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Statements of AFAD
Proceedings:
Articles on the Proceedings on the AFAD Leadership Training
Jan. 27 - 31, 2003, Philippines
AFAD Second Congress Resolutions
August 2003
Remembering Munir
AFAD Second Congress
August 26-30, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand
AFAD’s Mid-Year Report
Ding Zilin's
Message To
Hong Kong
Again, The KONTRAS – IKOHI Office Was Attacked
“ If they are dead, tell us”!
My sons, where are they? |
AFAD’s Statement on the 61st Anniversary of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
10 December 2009
Eradicating Enforced Disappearances
From the Face of the Earth…
December 10, 2009 marks the sixty-first anniversary of the adoption of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations General
Assembly. The Declaration which forms the cornerstone of modern society,
has set forth the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of
the economic, social, and cultural rights and the civil and political
rights. From this declaration springs a number of human rights
instruments that the world enjoys today.
More than six decades have passed since the adoption of this
Declaration, but still, millions of people in many countries around the
world are still witnessing and experiencing flagrant violations of their
fundamental human rights. The recent massacre of more than 60 persons in
Maguindanao, Southern Philippines, many of whom were media people,
demonstrates the brazen disrespect of the basic right to life.
One of the worst forms of human rights violations is enforced or
involuntary disappearance. This heinous act practically violates the
fundamental human rights to life, liberty and dignity. It does not only
deprive a person of the civil and political rights by removing him or
her from the protection of the law, it also denies the families of the
victims and the greater society of the right to know the truth and to
seek justice. This crime is also a violation of economic and social
rights in the sense that it deprives society of the social and economic
contribution the disappeared persons could have further given.
Enforced disappearance is a continuing phenomenon in more than eighty
countries as per the 2008 report of the UN Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances. Many of these cases occur in Asian
countries, which submitted the highest number of cases in recent years.
Common to all these countries is the culture of impunity which allows
perpetrators to escape accountability, many of whom continue to enjoy
high positions in government while victims and their families continue
to suffer. Perpetrators, escaping accountability, continue to stain the
good names of those who disappear, justify the act of disappearance in
the name of national security and obliterate their memory.
Truth and justice remain elusive. This is true in many Asian countries,
some of whom include the following:
• In Indonesia, there is still no reparation and redress to the
survivors of the 1965 pogrom against the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).
In their advanced years, they hope against hope that one day, their
sufferings will not remain as unhealed wounds, but will be vindicated by
the dawning of justice.
• In East Timor, the victims of the two and a half decades of conflict
still cry for truth and clamor for justice a decade after they won their
hard-earned freedom. Refusing to forget their dark history of violence,
they believe that in learning from the lessons of their painful past and
in giving justice and reparation to the victims can the lives of their
heroes and martyrs be vindicated and can they move on towards a truly
independent nation.
• In the Philippines, while there are continuing efforts to find the
truth about those who disappeared during the tyrannical and rapacious
Marcos regime and the succeeding administrations, President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, who promised to leave no stone unturned to find the
disappeared and not to allow a single case of disappearance to occur
during her administration, miserably failed to curb disappearances.
Ironically, more than 200 cases of enforced disappearances have been
documented since 2001, not to mention the recent spate of
election-related violence that has stained the nation with the blood of
innocent civilians.
• In Thailand, while families and survivors of the 1992 Black May
massacre still continue to find the truth of what happened, to seek
reparation and to demand that a monument to be built in honor of the
victims, another spate of violence occurred in recent years, especially
in the country’s southern part, resulting in more disappearances and
other violations of human rights.
• In Nepal, while in an uphill transition to democracy, there is no
reparation for victims of enforced disappearances. The attempt to
criminalize enforced disappearance in the domestic law miserably failed
as the ordinance criminalizing enforced disappearances was nullified -
its substance being anti-victims and its process, questionable.
• In war-torn Kashmir, as violence continues to be perpetrated by the
Indian soldiers, civil society organizations have recently found glaring
evidence of mass graves of more almost three thousand victims of human
rights violations which need to be unearthed.
A global response was made to address the crime of enforced
disappearances when the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006 the
International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced
Disappearance. This Convention, born from sufferings of families of the
disappeared, if complemented with domestic legislation, will serve as a
strong measure to prevent enforced disappearance, punish the
perpetrators and give justice and reparation to the victims and their
families. One of the strongest human rights treaties, this Convention,
once entered into force, requires the establishment of a Committee on
enforced disappearance composed of ten members whose functions are to
ensure its implementation. To date, there are already 17 out of 20
ratifications required for the treaty to enter into force. Three more
ratifications are needed for this treaty to come into force. While
almost half of the ratifications come from Latin America, many Asian
states have yet to sign and ratify it. For this reason, the Asian
Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, in cooperation with its
sister organizations from Latin America and other parts of the globe, is
intensifying its campaign and lobby work to ensure ratification by Asian
states.
On this 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) renews
its commitment to ardently dream and to tirelessly struggle to attain a
world without desaparecidos. With the eventual entry into force of the
international treaty against enforced disappearances, there is all the
more reason to work harder to ensure its universal implementation, thus
realizing the eradication of this crime from the face of the earth.
As the world commemorates the 61st Anniversary of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, joining hands in solidarity with the rest
of the civil society, let us continue to work hard, amidst persecutions
so that that every provision in this Declaration be translated into
concrete action, thus making a difference in the lives of the violated
peoples.
Signed:
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MUGIYANTO |
MARY AILEEN D. BACALSO |
| Chairperson |
Secretary-General |
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