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Unearthing the Truth: The Politics of Exhumations in Cyprus and Spain

Iosif Kovras
Online Publication Date: 01 December 2008
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History and Anthropology,
Vol. 19, No. 4, December 2008, pp. 371–390
Unearthing the Truth: The Politics of

Exhumations in Cyprus and Spain
Iosif Kovras
0IosifKovras
ikovras01@qub.ac.uk
00000December
History
10.1080/02757200802611688
GHAN_A_361336.sgm
0275-7206
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Taylor
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Francis 2008
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Contrary to the experience of other countries with memories of clandestine violence and
“missing persons”, where the mobilisation of the (civil) society towards “truth recovery”
was immediate and pivotal, the societies of Cyprus and Spain remained silent for a remark-
ably long period of time. This article aspires to explain the reasons why both Cypriot
communities and the Spanish society did not manage, until recently, to comprehensively
address—not to mention resolve—the problem of “missing persons”. The recent emergence
of the “politics of exhumations” in these two countries, which highlight issues related to
truth recovery and collective memory, renders the attempt to respond to the question of why
these processes are taking place only today even more stimulating.
Keywords: Truth Recovery; Exhumations; Historical Memory; Cyprus; Spain;

Contentious Politics
In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.
Federico Garcia Lorca
Introduction
The recent exhumations of mass graves in Cyprus and Spain present some puzzling
questions and significantly challenge the theoretical assumptions of the literature on
truth recovery. On the one hand, Cyprus has been a divided island since 1974, with no
official settlement of the conflict, while a founding ideological tenet of both communi-
ties is the “selective memory” of their traumatised past (Papadakis 1993). On the other
Iosif Kovras is a Ph. D. candidate at Queen’s University, Belfast. Correspondence to: Iosif Kovras, School of Poli-
tics, International Studies and Philosophy, 21 University Square, Belfast, BT7 1PA, Northern Ireland, UK; Email:
ikovras01@qub.ac.uk
ISSN 0275–7206 print/ISSN 1477–2612 online/08/040371–20 © 2008 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/02757200802611688
372 Iosif Kovras
extreme, Spain achieved a political settlement since the death of the dictator Franco
(1975) which was established upon the “institutionalised pact of oblivion” concerning
the civil war, delineated in the dictum “forgive and forget” (Preston 1996). Despite
these contextual differences, over the last years, both countries are experiencing a radi-
cal breakthrough through exhumations of mass graves from the Spanish civil war
(1936–1939) and the two waves of violence in Cyprus, that is the bicommunal hostili-
ties (1963–1964) and the subsequent Turkish invasion (1974). Contrary to the experi-
ence of other countries with similar memories of clandestine violence and “missing
persons”, like Argentina, Guatemala and Chile, where the mobilisation of civil society
towards recovering the truth (bodies of the victims) was essential and followed imme-
diately after the transition, the societies in Cyprus and Spain remained silent or
selectively vocal for a remarkably long period.
Some puzzling questions unavoidably arise:
(1) Why have these processes remained dormant for so long?

(2) Which conditions explain the recent demand for truth-recovery and the subse-
quent emergence of the “politics of exhumations”?
(3) When is a society emerging from a conflict ready to face its violent past and what is
the source of “truth-seeking”?
The central objectives of this article are to highlight these questions by emphasising on
the limitations of the relevant literature to address the questions at hand and, then, to
provide certain hypotheses to unwrap this puzzle.
The article is divided in four sections. In the first section a brief historical overview
of the two cases at hand is provided. The second section focuses on the question why
the demand for truth was minimal for such a long period of time. This section’s objec-
tive is to “unveil” the rationale behind the construction of the “pact of oblivion” and
the “selective memory” over the past, in Spain and Cyprus respectively, which subse-
quently did not permit inconvenient truths about the past to be acknowledged. The
third section of this paper provides a critical review of the literature on truth recovery
and transitional justice, underlining the limited analytical insights offered to provide a
coherent explanation to the questions at hand. Simultaneously, an argument is put
forward to overcome this limitation by incorporating analytical tools from the litera-
ture of “contentious politics”. The last section, framed in terms of contentious politics,
presents an array of possible factors that triggered or facilitated the recent demand for
truth recovery. An argument will be put forward that similar factors—although of
different gravity in each case—paved the way for the exhumations, in specific, and
truth recovery, more generally.
Spain and Cyprus in Context

Almost 70 years after the conclusion of the Spanish civil war (1936–1939), the debate
over “dealing with the past” has never been more heated. Reflecting this debate, one of
the central questions that divides contemporary Spain, revolves around the possibility
of exhuming the remains of Federico Garcia Lorca, the famous poet and playwright
History and Anthropology 373
who was executed during the Spanish civil war and left in an unmarked mass grave
(Gibson 1979). The recent wave of exhumations that have taken place throughout
Spain made the prospect of tracing the remains of Lorca more possible.1 However this
prospect invigorated a heated debate between the family of Lorca (opposing the exhu-
mation and re-burial because they want him to rest in peace) and some leading intel-
lectuals who insist that the execution of the poet symbolises a repressive era and as such
his exhumation will not only symbolically expose this repression but most importantly
will detach the country from this legacy (Tremlett 2003: 17). The debate has been
heated because it epitomises one of the central dilemmas dividing present-day Spanish
society: should the country put forward a process of “unearthing” the truth and histor-
ical memory related to the civil war or should the society continue to live under the
rubric of “forgive and forget”, in view of an impending societal backlash? This is the
typical dilemma that societies emerging from conflict face. However, it is remarkable
that it took almost seven decades for the Spanish society to even put this question on
the agenda. Consequently, these processes of exhumations gave rise to more funda-
mental debates about the past, collective memory and truth recovery.
Lorca has been merely one among the approximately 200,000 casualties of the Span-
ish civil war, many of whom were executed away from the battlefields and left buried
in unmarked mass graves (Salvado 2005: 188). The number of civilians lying in such
graves is estimated to be approximately 30,000 (Davis 2005: 861). The legacy of the civil
war had such a traumatic impact on the society, that even today the topic is reluctantly
discussed. Besides, the fundamental tenet of the transition to democracy was the
“gentlemen’s agreement” between the moderate segments of both the Franco regime
and the opposition, to “forgive and forget” the crimes committed—by both camps
during the civil war—as was exemplified in the “pacto del olvido” (pact of forgetting)
(Aguilar 2005), but this “institutionalised pact of silence” concerning the violent past
has recently been challenged.
Although both camps involved in the civil war adopted terrorist tactics that
tarnished the social fabric,2 there is a remarkable unevenness in the official acknowl-
edgement of the suffering caused by the civil war. Immediately after the conclusion of
the war, the victims of the winning side received official reparations and their suffering
was publicly acknowledged, while the “rojos” victims and their needs were never
addressed. An illustrative example of this “uneven acknowledgement” was the denial
of the Aznar government to finance the exhumations of the mass graves throughout
Spain containing the remains of those executed during the civil war, whereas almost
concurrently assumed the cost of exhuming and repatriating the remains of the
members of “Division Azul” (Blue Division) that fought during World War II alongside
the Nazis in Russia (Tremlett 2004: 4).
Only 70 years after the end of the civil war and 30 years after the transition to democ-
racy did Spaniards express vigorous interest in exhuming the remains of those buried
in unmarked graves and more generally debating the “past” related to the civil war. These
processes of grave-digging were initiated by a social movement (Association for the
Recovery of Historical Memory—ARMH), formed in 2000, with the very specific objec-
tive of unearthing the remains of the victims lying in unmarked graves but also the more
374 Iosif Kovras
ambitious goal of generating a public debate over the past and “recovering historical
memory” (Ferrandiz 2006: 8). The work of the association has been very efficient and
by 2005 more than 300 mass graves had already been re-opened and many individuals
have been identified and properly buried (Tremlett 2006: 23). Simultaneously, at the
level of collective/social memory, a wave of re-remembering and breaking the “pact of
silence” was launched. This vigorous interest over the past was translated in best-selling
books, documentaries, artistic exhibitions with primary themes the civil war and the
stories of those who remained silent for so long (Black 2008: 230).3
Eventually, the mobilisation of civil society and the revival of public interest in issues
orbiting around the civil war succeeded in inserting the debate into the political arena
since, in October 2007, the Socialist government passed the “Law on Historical
Memory”, which satisfies most of the demands of the petitioners. The most important
provisions of this law consist of the declaration of the military tribunals that
condemned innocent people to death as illegitimate; financing the process of exhum-

ing mass graves by state funds; banning of public symbols that commemorate Franco
and his allies and turning the “Valley of the Fallen” into a monument to all casualties
of the war;4 and finally opening-up archives of the military (Crawford 2007: 26).
Almost simultaneously, similar processes of exhumation of mass graves and more
generally efforts towards recovering truth and historical memory, were underway in
another country of the Mediterranean. In Cyprus, during the two “waves” of the
conflict, that is the bicommunal hostilities (1963–1964) and the military coup against
the President of Cyprus (1974) which was followed by the Turkish invasion, approxi-
mately 2000 persons have been declared “missing” from both communities (Sant
Cassia 2006a: 195). Taking into consideration the relatively small population of the
island (792,600), this situation practically affects a significant number of families on
both communities. The problem of “missing persons” constitutes one of the most
emotionally charged issues of the “Cyprus conflict”. Despite the humanitarian texture
of the issue; the fact that the Cyprus conflict has remained in a “frozen” status for more
than 30 years; and the rigorous involvement of the UN—with the establishment of the
bicommunal “Committee for the Missing Persons” (CMP) in 1981—until very
recently, there was not even a single grave dug because of the lack of bicommunal trust
and cooperation. Paradoxically, three months after the failed referenda for the reunifi-
cation of the island (2004) at a time when bicommunal trust has reached a nadir, a
bicommunal agreement was reached which strengthened the role of the CMP and
rekindled the hope that some missing persons would eventually be exhumed and prop-
erly buried. In fact, over the last years the CMP has managed to exhume 412 individu-
als, and identify 85 victims (CMP 2008).
Subsequently, a quite perplexing puzzle is underway. In a UN survey in 2007 both
Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities (GC and TC) expressed their positive
stance—91% and 74% respectively—towards the operation of the CMP (UNFICYP
2007). This begs the question of why no development on resolving the problem of the
“missing persons” took place before. Similarly, how the most stagnant issue (“missing
persons”), in Cyprus over the last decades, transformed into the most successful bi-
communal project immediately after the failed referenda (2004), amid the morbid
environment of mutual distrust and non-cooperation, remains a mystery (Kaymak
2007). This is particularly so taking into consideration that there was valid information
that a number of unmarked and common war graves existed at cemeteries within the
jurisdiction of the GC community (Hazou 2006; Paraschos 2000: 2).
Spain, presents some equally stimulating puzzles. Although, “digging the past”
before the death of Franco (1975) was not a realistic alternative/expectation, such an
activity did not follow the transition to democracy. Of course, the literature elucidates
the reasons why Spanish society consented to the “pact of oblivion” and to some extent
provides a convincing explanation to this question. However, there is no sufficient
explanation as to why this “pact” is fundamentally questioned today, after so many
decades, and most importantly why this challenge is put forward by a grassroots move-
ment? Furthermore, how should someone explain the fact that during the 14 consecu-
tive years of socialist government in Spain (1982–1996)—which supposedly possessed
a more accommodating profile on issues related to the civil war—did nothing to

acknowledge the past, while it was only under the rightist government of Aznar that the
first step was taken towards condemning the Franco rebellion against the Republic as
illegitimate (Ferrandiz 2006: 10)?
Thus, the two case-studies act as “agents provocateurs”, since there is no convincing
theoretical explanation why these societies delayed so noticeably in “unearthing” their
(buried) past. Contrary to other countries’ experiences of clandestine nature of the
crimes committed (death squads, disappeared, mass graves), such as Guatemala and
Argentina, and the subsequent demand for truth emerging from civil society, the soci-
eties in Spain and in Cyprus did not manage to comprehensively unwrap the problem
at any time before.
Cultures of Victimhood and Inconvenient Truths

The time is ripe to outline the conditions that prohibited any noteworthy development
for so long. An inclusive response would be that the official discourse/representation of
the past was so well-established in both cases that it did not permit “inconvenient
truths”.
“La Transición” to democracy, in Spain, was established on the widespread consen-
sus to forget the past and focus on the future and the upcoming economic develop-
ment (Preston 1996: 2). Any attempt to comprehensively address the legacy of the civil
war, either through retributive measures or through an official acknowledgement of
the suffering of the losers, would have upset a significant segment of the military that
remained powerful and therefore would have set a serious threat to the nascent democ-
racy. In essence, although there was an even distribution of shame and pain between
winners and losers, for many years following the termination of the civil war there was
a remarkably uneven distribution of acknowledgement of suffering of the “rojos”
victims. Even left wing parties perceived the families looking for the remains of
their relatives as an obstacle to the highest priority—the restoration of democracy—
and therefore any truth was thoroughly buried. This was also reflected in the refusal
of the socialist government to sanction any official commemoration of the fiftieth
376 Iosif Kovras
anniversary of the Civil War in 1986. Another indication reasserting the existence of
this societal consensus is that “in none of the four elections held between 1977 and
1986 did parties of the extreme left or right gain more than 3 per cent of the vote”,
denoting the popular will to avoid any course of action that could derail the path
towards stability and democracy (Preston 1990: 41). Indeed, Spaniards are still very
proud of the surprisingly successful transition to democracy. Furthermore, the preva-
lent feeling of “shame” concerning the past misdeeds, pervading all layers of the
Spanish society, considerably restrained any effort to “exhume the past” (Aguilar 2005:
149; Tremlett 2006: 19). Finally, the extremely prolonged duration of the Francoist
authoritarian regime weakened the influence and cohesion of civil society which might
partly explain why any truth recovery process emerging from the “bottom” was impos-
sible before (Encarnación 2001: 62).
The social representation of victim groups as “moral beacons” and the subsequent
instrumental exploitation of their suffering to construct “cultures of victimhood”

constitute central features of most societies emerging from communal violence
(Smyth 2007: 76). It is worth mentioning how the number 1619—denoting the
number of GC missing persons—became an emblematic case of “victimhood” for
the GC community, as illustrated in the seminal work of Paul Sant Cassia. The most
striking illustration of the manipulation of the issue is that over the period 1981–
1999 although the names appeared on the list of missing persons were sometimes
different, the overall number/symbol remained intact, 1619 (Sant Cassia 2007: 51).
The case of the GC missing persons became a central political symbol of the “culture
of victimhood”, which was very difficult to renegotiate (Demetriou 2006: 303). The
TC official discourse on the topic is considerably different, since they originally
perceived their “missing” to be dead and martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the
nation, while the vast majority of the TCs went missing during the bicommunal inci-
dents of violence in 1963–1964. Despite these differences, the TC official discourse
has equally employed the number “803”—denoting the forcibly disappeared—for
propagandistic reasons. As Sant Cassia stresses “the case of the Missing has been
used as a mirror of the barbarism of the Other, a means whereby each side has
constructed an image of victimhood for dubious propaganda purposes, and a justifi-
cation of the maintenance of an unyielding stance in negotiations” (2006b: 116).
Someone can also point to the fact that the case of missing persons has attracted
much international sympathy for the GC cause and the “blame game” against
Turkey, and subsequently became a very convenient policy tool to be discarded
(Stephen 1997: 47).
Apart from this legitimising function of the issue of missing persons, namely the
exploitation of the issue in order to reassert the social representation of GCs as
“victims”, there is another even more thorny aspect that leads to an alternative expla-
nation to the question why—at least in the south—the demand for “truth” was mini-
mal all these years. As previously mentioned, almost at the same time that the
Spanish society was signing the “pact of oblivion”, the GC community has been
constructing its own “veil of silence” surrounding the military coup that overthrew
the legitimate government and—to a large extent—triggered the Turkish invasion.
The same (pragmatist) rationale dictated the decision to “forget the past” related to
these events in both Cyprus and Spain.
More specifically, the GC community reached a subtle consensus to “remember” the
trauma caused by the Turkish invasion (missing persons, displaced, occupied territo-
ries) and to “forget”/“bury” behind this “grant narrative” the more divisive legacy of
intra-communal violence related to the military coup. This societal decision is perfectly
depicted in the renowned phrase of Makarios that he was ready “to offer an olive
branch” to those involved in the coup (Time 1974). By opening up this chapter of intra-
communal (vertical) violence would have subsequently opened the “Pandora’s box” of
all sorts of disturbing questions related to the atrocities committed by the “coupists”
against members of the same ethnic group (leftists) but also the same sort of questions
would have resulted in a revisionist debate concerning the activities of EOKA (the
Greek paramilitary group) during the “national struggle”. Subsequently, opening this
box would have seriously de-legitimised the official discourse of “victimhood” that
preached the monopoly of suffering reserved for the members of the “in-group” and
the view of paramilitary groups, EOKA B and TMT (the Turkish group), as saviours
(Kaymak 2007: 77).5 Eventually, a truth recovery would have disrupted the “discourse
of self-righteousness” (Papadakis 1993).
Therefore, from a more refined point of view, if we shift the focus of analysis from
“horizontal” (inter-communal) violence toward “vertical” (intra-communal) violence
within the GC community, we will find many similarities with the Spanish case.6 In
both cases, there was a consensus that the new polity (Republic of Cyprus and Spanish
Democracy) should be founded on the “silence” related to the past, translated in blan-
ket amnesty, while the suffering of the victims of internal violence (predominantly
from the Left) was never acknowledged. Furthermore, the parties of the Left never
forcefully demanded a public acknowledgement of this suffering—although for differ-
ent reasons in the two cases—and only recently, when the two Leftist parties—AKEL
(the Progressive Party of the working people of Cyprus) and PSOE (Partido Socialista
Obrero Espanol, the Spanish Socialist Party)—seized power has such a demand become
more articulate. Finally, the demand over the recovery of historical memory has
emerged almost concurrently in the two societies.
Any public truth recovery process, taking place in a post-conflict setting—especially
when instigated by grass-roots associations put forward an “alternative version of the
past” that seeks to accommodate/acknowledge the suffering of the victim groups
(Brewer 2004). In essence, truth recovery processes challenge the Manichean views that
inform the collective identities in post-conflict contexts and as such it was extremely
difficult to challenge these well-established symbols before.
Only recently have “uneasy” questions begun to be addressed publicly in both soci-
eties: how many were the casualties of the coup (1974)? What is the precise number of
missing persons as a result of the violence that accompanied the coup? Is it “treason”
or an obligation of the state to commemorate those dead soldiers of the “National
Guard” who served their military service during the days that the coup lasted? In Spain,
too, for the first time disturbing questions come to the fore: should the Catholic
Church make a public apology for backing Franco’s crusade against “communists”
378 Iosif Kovras
during the civil war? What happened to those children who were stolen from their
families by the Francoist regime, so as to be raised according to the values of the
regime?
So, the question that naturally emerges is “why are these questions emerging today?”
Before proceeding to that part, though, it might be worth briefly diverting our atten-
tion to what the literature has to say on the questions at hand. Does the literature on
truth recovery and transitional justice provide an adequate analytical framework so as
to provide a theoretical explanation to the conditions that facilitated the final outcome?
“Tackling the Past”: A Survey of the Literature

There is a consensus that a society emerging from conflict in its effort to “deal with the
violent past” should respond to two crucial questions. The most fundamental one
revolves around the decision of “remembering” or “forgetting” the past (Forsberg

2003: 68). This question is pivotal, because—to a large extent—it determines the
response to the second question, related to the selection of the most appropriate policy
tools to address the violent “past” (Popkin and Roht-Arriaza 1995), namely, a potential
decision to “remember” the past will be accompanied by policies of accountability and
acknowledgement, such as trials, truth commissions, lustration and material repara-
tions to the victims. On the contrary, a societal decision to “let bygones be bygones”
will be translated into “amnesia” and “blanket amnesties”.
The focus of this review shifts on the first question (remembering or forgetting?)
because it has always been a subject of debate by human societies emerging from
“collective traumas” (Cohen 2001).7 The response to this question is vital for any soci-
ety emerging from conflict since to a large extent determines the fundamental tenets
upon which the new “social contract” will be established, such as the values that bind
the society together, social memories and collective identities. The central divide that
cuts across the relevant literature, is between “Realist” and “Idealist” responses to the
question at hand.
“Idealists”
“Idealists” insist that tackling the past is a moral imperative, and they frame this
imperative in terms of “right of the victims to know the truth”. The justification of this
right is founded on both deontological and consequentialist grounds. The “right to
truth” constitutes a fundamental emerging principle of International Law (Mendez
2006: 117). It is not a mere coincidence that over the last decades, NGOs tend to frame
their discourse in terms of “truth as a human right” (De Brito et al. 2001: 29). The
concept of public acknowledgement of the undeserved suffering of the victims is non-
negotiable and occupies a central position in the literature (Biggar 2003: 3; Hayner
2002). Any concession related to the public acknowledgement of the suffering of the
victims, is perceived as “impunity” (Mendez 2001: 32).
The conception of “public acknowledgement” has been critical in order to justify the
right of the victims to know the truth in consequentialist terms too. To be sure, truth
recovery is seen as both a moral imperative and the best means to achieve peace, stabil-
ity and reconciliation for the nascent polity (Kiss 2001). The rationale behind this
instrumental argument is that the establishment of truth and justice as acknowledge-
ment of the suffering of the victims will educate the citizenry and prevent the reoccur-
rence of the atrocious acts in the future.
Despite the fact that framing truth recovery process in terms of “rights” has been the
prevailing view over the last decade—especially after the establishment of the ICC, the
two ad hoc international tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia and the numer-
ous rulings recognising the “right to truth”—some scholars remain sceptical about the
feasibility of this endeavour. More precisely, those adopting a “realist” attitude, validly
ask: “if, in fact, a justice process is necessary for peace, then how do we explain the
numerous cases in which peace has been consolidated but no justice of any kind has
been pursued?” (Mendeloff 2004: 368). The cases of Mozambique and Spain reaffirm
this argument (Snyder and Vinjamury 2004: 6). Furthermore, Mendeloff underscores
that “armed with the knowledge of the genocide committed against them, is it really
surprising that Tutsi have carried out bloody reprisals against Hutus in Rwanda? Are
we to believe that more truth, rather than less, will moderate Tutsi animosity? Some
societies that have chosen amnesia rather than truth-seeking in the aftermath of
violent conflict have avoided the kind of bloodletting that has wrecked Rwanda”
(2004: 371). Indeed, “Idealist” responses cannot explain how the societies of Spain and
Cyprus, although they never underwent a truth recovery process and more generally a
comprehensive management of their past—contrary to the assertions provided by
“Idealists”—not only achieved remarkable social, political and economic progress, but
also became significant members of the most prestigious international clubs. So, let
me now turn to the other strand of the literature to examine whether it provides more
insightful analytical tools.
“Realists”
The central argument put forward by realists underlines the “causal relationship”
between truth recovery and destabilisation of societal peace. There seems to be a
consensus in the literature that negotiated transitions are particularly fragile (Licklider
1995). Therefore in the aftermath of an ethnic or civil conflict, a rigorous accounting
of the past violations of human rights may provoke a violent backlash by the “spoilers”
who perceive any truth recovery process to be a threat and unjust scapegoating
(Newman 2002; Vinjamuri and Snyder 2004: 353).
This is not to say that “Realists” oppose any accounting of the past. Rather, the
essence of their argument is that the decision over the management of the past should
be based on the “political judgment” of the idiosyncratic conditions surrounding a
given society emerging from a conflict and, as such, it is only when these circumstances
are favourable that a rigorous truth recovery process should take place (Nino 1991:
2622; Zalaquett 1991: 1429). The key variables in any such decision are, first and
foremost, the relative strength of the groups in the post-conflict balance of power; the
duration and the intensity of the conflict, which is closely associated with the level of
380 Iosif Kovras
Table 1. Idealists vs realists
Idealists Realists
Point of reference Individual Society

Priority Justice Peace/stability
Truth (a) An end in itself (justice) Triggering instability
(b) Means to an end (promoting/
strengthening reconciliation and peace)
divisive memories; and finally the nature of the settlement (outright victory, negotiated
agreement, settlement imposed by the international community) (De Brito et al. 2001:
13; Huntington 1995; Lie et al. 2007: 9; Zalaquett 1995).
Table 1, summarises the main tenets of both idealist and realist perspectives on truth
recovery. The major points of divergence between these two approaches are the distinct
objectives they set and the different point of reference. “Idealists”, by framing truth
recovery as a “sine qua non” precondition for any transition, prioritise justice and the
right of the individual. By contrast, “Realists” set as first and non-negotiable priority
the societal peace and stability, which subsequently indicates that they put the society
at the epicentre of their analysis. The other significant point of deviation is that scholars
of the latter viewpoint insist that the decision over whether to remember or forget is a
“political decision”, which has to take into consideration the societal context of the
transition. Subsequently, they are “flexible” enough to adopt policies like “collective
amnesia” and amnesties if the pursuit of truth and justice endangers the overarching
objective of societal stability (Mendeloff 2004).
Therefore, according to this consequentialist rationale, sometimes it is better to
“forget”, first because in the vast majority of civil wars both government and opposi-
tion forces have committed atrocities (Huntington 1995); second, because many
people and groups share the guilt for the atrocities committed; additionally sometimes
amnesty and selective amnesia is a solid twin-foundation upon which to establish the
new democratic polity (Lanegran 2005: 113); because there is a pragmatic necessity to
re-integrate the perpetrators in order to reconstruct the bureaucracy and the society at
large; while finally, someone might point to the Orwellian notion that “the past”
constitutes a politically charged concept per se and therefore the struggle over it will
always be divisive.
Consequently, “realists” argue that truth recovery “can take root only in a society
that is sufficiently stable and reconciled […] the first responsibility of an incoming
democratic government is therefore to preserve its still-fragile regime from any test
likely to produce a resurgence of civil violence” (Feher 1999: 326). However, here
creeps the central paradox of any truth recovery initiative from the realist perspective:
“where and when it is easier to bury the past is where and when it is less important to
do so. On the contrary, where these ‘past accounts’ are of greater weight and of more
recent origin and involve a wider spectrum of persons it is more difficult and dangerous
to collect them” (O’Donnell and Schmitter 1995: 58). This assertion seems to be reaf-
firmed by the Spanish transition when the quest for dealing with the past was vital but
at the same time out of question, so long as the intensity of violence and the subsequent
divisive memories of the civil war forbade any consideration of comprehensively
delving into the past. In the same vein, this (realist) rationale dictated the decision of
Archbishop Makarios, in 1974, to follow the “olive branch” policy, by granting a blan-
ket amnesty to those involved in the military coup against the Republic of Cyprus. That
decision institutionalised the amnesia covering the intra-communal aspect of the most
turbulent period for the island and even today remains a “taboo topic” of public
enquiry (Papadakis 1993). As many supporters of that decision insist, any policy of
accountability would have brought the GC community at the brink of a renewed civil
war. Therefore, the only realistic alternative was to “let bygones be bygones”.
Thus, it seems that the explanatory value of this—latter—strand of the literature
could be of more use in explaining the lack of demand for truth and the recovery of
historical memory in the cases at hand. However, a more thorough view would reveal
that in reality the analytical tools provided by the established literature are quite
limited, so long as they can neither provide a convincing explanation to the question
why these processes are taking place today (what changed?), nor to the intellectually
more stimulating question of when a society emerging from conflict is eventually
“ready” to “delve into its painful past”. Therefore, the literature is well suited in
predicting that post-conflict societies where there is either a tacit consensus at the elite
level to “tackle the past” (South Africa) or where the transition is caused by the
complete collapse of the former regime (East Germany) or, finally, cases where there is
an proactive involvement of the international community (Bosnia, Rwanda), truth
recovery mechanisms will ensue. But how are we to explain cases such as Cyprus and
Spain, where there is neither vigorous foreign involvement, nor elite consensus
towards recovering the truth about the violent past? To be sure, when and by which
social forces should we expect a demand for truth in instances where the “silence” over
the past is “institutionalised” (Spain) or when the founding tenet of the collective iden-
tity is that of “selective remembering” of the past and subsequently the demand for
truth recovery is minimal at the elite level? Which is the threshold that a society should
reach in order to evade the threat of instability and start “facing the past”? How these
claims eventually enter the contemporary political debates in Cyprus and Spain? These
are pressing questions that cannot be convincingly accommodated within the theoret-
ical “paradigm”. Taking into consideration the centrality of non-state groups in these
processes, I suggest that borrowing certain insights from the literature of contentious
politics might help us elucidate the “opportunities” offered to these groups.
Why Contentious Politics?

The cases of exhumations of mass graves in Cyprus and Spain are chosen as represen-
tative examples of post-conflict “truth recovery”. The architects of these processes
should be perceived as truth seekers par excellence. As Marie Smyth aptly remarks
“truth tellers … are a threat to politicians because they have the power to disrupt hege-
monic versions of truth, which are often implicated in the ‘war by other means’” (2007:
175). This passage reveals that the central feature of any truth-seeking initiative in the
382 Iosif Kovras
aftermath of a violent conflict—when Manichean views prevail—which is challenging
the official/dominant discourse. However, challenging the authorities is perhaps the
most recognisable characteristic of contentious politics too (Tarrow 1998:2). More
precisely, the literature of contentious politics emphasises the strategies employed by
non-state groups lacking institutional, material or logistic resources in their effort to
promote their cause which—usually—fundamentally challenges the authorities
(McAdam et al. 1997: 143; Tarrow 1996; Tilly 1984). Consequently, I suggest that
inserting the analytical perspective of contentious politics into the truth recovery and
transitional justice literature will enrich our analytical toolkit in order to respond to the
questions at hand, because it elevates the role of non-state actors, which is downplayed
by both “schools” of the established literature.
In order to explain why these processes occur only today, we should be able to eluci-
date which conditions facilitated the fruition of the long-term struggle of certain social
groups, associations or even individual citizens. Therefore it is of vital significance to

assess the structural and transitory conditions exploited, from the domestic and inter-
national environment that facilitated the fruition of the efforts of these players. For all
these reasons, I suggest that using the analytical insights provided by the literature of
“contentious politics” will enrich our understanding of truth recovery processes in
post-conflict societies.
Hence, taking into consideration that there is “no magic moment or “readiness” for
truth recovery, but rather that the conditions are constructed rather than spontane-
ously occurring” (Smyth 2007: 3), the remaining piece will focus on the factors that
facilitated the recent emergence of the “politics of exhumations”, in Spain and Cyprus.
Unearthing the Truth

During my fieldwork in Cyprus, in the summer of 2008, reading the GC daily press was
a convincing indication that the GC society is indeed a society struggling to “come to
terms with its past”—although with a significant delay of several decades. Almost on a
daily basis, there were announcements of funerals of identified missing persons from
1974—denoting the progress made by the CMP. Additionally, the prospect of revising
history school text-books triggered an intense public debate in which the old (ideolog-
ical) “fault lines” re-emerged. Equally, summer is a very interesting period for a
researcher to be in Cyprus because of the various commemorations and rituals that
usually take place during July and August on both sides of the divide. However, the
summer of 2008 was also marked by the arrest by the International Criminal Tribunal
of the former Yugoslavia of the former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic. That
event unavoidably provoked a debate in the GC community as to why truth concerning
the past atrocities, against both “in-group” and “out-group”, was never publicly
acknowledged in Cyprus. In a strikingly similar way, another foreign event, namely the
request for extradition of General Pinochet from London to Spain (October 1998), had
an equivalent impact on setting in motion a heated debate concerning the utility of
“pacto del olvido” in the contemporary Spanish society. Drawing parallels between this
development and their own experience was inevitable and as such, during that period,
many Spaniards have been wondering why they let their own dictator die as a free man
on his bed. Subsequently, the precedent of the case of Pinochet acted as a catalyst for
bringing about inconvenient questions about the legitimacy of the “pact of oblivion”
in contemporary Spain, and most significantly convinced a segment of the Spanish
society that the time is ripe to start challenging this pact (Encarnación 2008).
Another significant development denoting this reinvigorated interest for the recov-
ery of historical memory, in the GC community, was the establishment of a parliamen-
tary committee named as Fakelos tis Kyprou (the Cyprus File), in 1999.8 The
committee’s central objective has been to compile data, material and interviews related
to that turbulent period and eventually establish an authoritative historical record of
the events related to the coup of 1974. An analogous parliamentary committee had
been established in Spain several years ago and recently resulted in the establishment
of the “Law on Historical Memory” (The Economist 2007). Hence, the question arises
as to which factors can explain this recent shift toward debating the past and demand-
ing the truth.
The most significant factor for this “shift”, in Spain, was the transformation of the
primary victims’ association (ARMH) into a strong social movement that seriously
challenged the prevalent discourse (“oblivion” over the civil war) by framing their
demand in terms of Human Rights (Davis 2005; Ferrandiz 2006). At the other extreme
in Cyprus until very recently the associations of the relatives of victims—in both
communities—were used as political instruments. It was only after the provocative
efforts of a handful of relatives who began digging alone in search of the locations of
mass graves or after the action brought against the state for negligence that a consider-
able change on the approach by the political elite was instigated (Sant Cassia 2007;
Yakinthou 2008). To be sure, although that original policy change should be located at
the “elite level”, the task of recovering the truth about the past, generally, and the miss-
ing persons, in particular, should be attributed to various grassroots initiatives. How
did these grassroots initiatives manage to promote their activities in Cyprus and Spain,
though?
Taking into consideration the scarcity of the resources available to these grassroots
initiatives to pursue their objectives, the concept of “Political Opportunity Structure”,
put forward by Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, provides us with a new analytical tool
illuminating the centrality of opportunities and assessing how efficiently they were
employed by contentious groups (McAdam et al. 1997; Tilly 1978). The evaluation of
opportunities and constraints might assist the effort to explain the tactics employed by
the players at the grassroots and subsequently the final outcome. Also, by recruiting the
analytical toolkit of contentious politics, we are better-suited in evaluating the central
role of institutions and political systems in creating opportunities for these groups
(Klandermans 1996).
Although similar factors seem to have influenced the final outcome in the two soci-
eties at hand, the explanatory value of each of these factors significantly differs in each
case. More specifically, although in both cases the concept of “opportunities” is impor-
tant to explain the recent demand for truth, in Cyprus “opportunities” were generated
by decisions or developments, that took place at the elite level, which, in turn, acted as
384 Iosif Kovras
a window of opportunity for grassroots actors to become vocal and more efficient. On
the contrary, in Spain the “opportunities” where primarily created by the grassroots
movement, which managed to insert the previously unacceptable claim of recovering
historical memory on the political agenda.
The shift in “Political Opportunity Structure” in favour of petitioners, occurred after
the rise to power of the Socialist Party (2004) in Spain and after an innovative
approach—emphasising the need to achieve a breakthrough—endorsed by the team
designated for the missing persons in the GC ministry of foreign affairs, that signifi-
cantly facilitated the efforts put forward by these grassroots groups. In Spain, the oppor-
tunity was offered by the central electoral strategy of the socialist party (PSOE) “to
garner political capital by highly publicised reversals of Aznar’s policies” (Black 2008:
231). Adopting the effort of ARMH to reinstate “historical memory”—a demand which
was obstinately opposed by Aznar government—was one of these tactics. Besides, the
grandfather of the Socialist Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was a Captain
of the Republican army and was executed by the rebels in the early days of the civil war
(Crawford 2007). Therefore, his personal incentive in promoting a policy of acknowl-
edging the past should not be underestimated. Despite the fact that the “demand” by
ARMH was fully tangible since 2000, the “turning point” was the electoral victory of
PSOE, in 2004, which successfully inserted their demand into the political debates. In
similar terms in Cyprus, “a group of courageous young officials in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and the GC participants to the CMP had … patiently tried to convince
the foreign minister and various other highly-placed politicians and officials that exhu-
mations and proper identifications of the collective burials would remove any ambigu-
ity about those individuals whose fates were particularly unclear” (Sant Cassia 2007:
195). This team managed to influence the final decision to initiate unilateral exhuma-
tions of mass graves within the jurisdiction of the Republic of Cyprus, which was the
most pivotal factor in the resumption of the work of the CMP and the establishment of
mutual trust between the two communities on the issue of missing persons.
Furthermore, in both cases the role of international institutions was pivotal. More
explicitly, the ARMH after several years of—unsuccessfully—lobbying the Aznar
government for official backing of their efforts, successfully accosted the UN Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. It was only after the embarrassing
situation where, in 2002, Spain for the first time was included in the UN’s list of coun-
tries having “forcibly disappeared” persons, that the Aznar government made conces-
sions to the ARMH’s demands and more generally paved the way for the promotion of
the demand for truth recovery over the next few years (Davis 2005: 858; Graham 2004:
325). Similarly, certain pivotal rulings issued by the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR), with the most momentous case of Varnavas a.o. v. Turkey and the Fourth
Inter-state Application of the Republic of Cyprus against the Republic of Turkey,
which were subsequently followed by consecutive resolutions of the Council of
Europe’s Committee of Ministers put significant (legal and political) pressure on
Turkey to contribute to a pro-active solution to the problem (Yakinthou 2008: 22).
Certain scholars qualify this development along with the prospective Turkish acces-
sion to the EU as the two events with the most catalytic impact on circumventing
Turkish intransigence and creating a “political incentive” to resolve the issue
(Yakinthou 2008: 22).9
The second concept borrowed from contentious politics literature, that is
“Resource Mobilisation”, emphasises on the resources available to the group—not
exogenously created—and most importantly the “collective vehicles, informal as well
as formal, through which people mobilise and engage in collective action” (McAdam
et al. 1997). In accordance with this line of argumentation, these social movements
acquired a new influential ally—that is the media—that not only projected their
demands in a global audience, but also prepared an audience, which was more recep-
tive to their requests and most importantly set the stage for a comprehensive societal
debate. In both cases, the role of media was pivotal to overcome the fear of speaking
about “inconvenient truths” that could re-open old wounds. Therefore, like a snow-
ball effect, after the first exhumations more and more people wanted to spell out their
own story. More precisely, in Cyprus, two investigative journalists, Sevgül Uludağ and
gb
[ev]r
Andreas Paraschos, from the TC and GC communities respectively, began publishing

stories about the fate of certain missing persons from each community. Shortly after-
wards, they were inundated with new calls from people willing to tell their own stories
that remained hidden for decades. A related process was observed in Spain, when the
first exhumation (2000) of the grandfather of Emilio Silva—a journalist himself—
attained “a sudden media interest” that contributed to the establishment of the
ARMH with the purpose of accommodating the growing demand coming from indi-
viduals throughout Spain who wanted to trace the remains of their relatives and trig-
gered a long delayed public debate (Ferrandiz 2006: 8).
Finally, as Mario Diani illustrated, “Social Movement Organizations are not isolated
actors. Rather, they tend to interact with other organizations, even when they are not
able to develop any sort of regular coordination” (2002: 2). This emphasis on the
“linkages of social movements to other groups” (McCarthy and Zald 1977: 1216)
might help to explain how the polarisation of the Spanish society provided the oppor-
tunity for several social movements and organisations—such as trade unions—with
diverse demands and causes to coalesce and strengthen their voice by organising into
umbrella organisations (Short 2002). In the same vein, in Cyprus, the “open check-
points” policy (2003) created an unprecedented window of opportunity for all sorts of
bi-communal activities that were not available before, and this can explain the
burgeoning bi-communal grassroots initiatives, most of which share common orien-
tation (pro-reconciliation and reunification). Frequently, these groups support each
other and as such they have established an “umbrella structure” which enhanced their
influence. While in Cyprus, I was informed about the creation of the first bicommunal
initiative comprised of the relatives of missing from both sides of the divide.10 This
was the product of long-term interaction between relatives of missing persons who
shared their experiences in bicommunal events and decided to establish their own
platform that will significantly deviate from the orthodoxy of the “official” relatives’
associations. Activities organised by this group are always supported by other plat-
forms—with which they share common ideological orientation, conducive to recovery
of historical memory.11 So, paradoxically, in Cyprus the demand for truth does not
386 Iosif Kovras
emanate from an “official” victims’ association—as in the case of Spain, Argentina and
Guatemala—but the task of truth recovery has been shouldered by various civil society
groups and individuals that their interest are not limited to the issue of missing
persons.
Conclusion: The Politics of Exhumations as Truth-Recovery?

The case of missing persons and more generally dead bodies—as the cases of Spain and
Cyprus reveal—constitute emotionally charged topics which very frequently become
exploited out of political expediency, like reinvigorating propaganda, symbolic func-
tioning, or even bargaining in negotiations. In a context of conflict as the case of
Cyprus also indicates, dead bodies are always symbols that can be manipulated. As John
Lederach aptly mentions “the graves are held present in people’s minds because they
represent the sacrifice, the loss, the trauma, the deep pains of years and generations of
conflict” (1998: 177). In such cases, “unearthing” the truth, as expressed through the
struggle to identify the fate/remains of those missing, frequently challenges predomi-
nant representations of the past and is accompanied by an intense societal debate
contributing to the emergence of “politics of exhumations”. Therefore, the “politics of
exhumations” set exigent moral and political dilemmas to those societies undertaking
such processes. Ironically, Federico Garcia Lorca, well before his own execution wrote
that “In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the
world”, a quote which perfectly portrays his own post-mortem legacy of the Spanish
civil war in contemporary Spain.
Acknowledgements
This paper was previously presented at the Cyprus and Divided Societies Workshop,
held at Queen’s University, Belfast. I am very grateful to Roberto Belloni, Neophytos
Loizides, Paul Sant Cassa, Adrian Guelke, Efraim Nimni, Sara Clavero, Yiannis
Armakolas and Nicos Philippou for their comments an earlier drafts of this paper.
Notes
[1] A recent decision of a National Court Judge (Baltasar Garzon), on 19 October 2008, ordering
1
the exhumation of the grave thought to contain Lorca’s remains, seems to give an end to this
long-standing controversy.
[2] For more information on the patterns of violence employed by the two camps during the civil
2
war, see Jackson (1965: chap. 16) and Preston (2006: chap. 4).
[3] The Academy Award winner film of Guillermo Del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth (2006); the docu-
3
mentary, La Guerrilla de La Memoria, by Montxo Armendáriz and Javier Corcuera (2001);

and the bestselling book by Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis (2003), could be recruited as
illustrative examples of this wave of re-remembering the “civil war”.
[4] “Valle de los Caídos” (“Valley of the Fallen”) constitutes perhaps the most renowned monu-
4
ment of the Francoist legacy. The “Valley” contains the grave of Franco, along with approxi-
mately 40,000 victims of the civil war—predominantly coming from the Nationalist side. The
construction of the monument lasted for almost two decades and it has always been the
subject of debates because it was built by ca 20,000 Republican prisoners used as forced
labour. For all these reasons, the Valley of the fallen is perceived to be the primary symbol of
the Francoist domination.
[5] More precisely, a significant number of the victims were casualties of this “intra-group”
5
conflict. For example, even EOKA—the anti-colonialist movement in late 1950s—has

targeted members of the GC community, predominantly leftist (Papadakis 1998: 151). As
Markides mentions “Assassination attempts were made against 230 Greek-Cypriots … about
23 per cent of all those killed during the four years of the ‘Emergency’ came from the ranks of
Greek Cypriot traitors” (1977: 19). Additionally, various sources verify the fact that during the
bi-communal hostilities (1964–1967) there were civilian casualties of the intra-group conflict
and not of “out-group” attacks (Attalides 1979: 91; Crawshaw 1978: 200–157). Subsequently
any comprehensive truth recovery would have challenged both the popular perception of
these organisations as saviours and the—embedded to the collective identity—“culture of
victimhood”, which preaches the monopoly of suffering for the in-group.
[6] I am very grateful to Yiannis Papadakis for bringing to my attention this point.
6
[7] One such historical example is the Athenian Democracy emerging from the oligarchic coup
7
and the civil war of 404 BC, where the society—after a heated debate—consented to a law
forbidding individual citizens to “remember”, as the best means to achieve reconciliation
(Cohen 2001).
[8] More information about the workings of the committee can be found at: http://www.parlia-
8
ment.cy/parliamentGR/003_04_23.htm
[9] While the impact of these rulings is of paramount importance, it should be noted that so long
9
as the decision for the resumption of the activities of the CMP (August 2004) was taken well
before either the case of Varnava or the resolutions of the European Council, the “turning
point” should be regarded the decision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of
Cyprus to put forward unilateral exhumations (2000). That was a more important develop-
ment in convincing the “Other” side on the new—“humanitarian”—approach of the topic,
while the decisions of the ECHR facilitated further this effort that was already on track.
[10] The Bi-Communal Initiative of Relatives of Missing Persons, Victims of Massacre and War.
10
[11] Indicative examples of such organisations are the “Association for the Historical Dialogue and
11
Research”, “Stop the War Coalition”, “Hands Across the Divide” and “Dance for Peace”, and
there are many others that gradually mobilise in between the divide and create the space for a
post-modern civil society.
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On: 2 April 2009

History and Anthropology

Unearthing the Truth: The Politics of Exhumations in Cyprus and Spain

Online Publication Date: 01 December 2008

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Unearthing the Truth: The Politics of

Keywords: Truth Recovery; Exhumations; Historical Memory; Cyprus; Spain;

ISSN 0275–7206 print/ISSN 1477–2612 online/08/040371–20 © 2008 Taylor & Francis

(1) Why have these processes remained dormant for so long?

Spain and Cyprus in Context

condemned innocent people to death as illegitimate; financing the process of exhum-

a more accommodating profile on issues related to the civil war—did nothing to

Cultures of Victimhood and Inconvenient Truths

instrumental exploitation of their suffering to construct “cultures of victimhood”

“Tackling the Past”: A Survey of the Literature

revolves around the decision of “remembering” or “forgetting” the past (Forsberg

Point of reference Individual Society

Why Contentious Politics?

groups, associations or even individual citizens. Therefore it is of vital significance to

Unearthing the Truth

Andreas Paraschos, from the TC and GC communities respectively, began publishing

Conclusion: The Politics of Exhumations as Truth-Recovery?

mentary, La Guerrilla de La Memoria, by Montxo Armendáriz and Javier Corcuera (2001);

conflict. For example, even EOKA—the anti-colonialist movement in late 1950s—has

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