Implementation

In both contexts the research was carried out in similar fashion, with a period of developing an interview instrument in an iterative way with family associations, followed by months of data gathering. The participatory element was integrated from the start of the research, with contact being made with family associations and efforts made to determine how they felt the research could aid them. In both cases, advocacy with the authorities was identified as the families‟ priority and from that point the researcher worked with associations to advance that goal, with the research a collaborative exercise.

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Families were met for interview, most often with a member of a family association. The aim of the research, and in particular its advocacy goal, was explained to families with the assistance of the family association members, and their consent sought for participation in and recording of the interview and focus groups, subject to the maintenance of the confidentiality of the participants. Consent to record was refused on two occasions, where notes were taken by hand. In only two cases did families decline to be interviewed.25 The recording of the interview or focus group discussion was then translated into English from the original language by a research assistant and transcribed for analysis. The texts emerging from the translation and transcription process were analysed together with the researcher‟s field notes of all interviews and focus groups, by the researcher himself. These texts were iteratively coded for analysis by both frequency of topic data and for selection of relevant text segments. Some months after the research, the report of the findings was published and the results taken back to family associations for discussion. The impact of the research on policy in the two states is discussed in Section A4.5.

The collaboration with the ICRC was valuable in terms of aiding access to victims, both physical and otherwise, and in permitting an outlet for dissemination of the research findings that satisfied victims‟ desire to see the authorities informed of their needs. The ICRC provided vehicles for field work and financial support that allowed this project to have a far greater scope than would have otherwise been possible. Use of the ICRC lists and access to the most remote parts of the two contexts permitted a representative sample of victims to be met. The ICRC gave additional credibility to efforts to advocate with the authorities on the basis of the research results, far beyond that of a graduate student; as an institution the ICRC took on board the implications of the data in those contexts studied and more broadly for its work with the Missing.

Nepal

Following the 2-month participatory research design phase, data collection took place over a 4-month period (June – September) in 2008. The vast majority of families were visited in their homes, and some (in Kathmandu) at their work places. The logistical challenges were considerable: in some areas families could only be reached by walking

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These two families were in Dili, Timor-Leste, with relatives missing from the violence of 1999. They had been repeatedly interviewed by rights agencies seeking their testimony and were frustrated at the lack of results of this contact.

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for days, or by travelling by motorbike or bicycle. The researcher led all interviews and focus groups. A research assistant, whose role was to interpret both linguistically and culturally, accompanied the researcher in almost all interviews. Interviews were conducted in Nepali, Tharu and Maithili26 languages, and so assistants were drawn from the appropriate communities, with women used where possible. All focus groups contained or were accompanied by a member of the family association that had assisted in its organisation, and a minority of interviews with families also included a family association representative.

The ICRC report was published in Nepali and English in May 2009 (ICRC, 2009) and launched in a ceremony in Kathmandu in which the Chair of the Constituent Assembly Human Rights Committee formally received the report on behalf of the Government (NepalNews, 2009). Representatives of all family associations who had taken part in the research joined the ceremony and gave moving testimony on the impact of disappearance on them and their families.

Timor-Leste

The research was conducted over a 5 month period (May – September, 2009). The study was somewhat less participatory than that in Nepal as a result of the fact that only two of the districts visited had an active Family Association. Families were largely visited in their homes, and focus groups organised by both the family associations and local community leaders in highly impacted areas. Interviews were conducted in Tetun (the most widely spoken language of the country, spoken by the researcher), Portuguese and Fatuluku (the language of the eastern district of Los Palos), with a female research assistant whose brother had been missing since 1983 following arrest by Indonesian authorities. Most interviews were made without the presence of a family association representative.

The ICRC report of the research findings was published in May 2010 in English, Tetun, Indonesian and Portuguese (ICRC, 2010a), with the report presented to the Foreign Minister of Timor-Leste in a public launch ceremony that was also attended by

26

Tharu is the language of the indigenous Tharu people who constitute the largest single indigenous group in the plains of Nepal; Maithili is one of the languages of the Madeshi community of the plains, people considered to be of recent Indian origin.

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the Chair of the Parliamentary committee drafting legislation to address the Missing issue (see Appendix IV).