The Right to Know: A case study of the truth-seeking process of missing and forcibly disappeared person’s contribution to reconciliation in Lebanon

Sammanfattning: When the Lebanese civil war ended in 1990, the government estimated 17,415 persons missing or forcibly disappeared, of which most fates remain unknown. This thesis examines the truth-seeking process of the missing and forcibly disappeared people and its contribution to the reconciliation process in the context of Lebanon. The foundation of analysis is the truth-reconciliation theory, in combination with the conceptualizations of unofficial truth-seeking led by civil society and thin reconciliation viewed from a bottom-up perspective. The analysis is carried out as a qualitative case study of unofficial truth-seeking, a particularly under-researched field, based on 11 semi-structured interviews with the civil society in Lebanon. The findings, derived by a thematical analysis, have shown that the truth-seeking process positively contributes to reconciliation among the families of the missing and forcibly disappeared persons in Lebanon. Consequently, the larger society does not take part in the processes. The result is based on the impact of forensic and narrative truth-seeking activities, including collective memory, on the ‘intergroup contact hypothesis’ and intergroup tolerance. The findings also indicated that the lack of retributive justice potentially hinders the truth-seeking and reconciliation process. Lastly, recent developments have shown a possible establishment of an official-led truth-seeking mechanism.