Confronting the Complexity of Loss

women and fourteen men, and included sixteen Sinhalese, ten Tamils and six Muslims.
The sex or ethnicity of participants, however, was not representative of their respective
sex or ethnic group; it is appreciated that the sample is too small to extrapolate
conclusions based on sex or ethnicity. The aim in applying such criteria was simply to
ensure that the research sample broadly captured perspectives of victims and survivors of
specific events that took place in Sri Lanka during the past three decades. Third,
participants were selected according to their geographical origin. The selection aimed to
cover as many districts as possible and included Colombo, Gampaha, Galle, Hambantota,
Anuradhapura, Kandy, Ampara, Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mannar.
Additionally, two focus group discussions were conducted. The first involved eight Tamil
women from the Eastern Province, who had lost their spouses during the war, and the
other involved four Sinhalese women and a Sinhalese man based in the districts of
Hambantota and Kandy, who lost family members during the JVP insurrection.
A semi-structured interview guide was used to extract two types of data. First,
participants were invited to recollect their experiences and personal stories of violence
and loss. These stories were documented as factual accounts—or witness testimonials—
and are presented in narrative form. Second, participants were invited to offer their
observations and opinions on six key areas relevant to truth, memory and justice:
1. The overall context of their loss i.e. loss of family members and property
2. Their own actions and behaviour both during and after they encountered loss
3. The importance of telling others about their experience
4. The importance of memorialising
5. Their conceptions of justice and the importance of identifying and prosecuting
perpetrators, and their attitudes on forgiveness and tolerance
6. Future prevention of violence in the country
This study is subject to four limitations. First, the sample size is small; the study is
therefore not intended for the purpose of reaching broad conclusions about the opinions
of victims and survivors with particular profiles. Instead, it is meant to enable the
examination of specific cases for the insights they offer. Second, all except two
interviews were conducted in Sinhala or Tamil. Thus certain nuances in the participants’
recollections, observations and opinions could have been lost in the process of translating
the original interview transcripts and analysing responses. Third, the scope of the study in
terms of timeframe is limited (i.e. all events considered took place after 1983). A more
comprehensive study on truth, memory and justice may need to take into account the
views of a wider cross-section of Sri Lankan society and extend the period of review to
include pre-1983 incidents. Finally, the study proceeds on the presumption that
participants offered truthful and accurate accounts of their experiences, and that their
observations and opinions were genuine. It is noted that memory is often malleable and
subjective. In this context, it must be appreciated that the accuracy of recollections may
vary; in fact, victims and survivors are often observed to produce different accounts of
their experiences at different points of time. The analysis of responses in this study relies
on such accuracy despite the fact that independent verification—particularly of anecdotal
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