COMMITTEE ON MISSING PERSONS: ANTHROPOLOGICAL LAB

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 001754

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/11/2016
TAGS: PHUM PGOV PREL UN TU CY
SUBJECT: COMMITTEE ON MISSING PERSONS: ANTHROPOLOGICAL LAB
UP AND RUNNING

REF: NICOSIA 926 AND PREVIOUS

Classified By: Ambassador Ronald L. Schlicher, reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY. Ambassador toured the newly-established
Committee on Missing Persons anthropological lab in the UN
Buffer Zone on October 10 to observe firsthand the progress
being made in the identification of Cypriots from both
communities who went missing in the 1963-1974 period of civil
unrest and war. The USG's 135,000 USD contribution to this
ongoing humanitarian undertaking is money well spent; the CMP
represents one of the few instances where Greek and Turkish
Cypriots are cooperating effectively under a UN umbrella.
CMP officials expect that the Committee will soon be able to
make positive DNA matches on the 47 victims they have exhumed
and catalogued so far, allowing for the return of remains to
surviving family members to begin by early 2007. END SUMMARY.

CMP (FINALLY) MAKING PROGRESS
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2. (SBU) On October 10, Ambassador and poloffs toured the
anthropological lab that was set up in the UN Buffer Zone in
April 2006 to support the work of the Tripartite Committee on
Missing Persons (CMP). The CMP -- which consists of
representatives from the Greek Cypriot community, Turkish
Cypriot community, and UN -- is charged with determining the
fate of over 1500 Greek Cypriots and over 500 Turkish
Cypriots missing since the 1963-1974 period of intercommunal
violence and war. Disagreement over its mandate, as well as
outright obstructionism by the previous Turkish Cypriot
regime, largely paralyzed the CMP until August 2004, when a
more flexible Turkish Cypriot approach permitted the work of
the Committee to resume in earnest.


3. (C) The parties reached a series of delicate political
compromises to defuse, among other things, disagreements over
the methodology and location of genetic testing as well as
the scope of the CMP's investigation (the Committee uses
interviews, documentary research and forensic evidence to
locate and identify the remains of the missing persons, but
does not seek to determine causes of death or assign blame).
These agreements -- as well as financial and in-kind
contributions from the U.S., UK, the two communities,
Germany, Greece, and Turkey -- allowed the complicated and
costly process (estimated by CMP to be over 3 million USD per
year) of exhumations to begin in late 2005 (reftels).
Although contributions received to date have allowed
operations to move forward now, insiders from the Committee
tell us they will certainly have to seek additional funds
before the end of 2006; they expect it could take at least
three more years of work at the current pace for the CMP to
complete recovery, identification, and return of all the
remains they expect to locate. In addition to worrying about
more traditional questions of donor fatigue, CMP members are
concerned that disagreements over whether the CMP should
receive support from EU funds currently set aside
specifically for Turkish Cypriot economic development could
tie up contributions from potentially important donor.

FORENSICS WITH A HUMAN TOUCH: HOW IT WORKS
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4. (C) According to the CMP's newly-appointed Third (UN)
Member Christophe Girod, who briefed the Ambassador during
his tour of the anthropological lab, the Committee's work is
proceeding with remarkably little political acrimony. The
three members meet weekly, said Girod, to exchange
information and maps on possible mass graves and to identify
which exhumations will take place -- taking care to ensure a
rough proportionality between likely Greek Cypriot and
Turkish Cypriot burial sites.


5. (SBU) Bicommunal teams, supported by forensic and
archeology experts from as far afield as Ireland and
Argentina, then exhume remains from the priority sites and
transfer them to the anthropology lab. At the lab, CMP teams
catalogue and (where possible) reassemble skeletal remains
and personal effects recovered from grave sites --
correlating "ante mortem" evidence, such as victims' medical
records and testimony gathered from surviving relatives, in a
comprehensive computer data base to make preliminary
identifications. Once the anthropological lab completes its
report, a unit currently being established in the Cyprus
Institute of Neurology and Genetics (CING) will conduct DNA
analysis to confirm the identity of each complete, or
fragmentary, set of remains.


6. (C) According to Girod, 47 sets of remains have been
examined and catalogued by the lab so far, and are ready for
genetic testing by CING. 25 more are currently being

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examined at the anthropology lab, and two teams are currently
in the field exhuming more remains. Girod expects to
finalize CMP's contract negotiations with CING "within a
week," which would allow genetic testing to proceed on the
initial 47 victims before the end of October -- with final,
confirmed DNA identifications by early 2007. (COMMENT: The
U.S. contribution of 135,000 USD, drawn from ESF money
earmarked for bicommunal projects, is being donated through
the UNDP-implemented ACT program and will help defray the
costs of genetic testing of remains at CING -- which itself
was built and equipped with 10 million USD ESF funding
through UNHCR in the 1990s, in order to research health
issues common to both communities and treat patients from
both sides. END COMMENT.)


7. (SBU) Girod's assistant Jennifer Wright noted that the CMP
will remain in close contact with survivors' families
throughout the identification process, consulting them as
preliminary identifications are made, informing them when DNA
tests confirm a positive match, and ultimately handing over
the remains for viewing and final burial according to the
wishes of the survivors.

COMMENT
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8. (C) The CMP represents one of the few examples of ongoing,
pragmatic cooperation between the two Cypriot communities.
Such initiatives deserve our continued support, especially
when they address matters of urgent humanitarian concern to
people on both sides, like the fate of the missing. Our tour
of the anthropological lab (where we observed bicommunal
teams working together around tables piled high with skulls,
personal effects, and bone fragments from long-missing
victims) was a dramatic reminder of the human dimension of
the Cyprus problem, so often obscured by silly political
posturing on both sides. END COMMENT.
SCHLICHER