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The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus Example Maria Ktori1,2,3* and Gülseren Baranhan4

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The Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus Example Maria Ktori1,2,3* and Gülseren Baranhan4 Ktori and Baranhan Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences (2018) 8:25 Egyptian Journal of https://doi.org/10.1186/s41935-018-0057-7 Forensic Sciences REVIEW Open Access Development and future perspectives of a humanitarian forensic programme: the committee on missing persons in Cyprus example Maria Ktori1,2,3* and Gülseren Baranhan4 Abstract Background: In 1981, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus (CMP) was established with a clear purpose: to determine the fate of the missing Greek and Turkish Cypriots who disappeared during the periods 1963–64 and 1974. Following many years of investigations and negotiations, such as on a mutually agreed list of 2001 missing persons (493 Turkish Cypriots and 1508 Greek Cypriots), the CMP officially began its operational phase in 2006 with a small number of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot scientists. Methods: This paper presents and analyses the development of the programme, the ways of providing assistance to other countries, and how the programme has influenced local and regional capacity. To do so, the authors performed qualitative and quantitative analyses to assess the programme accurately (annual staff numbers, annual excavations, exhumations and identifications, applied field and lab methods, internship and training programmes). Conclusions: The results show that the CMP has established a successful humanitarian programme, serving as a model for cooperation in a post-conflict environment. Since 2006, the team of scientists has grown in both numbers and experience, while the CMP has developed into a key player in the field of human identification that is able to provide expertise and technical assistance at a regional level. Ultimately, the authors were able to elucidate the current prospects and future perspectives of the programme to provide a holistic view to readers. Keywords: Missing Persons, Cyprus, Identification Programme, Humanitarian Forensics Background criminal cases was a real breakthrough in the 1980s as Alex The forensic sciences can be defined as the unification of Jeffery’s work on the mammalian myoglobin gene cluster different and vibrant disciplines employed in resolving legal and its individuality was employed in solving a double rape cases (Ubelaker 2015), and their defining principle is “the murder case in Britain (James and Nordby 2003). situation where the dead teach the living” (Rathbun and Physical anthropology played an important role from Buikstra 1984). The origins can be traced back to the inception of the field of forensic sciences (Snow 1982). sixteenth-century medical research on the cause and man- The role of physical anthropologists quickly expanded into ner of death in military operations, but it was not until the identification process of the dead during times of war, 1832 that scientific techniques were applied by James thus raising the visibility of anthropology in the forensic Marsh in solving a murder case of arsenic poisoning; this community (James and Nordby 2003). The dawn of the was the first true forensic sciences case. Developments in twentieth century witnessed two of the most serious con- the field continued and the application of DNA analyses for flicts in human history, the First and Second World Wars. The World Wars had international influence, and it is not accidental that the first investigation of war crimes oc- * Correspondence: [email protected] curred after the end of World War I, at the 1919 Versailles 1Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK 2University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus Peace Conference (La Haye 2008). Full list of author information is available at the end of the article © The Author(s). 2018 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Ktori and Baranhan Egyptian Journal of Forensic Sciences (2018) 8:25 Page 2 of 12 Despite the severity of the two World Wars, the for- Methods mation of international tribunals, the United Nations This paper presents a succinct overview of the CMP’s resolutions on the definition of missing person, enforced project, from its foundation until today. To do so, the disappearances were only recognised as a crime against authors performed the following: humanity in 2002 (United Nations 1998). Considering the importance of the matter, the forensic a) Archival research regarding the specific historical sciences, particularly forensic anthropology, have been background related to the CMP; employed in human rights investigations. Such investiga- b) Review of international forensic programmes to tions have gone beyond the missing in armed conflicts and present and contextualise the CMP case; developed further within the framework of political violence c) Qualitative analysis of the project’s establishment (Fondebrider 2015). The military dictatorships of 1980s and development (2006–16), with the involvement Latin America gave the necessary impetus for the formation of organisations such as EAAF; of the Equipo Argentino de Antropología Forense (EAAF, d) Qualitative and quantitative analysis regarding the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team) (Doretti and scientists employed by CMP, as well as the field and Snow 2008). The Argentinean efforts gained international lab operations; acclaim and raised awareness of such problems to the de- e) Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the CMP’s gree that more forensic investigation teams were established internship and training programme; in other countries. These international teams were also ac- f) Overview and discussion of the CMP’s public tively involved in the establishment of reliable and rigorous outreach on a local and international level. procedures (Fondebrider and Scheinsohn 2015), developed by forensic experts to provide protocols in the collection of A decade of humanitarian forensics in Cyprus forensic evidence so that the perpetrators could be prose- The inter-communal fighting in 1963–64 and the events cuted (Ousley and Hollinger 2012). of 1974 left Cyprus in disarray and mourning for the The 1990s Balkan crisis and Yugoslav Wars resulted in missing. The numerous missing persons were an import- the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal ant issue from 1974 onwards. The two communities for the Former Yugoslavia, which initiated a large-scale conducted a series of talks during 1975–77 and negoti- intensive investigation of mass graves, with significant ated further during 1977–81. The result was the estab- contributions by the Physicians for Human Rights lishment of the CMP in 1981 (United Nations 1981), (Fondebrider 2015).(Fondebrider and Scheinsohn 2015) which became the first committee in Cyprus, jointly run Shortly afterwards, in 1999, the International Commis- by Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots under United sion on Missing Persons was established and acquired Nations auspices. the necessary forensic capacity to identify more than The CMP consists of three members: the Greek Cypriot 15,000 missing persons since then (Tidball-Binz 2012). and Turkish Cypriot communities are each represented by As in the case of the Latin American forensic identifica- a Member appointed by their respective leaders, while the tion programmes, their European counterparts were Third Member is nominated by the International conducted for legal purposes, aiming to identify and Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and is appointed by prosecute the perpetrators of such crimes. the UN Secretary-General. The Committee Members Cyprus suffered from inter-communal fighting in make decisions on the basis of consensus, and the 1963–64 and the events of 1974, which left the island mandate clearly states the CMP’s humanitarian mission scarred and Cypriot families seeking answers for the (Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus 2015a). One fate of more than 2000 missing persons. Between the should note that the Committee will never seek or attri- years 1974 and 1977, the fate of the missing persons bute responsibility for the death of a missing person or was an important discussion point in a series of inter- the circumstances of their death. It will, however, as stated communal meetings on the problem. During the next in Article 13, make every effort to compile a comprehen- 3 years (1977–81), the negotiations continued in sive list regarding each community’s missing persons, spe- Nicosia, Geneva and New York with the aim to es- cifying, as appropriate, whether they are alive or dead and, tablish the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus in the latter case, the approximate time of death. (CMP). The United Nations General Assembly After its establishment in 1981, the two communities Resolutions issued in 1975, 1977, 1978, 1981, and focused on the investigative part regarding the missing, 1982 are indicative of the importance of establishing aiming to compile a common official list of the disap- such a body. The CMP was ultimately founded in peared. The CMP list was agreed upon in the late 1990s April 1981 under the aegis of the UN. Its unique and includes 2001 missing persons (493 Turkish nature as a humanitarian forensic programme has a Cypriots and 1508 Greek Cypriots). The leaders of the singular local, regional and international impact. two communities reached an agreement in 1997
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