The International
Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), a non-governmental organization
founded in 1947 that has consultative status with the United Nations (UN)
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and accredited with the UN Human Rights
Council, has called on the Philippine government to use all its powers,
resources and machinery in immediately arresting retired Maj. Gen. Jovito
Palparan Jr. who has gone into hiding for three months now.
Gen. Palparan has been indicted for the enforced disappearance
of two young activist students Sherilyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno who were
forcibly abducted, brutally tortured, and repeatedly raped in 2006. He faces a
string of other pending and potential suits for his involvement in hundreds of
extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture and other violations when he
was in active service during the time of former President Gloria Arroyo.
In the recently
concluded meeting of its governing Bureau in Brussels, Belgium over the
weekend, the IADL approved by consensus and in principle an omnibus resolution
challenging the administration of President Benigno Aquino III to leave no
stone unturned to immediately arrest Gen. Palparan and prosecute him forthwith,
noting that he is reportedly the highest-ranking military official that has
ever been criminally indicted for human rights violations after the Marcos
dictatorship.
The IADL resolution said that violators of human rights
anywhere in the world, wherever they are, must answer for their crimes against
humanity. The IADL emphatically stressed that targeting of civilians violates
the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR). It underscored that those who violate these laws must
be held accountable.
The IADL, which reputedly has members in 90 countries, asked
its country affiliates to blast the information about Gen. Palparan and to
closely monitor the case/s against him even as it twitted Pres. Aquino for
striking a distant and uncaring pose about pressing social and economic issues.
The IADL, headed by its President Jeanne Mirer from the New
York-based National Lawyers Guild (NLG) that has thousands of members in all
the states of the US, noted that there continues a bubble of impunity even
under the present government. It expressed concern that serious and credible
reports of killings, disappearances, torture, urban poor demolitions and other
human rights violations continue; that the government has by and large not
undertaken clear, strong, concrete and effective steps to make perpetrators
accountable; and that political prisoners still unjustly languish in jail.
The IADL said that unless perpetrators are punished and held
accountable for their actions, the violations will continue with impunity. It
pointed out that unless positive and concrete actions are taken by the
government to improve the dire human rights situation, there will be more
victims and the likes of Gen. Palparan will continue to sow terror.
Consistent with its various campaigns to work for the
release of political prisoners all over the world, the IADL also joined appeals
that the more than 300 political prisoners be immediately released through a
general, unconditional and omnibus amnesty or through any other mutually
acceptable mode of release.
The Bureau was also informed how the legal and judicial
system in the Philippines has perpetrated the injustice against these prisoners
through the filing of false or wrong charges – a practice that is also
incompatible with international human rights law and international criminal law
principles- , the improvident use of
generic names to persecute branded “enemies of the state,” and the
infectiveness or impracticability of existing local legal remedies.
The IADL agreed that if the Aquino government is really
serious and sincere in its commitment to improve the Philippine human rights
situation, the release of political prisoners is only proper and an imperative
as a matter of law, principle and justice.
The IADL also resolved to ask the Philippine and US
governments to stop US intervention in the country through deceptive and
unequal visiting forces agreements or arrangements and is expressed alarmed at
talks to expand the presence of US troops, facilities and materiel. It pointed
out that this is contrary to the general principles in international law,
particularly on national sovereignty and the right of peoples to
self-determination.
The IADL has consistently opposed and campaigned against any
kind of foreign intervention in any country including economic, political, and
military interference. It lamented that US troops remain in the Philippines despite the historic struggle and
laudable victory in kicking out in the 1990s the two largest military bases
outside the US
mainland.
Finally, the IADL resolution called on the Philippine
government and the liberation movement National Democratic Front of the
Philippines (NDFP) to resume their peace negotiations to address and resolve
the roots of the armed conflict, even as it noted that the landmark
Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International
Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) marked its 14th anniversary while the Bureau was in
session. The Bureau was informed that the CARHRIHL conforms to international
legal principles and standards that the IADL stands for and in fact contains
provisions on the foregoing issues contained in the IADL Resolution.
In a related vein, the IADL affirmed its full support to its
officers and members who make up in their individual capacities the majority of
the International Legal Advisory Team (ILAT) to the NDFP Negotiating Panel. The
ILAT gives its advice and opinion pro bono on matters of international law
related or coming out of the peace negotiations.
Those present at the
Brussels meeting were lawyers who are key leaders or prominent representatives
of different democratic lawyers
associations in 16 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe, North and Latin America
including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Cameroon, Costa Rica, Germany, France, Haiti, India, Iraq, Italy, Japan,
Philippines, United Kingdom, United States, and Vietnam.
The National
Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL), the affiliate of the IADL in the Philippines
and which represents the families of the disappeared university students and
several other victims of human rights violations, was represented by its
Secretary General in the Bureau meeting