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

Abstract

There are two key limitations to the literature that explores the relationship between truth and closure in post-violence societies. The first is that this relationship has mostly been assessed as part of a larger debate focusing on the links between the truth and the seemingly related concept of reconciliation. The second is that to the extent the literature has dealt with the connections between truth and closure as such, it has almost exclusively focused on the operations and effects of courts and truth commissions. The article addresses both limitations by examining the relationship between truth and closure through the prism of a different institution, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus. Relying on 34 in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, including relatives of missing persons on the island, it argues that the Committee’s delivery of the truth has promoted closure in three distinct ways. At the same time, it acknowledges that the way in which and the type of truth that is being delivered can have detrimental consequences to the promotion of closure. A short video summarising the findings of this paper is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2kvP08xkKU&t=1s