Confronting the Complexity of Loss

disappearance. One participant recalled the circumstances in which her husband
disappeared and the implicit responsibility of the LTTE:
During the conflict, we told [the LTTE] to allow us to go to the Army to
surrender, but they did not allow us. My daughter vomited blood because she had
dysentery. Even when we told the movement this, they did not allow us to go to
the Army side. Had they allowed us, we would have escaped with my husband
still alive. The Army also moved forward to capture positions. [The LTTE] could
have allowed the people to escape. We were depending on the movement. In the
end, I managed to leave the areas controlled by the movement. But [my husband]
paid with his life.
This participant felt that her husband would have stood a greater chance of surviving had
they crossed voluntarily to Army-controlled areas at an earlier stage. Instead, only she
and her children crossed over, leaving her husband behind. She explained that it was at
that stage that the security forces captured her husband, who later disappeared.
The other group blamed the LTTE more directly for the loss they had suffered. In these
cases, the LTTE had been responsible for either expelling the participants from their
homes, or causing the deaths of their family members due to bombings or raids. Yet some
of these participants appeared to be disinterested in learning the precise identities of the
LTTE members who had perpetrated the forced conscriptions or killings. One Muslim
participant stated that the organisation as a whole betrayed the Muslim people and were
directly to blame for their predicament today:
We were of great help to the LTTE while they fought for our rights. Some of our
people then betrayed the LTTE. But [the LTTE] did not realise that all Muslims
are not like them. We have even offered food to the LTTE. Even though they
carried out some injustices, their cause was just. Therefore, the LTTE is
[ultimately] responsible for expelling us from our own village, while we were
living together.
The accountability of individual personnel or cadres carrying out orders appeared to be
less important to many participants. In fact, some participants speculated that the actual
individuals who perpetrated the killings might no longer be living. One participant who
lost family members during an LTTE raid observed that the particular cadres had been
hiding in the Wilpattu forest during the time. She speculated that these cadres must have
been killed or captured, as none of them were in the area now. Similarly, a number of
participants who suffered at the hands of security forces during the final stages of the war
stated that holding inquiries to investigate the actions of low ranking individuals was
inadequate. One such participant claimed:
The government is neglecting those responsibilities. You can understand this
because of their current actions. You can also understand this because of the
fake investigations they are holding to please the international community.
Two approaches to the accountability of perpetrators emerged from the views of
participants. First, a clear desire for perpetrators to be identified and punished was
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