Home Blog Page 206

Declaration of Unity

ICHRP Secretariat
-
0
Declaration of Unity

Asia Pacific Conference for Human Rights Advocacy in the Philippines

University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines (25 November 2012)

We, human rights advocates, from different countries of Asia Pacific regions collectively reflected, heard and analyzed the current human right situation and testimonies of relatives and victims of extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and other forms of human rights violation in the Philippines.

We declare that President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III is no different from his predecessor Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with continuing human rights violations and the prevalent impunity in the country. For the past two years the Aquino government’s ‘righteous path’ already bore a total of 114 victims of extra-judicial killings, 12 cases of enforced disappearances, 447 cases of illegal arrest among others, as documented by Karapatan (from July 2010 to September 30, 2012).

We condemn the intensifying militarization in the country through Oplan Bayanihan. The massive military operations in the countryside have cost the lives and livelihood of people in the community. It has been used to protect the interest of foreign mining companies and other big businesses operating in the areas, politically harass and thwart the people’s struggle against large scale mining and environmental destruction and to frustrate the people’s aspiration towards the protection of ancestral lands and sources of livelihood especially among indigenous peoples.

We continually oppose the counter insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan of the Aquino government. Based on the experiences of people in the community, Oplan Bayanihan is no different from the previous anti-insurgency campaigns made by the past governments and as it further intensifies state fascism and perpetuates extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearance, arbitrary arrest and detention, forcible displacement of people in the communities and other forms of human right violations.

We condemn Oplan Bayanihan and the intensifying state fascism in the Philippine is vastly linked to the US anti-terror campaign in Asia. The increasing US intervention in the Philippines through Visiting Forces Agreements and Balikatan exercises is primarily designed to strengthen the counter insurgency campaign of the present Aquino government and US economic and political interests in the country and in Asia and Pacific region and to weaken the Filipino peoples’ movement for human rights, justice and peace in the country. As it is, Oplan Bayanihan is the US Counter-insurgency Guide to the letter, a copycat of the insidious plan meant to uphold the interests of the 1% over that of the 99% of the poor Filipinos.

We lament that the justice for the victims of human rights violations remains elusive as hardly any of the perpetrators of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearance, torture and other gross attacks on political dissenters have been made to answer for their crimes. The most notorious among them former General Jovito Palparan remains at large while police and military officials are not taking any serious effort to arrest him. Worse, the practice of promoting military generals whose records reek of human rights abuses continue, as in the case of Morong 43 torturers.

We persistently call on President Benigno Aquino III to speed up the trial of GMA and hold her accountable to her crimes against the Filipino people. We call on the president to immediately stop the extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests and detention, enforced disappearances, forced evacuation of rural villages and other human rights violations that continue as brazenly under his government. We call for compensation and indemnification of victims of human rights violations and their families. We call for the general and unconditional omnibus amnesty for all political prisoners. We likewise call on the President to immediately pull out military and paramilitary troops in rural and urban communities. The increasing numbers of human rights violations are not a mere propaganda of the left as Aquino maliciously declared before the international community, rather it manifest the continuing crimes against activists, human rights and peace advocates, indigenous peoples, workers, farmers and church peoples perpetuated by the military, police and state agents operating under his watch.

We will stand resolutely with all peoples experiencing human rights violations and their kin in the persevering struggle for justice. We will act unceasingly, and with full determination, bring an end to state of impunity prevailing in the Philippine society as we work towards the full realization of basic rights and fundamental freedoms in the Philippines.

Thus, amidst the worsening human rights violations and prevailing state of impunity in the Philippines we human rights and peace advocates from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines are committing ourselves to stand in solidarity with the Filipino people and victims of human rights violations.

We hereby form the Asia Pacific Coordinating Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines. The APCCHRP shall actively support the Filipino peoples’ struggle for justice, peace and human rights. We shall strengthen our resolve and solidarity to bring the issues of human rights violations in the Philippines to regional and international communities.

Signed:

Action for Peace & Development in the Philippines (APDP, Australia)

Auckland Philippines Solidarity Association (APSA, New Zealand)

Hong Kong Campaign for the Advancement of Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (HKCAHRPP, Hong Kong)

Karapatan (Philippines)

Migrante-Japan (Japan)

Osan Migrants Center (South Korea)

Taiwan Alliance for Human Rights (TAHR, Taiwan)

Delegates to the Asia Pacific Conference for Human Rights Advocacy in the Philippines successfully elected and formed the Asia Pacific Coordinating Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (APCCHRP). 25 November 2012, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City

Stop the killings of indigenous peoples in the Philippines

ICHRP Secretariat
-
0
Stop the killings of indigenous peoples in the Philippines

Dear friends and advocates!

Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP, Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Philippines) is the largest indigenous peoples organization in the Philippines. It is in the fore in the defense of ancestral land rights and rights to self-determination of indigenous peoples.

The non-recognition of indigenous peoples’ rights to ancestral land and to self-determination and the blatant violation of their civil-political rights remains dire to this day. This is characterized by the escalation of ancestral land grabbing by large-scale mining corporations and of ‘development’ projects and businesses such as plantations and dams.

Continue

Dutch parliamentarians receive Willem Geertman petition

ICHRP Secretariat
-
0
Dutch parliamentarians receive Willem Geertman petition

Nederlands-Filippijns Solidariteitsbeweging (Dutch-Filipino Solidarity Movement)

Herman Geertman, brother of Willem, and Aurora Santiago, speaking with the media before the presentation of the petition to Dutch parliamentarians.

The petition on “the call for independent investigation of and justice for the murder of Willem Geertman” was presented on 06 November 2012 to the Permanent Commission for Foreign Affairs of the Second Chamber of the Dutch Parliament.

The petition was received by Alexander Pechtold, of the Democtrats 66 Party(D66), and acting Chairman of the commission and member of Parliament. He was accompanied by Parliament members, Desiree Bonis of the Labor Party (PVDA), Jasper van Dijk of the Socialist Party (SP), Pieter Omtzigt of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), and Sjoerd Sjoerdsma of D66. Mr. Pechtold welcomed the delegation and expressed condolences for the death of Willem Geertman.

Continue

Rights lawyers of disappeared welcome bill with guarded optimism

ICHRP Secretariat
-
0

PRESS STATEMENT, 19 October 2012

Rights lawyers of disappeared welcome bill with guarded optimism;
challenges President Aquino to go after violators regardless of rank or position

The Desaparecidos Bill represents a positive step forward for the victims of enforced disappearances.  However, while this law is an important reform, it represents only the first step along the long and winding road to truly ending impunity. It is therefore with cautious optimism that the National Union of People’s Lawyers welcomes this law.

The NUPL handles many cases of enforced disappearances all over the country including the case of  UP students Cadapan and Empeño, who were victims of enforced disappearance at the hands of retired fugitive Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan. It also handles the cases of  Jonas Burgos, Raymond Manalo, Melissa Roxas, among others.

This law creates a greater impetus for the government to bring Palparan and others before the law and deliver some justice to the long-suffering families of the victims.

It is crucial that this law does not sit in the bottom drawer gathering dust.  The last thing the families of victims of enforced disappearances need, in addition to the constant heartache and uncertainty of having lost their loved ones at the hands of the State, are false promises and empty platitudes from the Aquino administration while impunity persists under the smokescreen of a supposedly effective law.
Aquino must ensure that this law is effectively implemented according to its terms.  He must ensure that State security forces cannot disregard or circumvent it.  It must be unequivocally clear that this law will be enforced against those responsible regardless of stature or rank.

We , therefore, welcome in principle the proposed anti-disappearance law which has been long in coming and urge Aquino to sign it with dispatch.

As lawyers for many victims of disappearances, we fervently wish this will in reality turn out to be an effective tool to give redress, if not prevent or deter State transgressions which bring incomparable and endless worry, anxiety and grief.

We pray that beyond the elegant and formal legal language, no false hope is added to injury by State security forces who will circumvent and even mock it on the ground like other rights laws; by a judiciary perceived by the families to be at times unresponsive and even detached from social realities; and by an administration which has become a party to such violations by default or inaction, if not tacit condonation, or worse, which engenders it by making it logically integral to a State policy or program that practically perpetuates impunity.

Beyond beautiful and well-crafted laws on human rights is the decisive political will to render justice though the heavens fall.#

Reference:
Atty. Edre U. Olalia, NUPL Secretary General
+639175113373

National Secretariat
National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL)
3F Erythrina Bldg., Maaralin corner Matatag Sts. Central District,Quezon City, Philippines
Telefax no.920-6660
Email addresses: nupl2007@gmail.com and nuplphilippines@yahoo.com
Visit the NUPL website at http://www.nupl.net/

“By calling yourselves the ‘people’s lawyer,’ you have made a remarkable choice. You decided not to remain in the sidelines. Where human rights are assaulted, you have chosen to sacrifice the comfort of the fence for the dangers of the battlefield. But only those who choose to fight on the battlefield live beyond irrelevance.”

– Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato S. Puno, in his message at the NUPL Founding Congress, September 15, 2007

“After long years of experience as a people’s lawyer, I can honestly say it has been a treasured journey of self-fulfillment and rewarding achievement. I know it will be the same for all others who choose to tread this path.”
– Atty. Romeo T. Capulong, NUPL founding president, in his keynote address at the Fifth Conference of Lawyers in Asia Pacific ( COLAP V), September 18, 2010

Blaan family massacred, IP killings rise to 28

ICHRP Secretariat
-
0
Blaan family massacred, IP killings rise to 28

http://katutubongmamamayan.org/node/364, October 19, 2012 – The Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP) condemns the massacre of a Blaan family in the Sagittarius Mines Inc (SMI) mine site in Tampakan, South Cotabato. Piya Macliing Malayao, KAMP spokesperson, described the killings as “barbaric, and their killers are the most brutal.”

Elements of the 27th Infantry Battalion (IB) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines strafed the hut where Juvy Capion, 27, and her three children were resting. The gunfire killed the pregnant Juvy and her children Janjan, 7, and Pop, 13. Her daughter, Vicky, 5, was wounded.

“This act of brutality against the most vulnerable sector, indigenous women and children reflects the mindset of the Aquino administration that allows this kind of violence to persist and go unpunished.” Malayao said. “It is also shows how the State violates the people’s rights in favor of big business, especially large-scale and foreign-owned mining.”

The KARAPATAN-Socsksargen report said that after the strafing, the 27th IB laid the dead out in the sun to coerce Jovy’s husband, Dagil Capion, to surrender. Dagil is a tribal leader of the Blaan community resisting the entry of Sagittarius Mines Inc, and has gained the bile of the mining company and their security forces.

Defense of ancestral domains just

“The Blaan declared pangayaw or tribal war against SMI in June”, says KAMP. “It is entrenched in the culture of the indigenous peoples to defend their land and life. For centuries, we  defended our lands against the plunder of our territories and the killing of our people. SMI is a threat to the way of life and the survival of the Blaan people. The pangayaw being waged is just,” Malayao claimed.

In waging the pangayaw , the tribesmen  attacked  SMI’s security, machines, and equipment this year. SMI’s Tampakan Project is poised to displace 30,000 Blaan peoples out of their ancestral territories.

“However, the merciless murder of the unarmed and children are inexcusable. The military  act as the security force of foreign business and interests, and not of the people.” Malayao maintained.

Malayao also shared that the Bong Mal community, the base of resistance against large-scale mining in the area, has  continually been in the receiving end of human rights violations for years since mining companies encroached in their ancestral territory. “Dagil is the nephew of Blaan leader Gorelmin Malid, who was slain back in 2002. This resistance and defense of ancestral lands runs throughout families. By the action made by the AFP , and the persistence of  SMI to mine their lands, this tribal war will run through generations.”

28 indigenous peoples slain under Aquino

KAMP claims that the three killings raised the death toll of indigenous peoples under Aquino to 28.

According to KAMP data, just last October 13, 2012 another indigenous leader, Gilbert Paborada was killed. He led his people against the entry of A. Brown Palm Oil Plantation in Opol, Misamis Oriental. “The trend of killings is indicates the determination of the Aquino government to sell-out our resources to foreign investors despite the strong opposition of ingenous peoples,” Malayao declared.

KAMP demands the immediate pullout of military forces in indigenous communities, and justice and indemnification for the extrajudicial killings.

“The killings seeks to weaken the defense of indigenous peoples  to their  lands.  The State’s systematic persecution and violation of our rights only intensified our peoples resistance against plunder and repression,” Malayao asserted.

Kalipunan ng Mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP)
National Alliance of Indigenous Peoples Organizations in the Philippines
Room 304 NCCP Building, near Quezon Avenue corner EDSA, West Triangle, Quezon City
(02) 412-5340
www.katutubongmamamayan.org

1...205206207...267Page 206 of 267