Confronting the Complexity of Loss

consequences come in this life itself), consequences will come upon them some
day.
The identity of perpetrators was explored next. At the outset, it was important to
understand whether the precise identity of perpetrators mattered to the participants.
Participants were divided on this issue; some stated that the identity mattered to them,
while others remained disinterested or ambivalent.
Certain participants maintained a strong interest in knowing the identity of perpetrators.
This interest cut across participant profiles. For instance, several focus group discussants
from Kandy and Hambantota stated that they wanted to know who precisely abducted
and killed their family members during the JVP insurrection. One participant from
Panwila, who lost her brother during the JVP insurrection, stated that she wished to know
the identity of ‘those who committed these crimes.’ Similarly, a number of focus group
discussants from the Eastern Province, whose spouses went missing during and after the
war, maintained that they wished to know the parties responsible—mostly to discover the
whereabouts of their missing spouses.
By contrast, certain participants did not display an interest in knowing the identity of
perpetrators. Some participants who lost relatives during the JVP insurrection maintained
that the precise identity of those responsible did not matter to them. They observed that
knowing the identities of the perpetrators would not return their family members;
therefore, such knowledge was not important. Similarly, participants whose sons were
killed in action stated that the identity of the individual who killed their son was not
important in the context of a war.
Certain participants, while maintaining that perpetrators must be brought to justice,
remained ambivalent with regard to the precise identities of individual perpetrators. This
contradiction of sorts, once unravelled, revealed that a number of participants in fact
wished to see institutional responsibility—accountability at the ‘decision-making’ level.
Two female participants who lost their children during the final stages of the war stated
that they believed that the government was responsible, and that the identities of
individuals who carried out any orders was of no consequence to them. One claimed that
the Army was responsible since ‘everybody knows’ it was the Army that arrested her
daughter who subsequently disappeared. According to these participants, the blame for
their losses should be placed on high-ranking officials, including the President at the
time. One of the participants then made the following remarks:
As important as a father is in a family, a country’s President is also important. He
must treat everybody in the family equally. We were not respected as citizens of
this country; instead we were oppressed. He controls the government. Therefore,
he is the one responsible. The people who took my husband were the Navy. Is
not the Navy a part of the government?
Similarly, a number of participants blamed the LTTE for their loss. Two categories of
participants emerged in this regard. One group blamed the LTTE for the forced
recruitment of their family members, which eventually led to their death or
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