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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? |
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL DAY OF THE
DISAPPEARED
On 30 August, International Day of the Disappeared, the world celebrates
the lives of desaparecidos who are victims of a heinous offense
that violates practically all human rights and is committed in the North
and in the South, in war and in peace. Government security forces often
conveniently label them “enemies of the state” to justify, albeit
wrongfully, their enforced disappearance. They were made to disappear in
the dead of night or in broad daylight leaving their families in pain
and trepidation. The loss brought about by their sudden enforced
disappearance is incalculable as they could have sustained their
invaluable contribution to the building of a just, humane, progressive
and peaceful community of nations. They were, indeed, potent catalysts
of change in a world of inequities, aggression and exploitation.
Power holders unconscionably desecrate their memories even forcibly
tearing down and taking away their memorial marker as in Kashmir. But no
amount of physical violence, relentless threats and intimidation,
perfidious condemnation or historical distortion can make us forget our
beloved desaparecidos. They are forever present in our hearts and
minds.
Today we, their families, friends and supporters, gather before the Wall
of Remembrance at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani complex in Quezon
City to honor and pay tribute to them. We collectively remember and
thank them for their supreme sacrifice for freedom and democracy for all
to enjoy a better life.
Today we give justice to the difficult lives they led by pursuing their
ideals, which transcend national boundaries, races, cultures, political
ideologies, and economic systems, toward a world without
desaparecidos.
Attaining this challenging international mission requires global
interventions that can guide local initiatives. In response, the United
Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Protection of
All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 18 December 1992. This
notwithstanding associations of families of the disappeared led by
FEDEFAM and other civil society organizations continued to
steadfastly lobby the United Nations to adopt a legally binding
normative instrument. The Asian Federation Against Involuntary
Disappearances (AFAD) and the Families of Victims of Involuntary
Disappearance (FIND) actively participated in the crafting and
elaboration of the final draft of an anti-disappearance convention in
2005. Finally, fourteen years after the adoption of the Declaration, the
U.N. General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the
Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 20 December
2006.
Both the U.N. Declaration and the Convention consider the right against
enforced disappearance to be non-derogable. Not even a state of war,
threat of war, internal political instability or any other public
emergency may justify enforced disappearance. Both instruments seek the
passage of domestic laws criminalizing enforced disappearance even as
they both provide for ample preventive mechanisms to abate its
commission.
To date, 81 countries have signed the Convention and 13 have already
ratified it or 7 ratifications shy of the required number (20) for it to
enter into force. Japan is the only Asian country which has signed and
ratified the Convention. Thus, AFAD and FIND strongly urge other Asian
countries more particularly India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand,
Sri Lanka and the Philippines to follow suit.
It would be a most fitting and lasting tribute to Filipino
desaparecidos for the Philippine government to now enact into law
the anti-enforced disappearance bill which is currently under plenary
consideration by the Senate. The House of Representatives approved its
own version of the measure five months ago and has duly transmitted it
to the Senate.
Mr. Santiago Corcuera, Chairperson of the United Nations Working Group
on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID), reported during the
10th session of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2009 that: “The
total number of cases transmitted by the Working Group to Governments
since its inception is 52,952. The number of cases under active
consideration that have not yet been clarified, closed and discontinued
stands at 42,393 and concerns 79 States…of the 79 states, 21 are Asian
countries.”
In 2004, the biggest number of enforced disappearance cases brought
before the UNWGEID came from Nepal. Thus, the newly installed government
is strongly urged to enact a national law criminalizing enforced
disappearance in lieu of the existing ordinance on disappearance that is
found to be both procedurally and substantively flawed. It does not
respond to the needs of the families of the victims. In Kashmir, the
Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) has documented
about 8,000 cases from 1989-2004. In Indonesia, the government continues
to refuse to account for about 1,266 people who disappeared between 1965
and 2002 during Suharto’s “New Order” regime and Habibie’s interim
government. In Pakistan, Human Rights Watch has documented scores of
illegal detentions, instances of torture, and “disappearances.” Despite
the difficulty of determining the actual number of victims of enforced
disappearances in counterterrorist operations, Pakistan’s Interior
Ministry has estimated the total at 1,100. In Thailand, the Relatives
Committee of the May 1992 Heroes or victims of the Black May 1992
massacre in Bangkok has documented 253 cases of enforced disappearances
and during the dictatorship of former Prime Minister Thaksin,
innumerable cases occurred in the southern part of the country. In the
Philippines, FIND has documented 1,782 cases out of the 2,116 that were
reported from the Marcos regime to the Arroyo administration. Under the
current administration 290 cases have been reported. Of the 165
documented by FIND, 54 remain missing, 94 have surfaced alive, and 17
were found dead.
Let us make the succeeding International Days of the Disappeared be
marked by a diminishing number of desaparecidos even as we commit
ourselves to make it finally disappear.
BREAK IMPUNITY AND UPHOLD HUMAN DIGNITY.
BRING PERPETRATORS OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE TO JUSTICE.
SIGN AND RATIFY THE INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE PROTECTION OF ALL
PERSONS FROM ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE.
ENACT AN ANTI-ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE LAW.
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MARY AILEEN D. BACALSO |
NILDA LAGMAN-SEVILLA |
| Secretary-General |
Co-Chairperson |
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AFAD |
FIND |
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