by Mugiyanto
Eighteen States have ratified the UN Convention for
the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (hereinafter
referred to as The Convention). Of these eighteen States, only 5 have
recognized the competence of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED).
Of the parties, only two are Asian, namely Japan and Kazakhstan. It
signifies more work for the Asian Federation Against Involuntary
Disappearances (AFAD) and the rest of the international movement against
enforced disappearances not only to achieve the minimum number of 20
ratifications for the entry into force, but also to have more States
recognize the competence of the CED and to put more Asian States on
board.
The ratification by Asian States is important because
it is in their region where the highest number of cases of enforced
disappearances has been submitted to the UN Working Group on Enforced or
Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) in the last few years.
The AFAD, which conducted a lobby tour to some Asian
countries such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Timor Leste, Thailand,
India and Nepal during the last six months, received initial positive
feedbacks. All government authorities that the Federation met, except
for those in India, have been supportive and already undergoing initial
processes of ratification. Indonesia and Thailand are formulating
academic papers toward ratification. The Philippines and Nepal are
in the process of adopting national legislation on
disappearances to serve as enabling mechanisms for the treaty’s
implementation. In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo,
whom leaders and members of the Families of Victims of Involuntary
Disappearances (FIND) and AFAD met, promised to sign the Convention
before her term would end in June 2010. Timor Leste, through President
Jose Ramos-Horta whom the AFAD lobby team met in Dili in November 2009,
said that had he been informed about the Convention earlier, Timor Leste
would have been a party.
Although until now, Timor Leste has not yet ratified
the Convention, some processes are being done toward ratification. Worth
mentioning here is that Timor Leste is one of the few Asian countries
which is a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court. The governments of Timor Leste and Indonesia are also in the
process of negotiating the establishment of a follow-up institution as
recommended by the joint Truth and Friendship Commission (TFC). It has
been recommended that both governments establish a commission on missing
persons to identify the missing and disappeared persons in Timor Leste
during the Indonesian occupation. Moreover, on 28 September 2009, the
Indonesian Parliament recommended the government to ratify the
Convention.
If the situation develops accordingly, the Convention
would enter into force within the first half of the year 2010. This, of
course, requires the broad and active participation of civil society all
over the world in promoting the Convention to States. When the entry
into force of the Convention is achieved, the struggle against one of
the worst human rights violations ever practiced, which "turns humans
into non-humans" (as Jeremy Sarkin, chair of the UN Working Group on
Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances said on the 30th Anniversary of
the body’s creation), will be entering a new stage. There will be a new
source of hope for the desaparecidos, their families and the
greater society.
The entry into force of the Convention also signifies
that the long-drawn struggle against uncertainty and despair of millions
of family members of disappeared persons in the whole world are getting
closer to its direction. The world free from enforced disappearances
shall be realized in the not-so-distant future.
More power to the families of victims!
Ratify the Convention NOW!
