. “We could not afford Rs25,000 for his surgery and that is why his arm has been permanently dislocated. We have no means of livelihood. My husband had surrendered and joined police as an SPO. He was the breadwinner. Now we are living on the support of my parents and villagers,” she added.

Similar is the story of Riyaz Ahmad Mir, who has not given up his fight for justice for his father Ghulam Mohammad Mir, a government employee. Mir was picked up from his home by the security forces 16 years ago. “We have filed a case. Insha Allaha we hope justice will be done,” said Riyaz.

On the International Day of Disappeared (August 30), human rights activists have demanded naming and shaming of those responsible for the disappearance of people. “The institutional culture of institutional culpability and impunity has resulted in enforced and involuntary disappearance of at least 8,000 persons. This is a crime against humanity. The government of the day is also complicit in this crime against humanity,” Khurram Parvez, Programme Coordinator, J&K Coalition of Civil Society.

“Almost 7,000 unmarked graves have been discovered in five districts so far. But the government is not willing to conduct DNA test of the bodies. Therefore on this day we not only want to show solidarity with victims but also press for justice to these victims,” Khurram added.

Friday 30 August 2013

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/1881810/report-in-kashmir-half-widows-suffer-in-silence

continue reading

30 August: International Day of the Disappeared

The International Day of the Disappeared (30 August) is a reminder that a great number of people are missing as a result of conflicts around the world.

Each year, on this day we commemorate those who have gone missing in armed conflicts or other situations of violence – and remembers the plight of their families.

The impulse for the day came from the Latin American Federation of Associations for Relatives of Detained-Disappeared (Federación Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares de Detenidos-Desaparecidos, or FEDEFAM), a non-governmental organization founded in 1981 in Costa Rica as an association of local and regional groups actively working against secret imprisonment and forced disappearances in a number of Latin-American countries.

Work on secret imprisonment is an important part of the activities for a number of international bodies and organizations in the fields of human rights activism and humanitarian aid, including for example Amnesty International (AI), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The International Day of the Disappeared is an opportunity to highlight these institutions' work, increase public awareness, and to call for donations and volunteers.

Of those agencies, the ICRC has additional privileges due to its special status as a non-governmental sovereign entity and its strict policy of neutrality. In some cases, the ICRC is the only institution granted access to specific groups of prisoners, thereby enabling a minimum level of contact and inspection of their treatment. For affected families, messages transmitted by the ICRC are often the only hint about the fate of these prisoners.

Visiting those detained in relation to conflicts and enabling them to maintain contact with their families, is a very important part of the ICRC's mandate. But the definition of the Missing or the Disappeared goes far beyond the victims of enforced disappearance. It includes all those whose families have lost contact as the result of conflicts, natural disasters or other tragedies.

These missing may be detained, stranded in foreign countries, hospitalized or dead. Through its tracing services and working with the 189 national Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies around the world, the ICRC seeks to obtain information about their fate on behalf of their families. It reminds governments and other groups of their obligations to respect the families' right to know the fate of their loved ones. It also works with families of the missing to help them address their particular psychological, social legal and financial needs.

Imprisonment under secret or uncertain circumstances is a grave violation of some conceptions of human rights as well as, in the case of an armed conflict, of International Humanitarian Law. The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted a Declaration on the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearance as resolution 47/133 on December 18, 1992. It is estimated that secret imprisonment is practiced in about 30 countries. The OHCHR Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances has registered about 46,000 cases of people who disappeared under unknown circumstances.

“Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are separated from loved ones in such situations,” said Marianne Pecassou, the head of the ICRC team dealing with the missing. “The families will tell you that what they need more than anything else is to find out what happened to the person who vanished – unfortunately, in too many cases, that question may never be resolved. But they also have other needs that go far beyond this.”

Sometimes the needs stem from legal issues relating to the unresolved status of the missing person. These issues can involve such matters as inheritance, property, marital status or even the custody of children. There can also be financial needs caused by the costs involved in searching for the missing relative or in supporting the family if the person who disappeared was a main breadwinner.

However, as Milena Osorio, the ICRC’s mental health and psychosocial support adviser explains, there are often huge psychological needs as well. These can involve emotional isolation, feelings of guilt, anger, depression or trauma, and tensions among family members or with members of their communities. “The families of missing people frequently find themselves grappling with uncertainty. Most societies have religious or cultural rituals to deal with death,” said Ms Osorio, “but there is very little to help the families of missing persons.”

According to sources, more or less 2,300 persons a day have been missing throughout the world. The status of such person is unknown whether they are alive or dead.

Nothing yet has been effective enough since the laws and jurisdictions are complex ones. In some countries, facilities have been given to post the photographs of missing persons on websites, bulletin boards, milk cartons and postcards.

United Nations in its website claims that enforced disappearance is used as a tool for spreading terror within the social circles. Today, entire global community is affected because of the disappearing. Today it is largely used as a ploy to suppress the opponents of the political parties.

The families which suffer from the dilemma of enforced disappearances without a death certificate or dead body. These pacts of Silence, an unspoken agreement among those involved in the disappearances are done in various countries including Chile.

“Families have the right to know what happened to missing relatives. To find that out is their primary need, but further needs must also be addressed by governments and by organizations such as Red Cross or Red Crescent societies,” said Ms Pecassou.

On 30 August, the International Day of the Disappeared, the ICRC will unveil a publication entitled “Accompanying the Families of Missing Persons: A Practical Handbook,” which is intended to help those within and outside the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement who strive to assist the families of the missing. The 154-page manual is dedicated to “all those who have to endure the anguish caused by the disappearance of a loved one.”

The new publication complements the familylinks.icrc.org website launched last October by the ICRC to help people find missing relatives. The website also provides information on Red Cross and Red Crescent services that help people restore contact with family members in countries around the world.

“In the 10 years since the 2003 International Conference on Missing Persons and their Families, we have developed a much deeper understanding of the wide range of needs of these families,” noted Ms Pecassou. “We understand that our response to those needs, if it is to be adequate, must be holistic and multi-disciplinary. We are hopeful the new manual will provide guidance in that direction.”

In Armenia, the ICRC continues to provide the families of the missing with material assistance via micro-economic projects, such as the distribution of livestock or house renovations. Together with local partners, the ICRC also provides psycho-social support to the families, helping them to cope with the trauma of their loss.

Friday 30 August 2013

continue reading