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The right to self-determination and the right to rebel — Global perspectives

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The right to self-determination and the right to rebel — Global perspectives

Presentation at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
20 July 2013

PANEL 3. Struggle for just and lasting peace

By ANNA MORRIS and RICHARD HARVEY
Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers
NDFP International Legal Advisory Team

This paper will deal with three distinct but inter-related topics, the right to self-determination, the right to rebel and the right to freedom from exploitation. It will seek to offer some global perspectives on each of these three topics and suggest ways in which international law can be used by citizens, activists and lawyers to enforce the basic rights of peoples here in the Philippines and abroad.

1. The Right to Self-Determination

Over 15 years ago in The Hague, the “City of Peace”,1 the Government of the Philippines and the NDFP signed the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (“CARHRIHL”). The Agreement between begins with these fundamental words:

“Respect for human rights and international humanitarian law is of crucial importance and urgent necessity in laying the ground for a just and lasting peace.”

It correctly affirms that:

“[T]he principles of human rights and international humanitarian law are universally applicable.”

And, by Article 2(1) of CARHRIHL the parties agree:

“[T]o confront, remedy and prevent the most serious human rights violations in terms of civil and political rights, as well as to uphold, protect and promote the full scope of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including:

  1. The right to self-determination of the Filipino nation by virtue of which the people should fully and freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development.

Human rights are indivisible and universal. In order to guarantee and enforce those rights, fighting for the rule of law is the first duty of the people’s lawyer. Those of us who have worked with those struggling for human rights, whether in South Africa or Palestine, in Colombia or Ireland, in Puerto Rico or East Timor, know from first-hand experience that there can be no just or lasting peace without the right of peoples to self-determination. Without self-determination there is no guarantee of human rights at all. It is that right to self-determination I would like to focus on here.

A just and lasting peace has to be negotiated in good faith. When our colleagues in South Africa negotiated with the criminal apartheid regime, they were told to sign up to a new constitution before the first free elections were held. They rightly refused, saying ceasefires may be up for negotiation; a timetable for the transition of power may be up for negotiation; but human rights belong to all the people by right, they are never up for negotiation. It was only after the new Parliament was elected that a new constitution was written by all the people and for all the people. That is self-determination in action. And it produced arguably the finest constitution the world has yet seen.

Former colonial powers like Britain and France and neo-colonial powers like the United States sometimes act as though they had invented the whole idea of human rights. They support repressive governments and military regimes when they want to do business with them. They send arms to rebels in other countries that they want to undermine. They tell us that the rebels they arm are fighting for democracy and human rights while the regimes they back are preventing states from collapsing into anarchy.

Their idea of democracy has little to do with self-determination of peoples. Their policies are shaped by the determination of transnational corporations to make a profit from people, whatever the price in blood and suffering. The right to self-determination has crystallised into customary international law with the help of declarations and resolutions of the United Nations. But, as the World Court has recognised, this right was not granted by beneficent colonial powers. Instead, that right: “had first been written painfully, with the blood of the peoples in the finally awakened conscience of humanity. And without those same peoples, mainly of Asia and Africa … would it have been possible to have achieved that impressive number of declarations and resolutions whereby the great principles they had helped to consecrate have been translated into law and applied to the reshaping of international relations?”2

You here in the Philippines know what that judge meant when he spoke of a right, written painfully, with the blood of the peoples. You know how hard it is to finally awaken the conscience of humanity; how difficult it is for the people to “fully and freely determine their political status, pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development,” to come back to the words of the CARHRIHL.

But that is what the Government of the Philippines signed up to over 15 years ago. They did not agree out of the kindness of their hearts. They agreed because the people had fought for – and won – those rights. They agreed because they do not have any option: to deny those rights would be to violate the basic principles of international law enshrined in Common Article of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights which reads, in part:

Article 1

  1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
  2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

To violate CARHRIHL, in other words, is to violate international law. CARHRIHL is not up for renegotiation because human rights are not up for renegotiation. Any government that deprives its people of the right to self-determination gives them a new right: the right to rebel. International law clearly proclaims that: “the denial of fundamental human rights … is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations,” and that:

Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples … of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence. In their actions against and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.

In other words, if a state uses force to deprive peoples (i.e. you) of their (your) right to self-determination, freedom and independence, not only do those peoples (you) have the right to take action against such a state, they (you) also have the right to call on the international community (us) for support. These are not the words of some radical lawyer from the other side of the world trying to stir up a revolution with fiery rhetoric: this is customary international law, binding upon all States by the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations (the “Friendly Relations Declaration”).3

2. The Right to Rebel: Do Rebels have Rights?

Parks and squares in Turkey and Brazil have been thronged in recent weeks with peaceful demonstrators and rioting police. In Egypt, millions flocked to Tahrir Square to the excitement of the international media, resulting in what some call a coup d’état and others the continuation of a revolution. Meanwhile, unnoticed by most western media, similar events in Bulgaria forced one government to resign in February and the government that replaced it looks set to collapse as the country has been in turmoil for months.4 The people are rebelling.

The “Arab Spring” embraced so enthusiastically by the Western media two years ago has turned distinctly wintry in parts of North Africa and the Near East. Syria is descending the same spiral of death and dismemberment as Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States and EU use phrases like “humanitarian intervention,” and “responsibility to protect,” not to prevent the sufferings of innocent victims of war crimes but to advance the geopolitical interests of great economic powers and transnational corporations. It seems that some rebels must be supported and armed while others must be repressed and crushed.

Human rights belong to all. They belong equally to those who demonstrate against political and economic injustice; to those who rebel against the oppression of military-backed regimes and to those who struggle for self-determination against companies that seek to pollute their environment, corrupt their ecology and destroy the lives and livelihoods of indigenous peoples.

Those of us who stand in solidarity with people struggling for self-determination have a duty to bear witness to violations of their human rights. Where people are driven to believe there is no alternative but to take up arms as part of the struggle for self-determination, it is not for us, as outsiders, to judge whether that belief is correct or to what extent this or that armed action is justified. Our duty is to stand up clearly and unequivocally for the rights of those who rebel. When a woman decides to join the armed struggle to protect her ethnic group, her village, her children; she doesn’t thereby give up her human rights. When a revolutionary soldier is taken prisoner by the armed forces of the government he is fighting against, he is entitled to the full protections of international humanitarian law.

In affirming this principle, we affirm our support for Article 6 of the CARHRIHL:

The Parties are aware that the prolonged armed conflict in the Philippines necessitates the application of the principles of human rights and the principles of international humanitarian law and the faithful compliance therewith by both Parties.

We, as human rights defenders, are called to bear witness; to gather evidence and present it to human rights bodies; to name and shame those responsible for unlawful killings, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment; and to call to account the corporations who violate the right of people to a clean and healthy environment, fair working conditions and other social and economic rights.

In 1980, as soon as Optional Protocols I and II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions came into force, the ANC filed with the Red Cross a declaration that the liberation movement considered itself bound by the terms of the Protocols. This bold strategy enabled lawyers representing ANC fighters before the apartheid regime’s courts to assert that their clients’ actions were protected by international law.

In the same way, here in the Philippines, the NDFP issued its Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I on 5 July 1996. By doing so, the NDFP has assumed rights and duties under Protocol I, on top of those provided for under common Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and under its Protocol II. Members of the armed forces of the Government of the Philippines who are taken prisoner are entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions and the same rights are claimed for combatants of the New People’s Army and its allies.

In the context of an armed struggle, it is particularly important that to protect the most vulnerable. In that respect, the NDFP’s Declaration on the Rights of Children provides a model that any country should be proud to adopt. As we so often find, it is the oppressed themselves who are best placed to articulate what rights they are fighting for and who show the greatest concern for future generations.

3. Freedom to Exploit or Freedom from Exploitation?

History shows that if we leave it to the mining multinationals, the oil corporations and the logging companies to determine what rights future generations will have, then they will destroy the planet in the long term in order to maximise their profits in the short term.

As we have seen, international human rights law gives to all people the rights asserted under the CARHRIHL to pursue not only the political status of peoples, but also “their economic, social and cultural development,” and their right to “dispose of their natural wealth and resources for their own welfare and benefit towards genuine national independence, democracy, social justice and development.”

In practice, this right is meaningless unless multinationals are held to account for their crimes against the people. In 1992, the United Nations “Earth Summit” in Rio de Janeiro highlighted the need for a global response to the actions of those industries which have a global impact. Illegal logging and other forms of ecological destruction in the Philippines have an environmental impact on the whole planet. It should concern us as much in London as it does you in Manila.

International environmental law has established principles that must be enforced against those industries and the ways they operate. For example, the “Polluter Pays” principle requires cleaning up oil spills, repairing scarred landscapes and paying reparations to people forced from their lands. But this is not enough. Some environmental disasters cannot be simply “cleaned up,” like Fukushima and Chernobyl. So the “Precautionary Principle”5 requires governments to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. This shifts the burden of proof onto industries. Environmentalists do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the environment will be seriously or irreversibly damaged. Once it is shown that there is a reasonable likelihood of such a threat to the environment, the burden shifts to industry to show in advance that its actions will not damage the environment. After all, a major oil spill in the Arctic would trigger untold and irreversible damage on a global scale.6

At the same time as the 1992 Rio Earth Summit was discussing the wording of these principles of environmental law, our colleagues in South Africa were putting them into practice. They were writing a new constitution, the first in the world to adopt “ecologically sustainable development” as a right. Section 24(a)(iii) of that Constitution provides:

“Everyone has the right to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and future generations, through reasonable legislative and other measures that secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development.”

We have read the 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines by the respected human rights NGO KARAPATAN. We have seen the documentation on murders of environmental activists in the Philippines. Your natural wealth and resources do not belong to mining and logging companies that murder, terrorise and steal the land from indigenous people with impunity.7 As international human rights activists, we also bear witness to the shocking record of human rights violations around the world by corporations such as BHP Billiton, Exxon-Mobil; Xstrata; Anglo-American and Rio Tinto, to name but a few. Why do we name them? Because all these giant extractive industries are here in the Philippines, in Mindanao, which holds more than half the estimated mineral wealth – your mineral wealth. KARAPATAN has called on us in the international community to:

Investigate complaints and reports of human rights violations, including adverse environmental impacts, of mining and other extractive industry projects of corporations operating in Mindanao and with primary listing under [inter]national stock indexes and headquartered in [our countries]8

KARAPATAN’s report on human rights violations stands as a devastating indictment of the Government of the Philippines, as well as of those transnational corporations that benefit from the destruction of your environment.

The Government of the Philippines is bound by international law to respect its commitments in Article 2 of the CARHRIHL “to pave the way for comprehensive agreements on economic, social and political reforms that will ensure the attainment of a just and lasting peace.”9

As you move forward along the road to attaining that just and lasting peace, you will be travelling a path similar to that taken by our colleagues in South Africa, in Ireland and elsewhere. Just as we have worked with them, we promise to work with you, to be there for you, to bear witness with you and to celebrate with you the inevitable triumph of your people’s struggle.

RICHARD HARVEY & ANNA MORRIS
LONDON, JULY 2013

  1. CARHRIHL was signed 16 March 1998 in The Hague, Netherlands
  2. Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) Notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970) 1971 I.C.J. 16, 74. Judge Ammoun.
  3. UN General Assembly Res. 2625 (XXV): Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The [Declaration] “Solemnly proclaims the following principles:
    …The principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples…“[B]earing in mind that subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a violation of the principle [of self-determination], as well as the denial of fundamental human rights, and is contrary to the Charter.…“Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the present principle of their right to self-determination, freedom and independence. In their actions against and resistance to, such forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and receive support in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.”
  4. “Bulgaria’s president has said another early election should take place to deal with daily anti-government street protests”: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23201170.
  5. See Article 3.3 of the Rio Convention (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, 1992)): “The Parties should take precautionary measures to anticipate, prevent or minimize the causes of climate change and mitigate its adverse effects. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing such measures, taking into account that policies and measures to deal with climate change should be cost‐effective so as to ensure global benefits at the lowest possible cost.” (Emphasis added).
  6. The risks from Arctic oil exploration were highlighted by BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf. The precautionary principle requires companies to show – before such a disaster occurs – that it won’t. See: http://blog.oceanconservancy.org/2012/12/05/commission-releases-report-on-arctic-oil-spill-research/; http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/shells-arctic-failure-obamas-chance-act-20130301; http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/risky-business-how-shareholders-pensions-and-councils-are-being-exposed-risks-arctic-oil-20130521
  7. 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines, p.40, Table 1, Profile of Extrajudicial Killings in Mindanao.
  8. 2012 Year-end Report on the Human Rights Situation in the Philippines, Recommendations addressed to the International Community, p.51
  9. Article 2. The objectives of this Agreement are: (a) to guarantee the protection of human rights to all Filipinos under all circumstances, especially the workers, peasants and other poor people; (b) to affirm and apply the principles of international humanitarian law in order to protect the civilian population and individual civilians, as well as persons who do not take direct part or who have ceased to take part in the armed hostilities, including persons deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict; (c) to establish effective mechanisms and measures for realizing, monitoring, verifying and ensuring compliance with the provisions of this Agreement; and, (d) to pave the way for comprehensive agreements on economic, social and political reforms that will ensure the attainment of a just and lasting peace. (emphasis added)

The Philippine human rights situation under 3 years of Benigno Simeon Aquino presidency

ICHRP Secretariat
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The Philippine human rights situation under 3 years of Benigno Simeon Aquino presidency

Keynote address on 2nd day of the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines

Quezon City, Philippines
20 July 2013

By MARIE HILAO-ENRIQUEZ
Chairperson, KARAPATAN (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights)
Chairperson, SELDA (Association of Ex-detainees Against Detentions and Arrests)

This International Conference for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines comes at an opportune time, because on Monday, July 22, Philippine President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino will deliver his State of the Nation Address (SONA) wherein we expect more paltry rhetoric on the supposed “inclusive growth” of the economy, more deceiving lines on the peace and development situation in the country, more untruths about his wickedly crooked “righteous path” or what he called matuwid na daan. In short, he will spew more lies again on the real situation of the Filipino people.

But the context under which this conference is being held – the cold, hard truth that we face on the ground – that human rights violations continue to be committed even under a so-called democratic government, belies such nicely woven set of lies. While we were all agog over preparations for this conference three weeks ago, a former student of the University of the Philippines and his wife (Juan Paolo Verzosa and his wife, Grace) were arrested based on a faulty warrant and are now being detained in a detention facility in the province of Samar in the Visaayas islands because of the fabricated charges of murder leveled against them. Even after the elections up to this time, violent demolitions are being conducted or are being poised to be undertaken against the urban poor dwellers or those euphemistically called “informal settlers” in the National Capital Region, where an estimate of more than 80,000 families will be displaced because malls, condominiums, business districts, etc. will be put up by big businesses and the government in their communities. Last week, we received reports from our colleagues in Central Luzon that two farmers and a tricycle driver were abducted in Bataan by troops of the 703rd Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army under the command of the 7th Infantry Division, Philippine Army (the same Army command of the perpetrators of the abduction and disappearances of Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan in 2006 as well as that of Jonas Burgos in 2007 and the abduction and torture of Melissa Roxas and two others in 2009) and the extrajudicial killings of so many others in Bulacan, Bataan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Zambales, Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan.

Our search team and the relatives of the victims were able to locate one of the farmers (Josue Ortiz) already in a military camp (the 24th IBPA to be exact), while the other farmer (Manuel Pacaira) and the tricycle driver are still missing. We also received reports that the former chairperson of the fisherfolk group Pamalakaya (Ka Rudy Sambajon) who is now based in Bataan province is in danger of being killed. Last Tuesday, July 16, a former political prisoner (Aristides Sarmiento), who was among those called the “Tagaytay Five” arrested, tortured and detained in 2007, was again arrested for fabricated charges of murder and brought to a military camp (Camp Vicente Lim) where he was tortured during his first arrest.

At the camp, Sarmiento was initially denied from being seen by his family and counsel but was later shown to the family members at midnight of Wednesday, July 17, after his lawyer has left and the family stood their ground and asserted their right to know his whereabouts, invoking the provision of the enacted anti-Enforced Disappearance Law that the Aquino administration had boastfully signed into law in December 2012.

These are just some of the facets of the human rights situation in the Philippines today.

Aquino’s Dirty War Against the Filipino people

Noynoy Aquino’s government, with the full and unequivocal support of the US, has continued its dirty war against the Filipino people for the past three years – attacking whole communities and individuals who stand in the way of local and foreign big business and landlords which Aquino, like his predecessors Ferdinand Marcos, mother Cory Aquino, and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, serves best.

His administration’s counter-insurgency program, Oplan Bayanihan, is essentially a copycat of the US Counter Insurgency Guide of 2009 and is no different from Macapagal-Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya. It has resulted to continuing cases of human rights violations and abuses by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, Philippine National Police, and paramilitary groups. The victims of rights violations are the same people who are displaced by big businesses like logging and transnational mining companies that are being coddled by the Aquino government; the victims are the same people who are vulnerable to disasters because of imperialist plunder of the country’s natural resources and the consequent environmental degradation; the victims are the same poor Filipino people who are targets of the government when they assert their rights.

These rights violations are in the context of Aquino’s anti-people and neoliberal economic policies like the Public-Private Partnership program. The Aquino government offers the poor Filipino people’s lives in a silver platter to big business which, apart from enjoying tax holidays, are raking in superprofits by jacking up prices of basic commodities, transportation fares, medical and educational services. Aquino’s Oplan Bayanihan serves to protect the interests of the rich and few elite and the government of its imperialist masters like the US who are the only real winners in Aquino’s “inclusive growth,” with the poor at the fringes and at the losing end of such preposterous situation.

From July 2010 to April 2013, Karapatan has documented 142 cases of extrajudicial killing and 164 frustrated killing; 540 cases of illegal arrest; 30, 678 victims of forced evacuation; 31, 417 victims of threat, harassment and intimidation.

Killings have become more gruesome like during the Marcos’ martial law years. Genesis Ambason, a tribal leader in Agusan del Sur, was shot and tortured to death, his head had shrunk due to heavy beatings : and Ely Oguis, a village councilor in Albay who was shot and beheaded.

Attacks against the people are marked with contemptuous boldness as in the case of the massacre of the Capion family where witnesses heard the AFP ground commander order his men to finish off the two other children who survived the shooting, so there will be no witnesses left.

Farmers, indigenous peoples and environmental activists who are upholding the people’s rights to land and ancestral domains and those who stand against the shameless plunder and destruction of our lands and natural resources are the majority among those victimised by state security forces.

The killings have also been perpetuated in urban centers such as the National Capital Region, where many of those felled by bullets of the State’s institutions are the urban poor and drivers.

Two of the most ardent, indefatigable internationalist human rights defenders – Dutch missionary Willem Geertman and Italian priest Fausto “Father Pops” Tentorio – were killed by these state security forces here in the country they served for a long time. We give them our highest and warmest salute and commendations.

Children suffer hardships during evacuations and demolitions, when they are driven from their homes. There have been 16 children victims of extrajudicial killings, and at least 3 of frustrated killings – due to indiscriminate firing by soldiers, slay try on adult companion, or at a violent demolition. Several children were also arrested during violent evictions and demolitions or accosted during military operations. At least four children and youths were tagged as NPA child rebels, while one was charged with violation of the Human Security Act or the Anti-terror Law.

There is a rising trend of arrests based on fabricated criminal charges and illegal detention of individuals which the Aquino government wish to silence by putting them behind bars. There are currently 432 political prisoners in the country, including fourteen peace consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, as of end May 2013. Many of them are sickly, such as 54-year old Oscar Belleza, detained at the Manila City Jail, who has been suffering from hypertension. What is outrageous is Malacanang’s statement, virtually using the words of the dictator Marcos, denying the existence of political prisoners in the country, as they try to hide the political motivations behind the arrests and detention by filing criminal charges against activists and those tagged as leaders or members of the CPP and the NPA.

The Department of Interior and Local Government and the Department of National Defense released Joint Order 14-2012, which we consider memo which contains a “hitlist” of activists and individuals that makes illegal arrests and detention legal. Based on trumped up charges, those in the unpublished list, especially members and leaders of progressive partylists and organizations, may not only end up in jails but may become victims of enforced disappearance or extrajudicial killing.

Rural communities are forcibly evacuated in the countryside, as they sought shelter, either from bombings and aerial strikes, or from combat-geared ‘peace and development teams’ and military-sanctioned paramilitary units that swoop down on their communities.

Disaster- stricken communities, where the situation has been made worse by decades of operations of foreign big mining and logging companies and plantations, have been constantly occupied by military troops, which resulted to killings, threats and other forms of rights violations against the people.

Despite the passage of the Anti-Torture Law in 2009, Karapatan has documented 76 cases of torture including the case of RollyPanesa, a security guard of the Megaforce Security who was arrested in October 2012 by joint elements of the 2nd Infantry Division of the Philippine Armyand the PNP. Panesa was mistaken for “Benjamin Mendoza”, whom the military alleged as a high-ranking official of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) with a bounty of P5.6M. Panesa recalled that he was interrogated, tortured and forced to admit that he was “Benjamin Mendoza.” Every time he stood by his real identity, he would get a beating. According to his interrogators, a mole on Panesa’s nape proves that he is “Benjamin Mendoza.”

Despite the enactment of the Anti-enforced disappearance law in December 2012, Karapatan has documented three cases of enforced disappearance in less than two months after the law was signed. Prof. Gill Boehringer so aptly described during his recent interview that indeed, laws in the Philippines are optional for those who want or, most often, do not want to implement these laws.

Most of these violations were conducted in the target priority areas of the AFP under OplanBayanihan, where they said are areas where the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army operate.

For Karapatan, the existent state of impunity with these human rights violations is made worse by the promotion to higher positions, and therefore exaltation, of known human rights violators and attack dogs of the AFP such as General Eduardo Ano, Lt. Gen. Jorge Segovia, Brig. Gen. Aurelio Baladad, Brig. Gen. Ricardo Visaya, among others, where they wield more power to attack the people.

There is an almost nil conviction rate of perpetrators during the Arroyo government. Aquino has never gone after Arroyo for all the gross human rights violations during her nine-and-a-half-year rule. It was mainly through the efforts of the victims and their families that justice through countersuits was pursued, which resulted to the issuance of warrants of arrest against the notorious Gen. Jovito “The Butcher” Palparan and his ilk. But of course, Palparan remains to be arrested as his powerful cohorts in the military and in the government are protecting him.

While the complaints filed by the relatives of Karapatan workers Eden Marcellana and Benjaline Hernandez and peasant leader Eddie Gumanoy at the United Nations Human Rights Committee bore strong recommendations for the State Party to arrest and prosecute the state perpetrators of their gruesome killings, these were completely and deliberately ignored by Aquino and the perpetrators were left free from accountability. The “lack of interest” of Aquino to make Arroyo accountable for the violations under her administration is in effect a statement of his policy – that he will continue Arroyo’s militarist and fascist attacks against the people.

A law that has gained for Aquino what we Filipinos call as “”pogi points” because passage of such law would deodorize his regime’s image, is the Human Rights Victims’ Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, giving recognition to the struggle of martial law victims and indemnifying their sufferings during martial law, which the President signed on the 27th anniversary of EDSA people Power 1, on February 25, 2013. However, after signing it, up to now, the law remains unimplemented.

Other laws that would enhance the promotion and protection of human rights are left unsigned, if at all discussed in Congress. So many bills remain as bills and do not become laws. And if bills on very apparent violations of human rights in the Philippines, are not even given a chance to be formed as laws, other kinds of violations and rights will suffer a very steep uphill struggle to become laws.

A case in point is the right of the LGBT. Since the submission of the United Nations Human Rights Committee report in 2003, there have not been any legal steps taken by the State party to eliminate discrimination faced by LGBT individuals. The Philippines still lacks anti-discrimination legislation. Furthermore, certain articles of the Revised Penal Code encourage the criminalization of homosexuality.

Deception and more lies under Aquino

The AFP has so euphemistically called its military operations as “peace and development” operations because they said that they also do “humanitarian” work such as relief and rehabilitation, medical missions, beauty pageants, and such gimmickry to justify their mainly combat, intelligence and civil-military operations in their priority areas. They thought they can “win the peace” by putting much of its funds to public relations stunts such as the putting up of a Human Rights Office, their use of pop artists and filmmakers to propagate the message that the military is the protector of people’s rights, their fun runs, and peace murals.

The AFP have said that Karapatan should instead work with them to address the cases of human rights violations, like what the Commission on Human Rights and some NGOs are doing, and engage in security sector reform. We said, how can we work with the institutions which violate people’s rights whom we defend and uphold? You cannot superficially reform an institution like the military, the judiciary, the police, the executive, the legislative branch of government as long as they are in it together – meaning they protect the interests of the few ruling elite in the country and they remain faithful to the dictates of the US and other imperialist countries.

But, as they say in Filipino, nahuhulirinangisdasakanyangbunganga. Recently, the spokesperson of the AFP called Karapatan as its enemy. AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista, the self-proclaimed author of OplanBayanihan, has admitted the failure of OplanBayanihan in meeting its target i.e. the reduction of the number of members of the New People’s Army (NPA). We in Karapatan said that then there is all the more reason that the AFP should immediately stop the implementation of OplanBayanihan. The Aquino government is wasting the nation’s coffers, we said, in pursuing OplanBayanihan that has resulted in numerous human rights violations and continuing impunity!

These pronouncements however are dangerous ones. By calling Karapatan their enemy, the AFP has justified their continued attacks not only Karapatan but the people’s movement of which the organization is part of. Gen. Bautista’s declaration that they should intensify their counter-insurgency operations in the second semester because they have not reached their target to eliminate the communist insurgency means only the increase and heightening attacks against people’s rights.

Yes, we are in for a long haul of human rights violations with Aquino’s dirty was against the Filipino people. But history never fails to remind us that as long as the people are united to fight and defy a puppet, oppressive, and fascist government, we will defeat any counter-insurgency program and we will always prevail in our struggle for national freedom and democracy and for just and lasting peace. History is now being made in the valiant struggles in the countryside, in the streets and barricades in urban poor communities, in the picketlines of workers, in this hall where we are gathered today where solidarity of human rights defenders all over the world is being manifested so eloquently.

Long live the struggle for human rights and justice!
Makibaka, ‘wag matakot!

Maraming salamat, magandang umaga po sa lahat!

US lawyer calls for peace through respect of people’s economic rights

ICHRP Secretariat
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US lawyer calls for peace through respect of people’s economic rights

A prominent American human rights lawyer is calling on Filipinos to use human rights laws and conventions to force the Aquino government into reversing economic policies that adversely affect ordinary citizens, especially the poor.

In her keynote speech before the International Conference on Human Rights and Peace (ICHRPP) at the Great Eastern Hotel in Quezon City, Jeanne Mirer, president of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a stalwart of the US National Lawyers’ Guild, said government economic policies should adhere to human rights principles.

Stressing the importance of satisfying the people’s economic rights to achieve peace, Mirer said: “It is time that we use human rights law to challenge policies to ensure that Filipinos can make the Philippine government actually devote maximum available resources to progressively realize basic economic human rights articulated in the International Convention on Economic and Socio-Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR).”

Calling the current neo-liberal economic order “undemocratic” and dominated by large multinational corporation, Mirer said the people’s unrest resulting from the failure of such policies are dealt with by repression using, among others, anti-terrorist laws that many countries passed or imposed after the 9-11 bombings, and by surveillance and the type of national security state revealed by both Bradley Manning and most recently Edward Snowden.

Mirer said Filipinos should make the Philippine government accept laws that promote “economic democracy” and allow everyone to enjoy “a social and economic order in which the rights and freedoms set in the UDHR are fully realized.”

She said the fight for human rights has allowed its warriors to become “masters of peace”.

Sison warns of more human rights abuses

In his message to the ICHRPP, Jose Ma. Sison, chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) and NDF chief political consultant, warned that with the Aquino government’s termination of the peace talks with the NDF, “we can anticipate the escalation of counterrevolutionary violence and human rights violations.”

He scored the Aquino government for enabling multinational banks and firms and local ruling elites “to exploit the broad masses of the people and violate their economic, social and cultural rights, and for using the “coercive apparatuses of the state to discourage and suppress  even lawful petitions and protests, especially those of the militant legal mass movement.”

Sison said that behind the Aquino regime’s all-out war policy against the revolutionary movement are orders from the US to carry out Oplan Bayanihan within the context of the US pivot or strategic shift to East Asia.

“The US wishes to tighten its control over the Philippines and use it to realize its strategic objective vis a vis China. It is hell-bent on further entrenching itself and making the Philippine reactionary government more than ever dependent on US military power. In connection with Oplan Bayanihan, it is goading the Aquino regime to engage in provocations and counter-provocations vis a vis China over the sea west of the Philippines. In this context, we can understand why the Aquino regime has terminated the peace negotiations,” Sison said.

Sison concluded his speech by calling on the conference participants to join the international network for promoting and supporting the cause of human rights and just peace in the Philippines.

The ICHRPP peace advocates from the US, Canada, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East are committed to strengthen the international solidarity movement in defense of human rights and peace in the Philippines.

Conference participants are expected to join the people’s mass mobilization during the State of the Nation Address on July 22. ###

Former government negotiator calls for resumption of GPH-NDFP peace talks

ICHRP Secretariat
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Former government negotiator calls for resumption of GPH-NDFP peace talks

Political prisoner on hunger strike, protests violations of GPH-NDFP peace agreements

A former government negotiator in peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is urging the Aquino government to honor the 10 previously signed agreements between the GPH and the rebel group in order for the talks to resume.

At the sidelines of the International Conference on Human Rights and Peace (ICHRPP) at the Great Eastern Hotel in Quezon City, Silvestre Bello III, who was negotiator for the GPH since the first Aquino administration to the Arroyo government, said both parties should “move the talks forward to its logical conclusion which is lasting peace for our people.”

He urged both the government and the rebel group to resume the stalled peace negotiations without any preconditions and to respect previously signed agreements including the 1992 Hague Joint Declaration and the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL).

Bello, now a partylist representative in Congress, was among the ICHRPP’s guest in its opening ceremonies yesterday.
“Even President Ramos followed agreements (made) during Cory Aquino’s period, Erap (President Estrada) followed the agreements and process despite disagreements, and even GMA (President Gloria Arroyo) because if we don’t do that, who would ever sign a contract or agreement with us?” Bello emphasized.

In his keynote address to the international conference, NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said the NDFP has been ready to resume the talks but that as early as the first formal meeting of the negotiating panels in February 2011, the Aquino government attacked the 1992 Hague Joint Declaration, which sets the framework for the talks, as a “document of perpetual division.”

He added that the government misrepresented as a precondition the NDFP’s demand to release detained consultants in compliance with the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

Bello said he doesn’t think Aquino wants to junk all previous agreements and begin the peace process again from scratch. “The Aquino government is aware that it is not correct to junk the Hague Joint Declaration which serves as the framework for the peace talks. Any person who knows his business should know that in order to be credible, you have to honor your agreements,” he stressed.

Bello added that the Presidential Adviser on the peace process may have played a role in the government’s flawed position on the talks. He said President Aquino should consider getting the advice of other members of his cabinet and people who have a deeper background on peace negotiations.

Asked if he would be willing to become a member of the GPH peace panel again if requested, Bello replied: “Only if I don’t lose my congressional seat because I have a mandate. I could probably join as an adviser, not as panelist.”

Hunger strike for peace

Bello’s call for the resumption of the peace talks with the NDFP echoes similar calls of detained NDFP peace consultants Ramon Patriarca who is detained at Camp Lapu-Lapu in Cebu City and Pedro Codaste who is detained at the Malaybalay City Jail. Patriarca began a hunger strike last July 11 that will end on July 22 when President Aquino delivers his State of the Nation Address.

The detained NDFP peace consultants accused President Aquino of not respecting the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), and has instead continued abducting, torturing and detaining NDFP personnel involved with the peace negotiations.

The search for a just and lasting peace is one of the important panel discussions in the International Conference on Human Rights and Peace that is being participated in by more than 250 human rights and peace advocates from the US, Canada, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East. Conference participants are expected to join the people’s mobilization on July 22 during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Aquino at the House of Representatives.

Government death squads “a loud secret” — International peace activist

ICHRP Secretariat
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Government death squads “a loud secret” — International peace activist

El Salvadoran peace activist Marta Benavides likened the killing of Italian priest Fausto Tentorio and the continuing impunity in the Philippines to the 1980 assassination of Archbishop Monsignor Oscar Romero in El Salvador.

“It is the same thing that happened to all the martyrs in Latin America, the same thing that happened in El Salvador with the murder of Monsignor Romero.  We call it a ‘loud secret.’  We all know, the whole population knows, what happened, who was behind it  … the death squads.  (We may not know exactly) who went to kill him, but who was behind it.  We think it’s the same thing here,” said Marta Benavides, an El Salvadoran theologist and internationally-acclaimed peace activist, who was a friend of Monsignor Romero.  She is one of the few surviving human rights activists that began their work in El Salvador in the 70s.

Benavides is one of the internationalists attending the International Conference on Human Rights and Peace  in the Philippines from July 19 to 21 in Quezon City.

Romero was a vocal critic of the US-supported military junta that took power in El Salvador in the late 70s and the human rights violations by right-wing paramilitary; he was shot dead on March 24, 1979 while he was giving mass in his chapel. Tentorio was killed on October 17, 2011, as he was leaving his convent in Arakan, North Cotabato.

Fr. Fausto Tentorio, PIME was a prominent anti-mining advocate and critic of the human rights violations in Mindanao, and had received death threats from suspected military-backed paramilitary before he was killed.  He was the first foreign missionary killed under the Aquino regime and since Fr. Tulio Favali, PIME who was killed in the mid-80s under the Marcos Dictatorship. In 2012, a second foreign missionary, Dutch environmentalist Willem Geertman was assassinated in his office in Angeles City, Pampanga.  He was the executive director of Alay Bayan Inc., and a staunch critic of development aggression in Aurora province.

Benavides said that political repression will continue because global crises are affecting the poorest nations, and people will always rise up in resistance. “That’s how these governments exist in the world right now.  They don’t exist for the people and with the people.   They have to maintain the system as it is so they can … maintain themselves in government… and the system finds the needs to repress them, to suppress and repress so that they can continue to oppress.”

Benavides, who was 37 when Romero was killed, recalled the climate of impunity in Latin America :  “It was very bad, it was very repressive at that time, and you could feel it in the air. Everybody have to be very careful. Most people that are doing anything that was good for the people, you have to be clandestine, or semi-clandestine. The death squads were after many people.  And this was also happening in Guatemala, and also in Honduras. But the thing is at that time, even though it was very dangerous, people were very brave.” [KARAPATAN, 20 June 2013]

 

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