Rights mission joins call for Arroyo ouster
Philip C. Tubeza Luige A. del Puerto
Inquirer News Service
LONG before the Senate could try President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for impeachment, a group of international human rights advocates have found her guilty of numerous human rights violations and concluded that she should be ousted.
The group held an International People's Court (IPC) at the Film Center of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, on Aug. 19 and concluded that Ms Arroyo should be "perpetually barred" from holding public office.
The IPC was endorsed by well-known leftist personalities, like scholar Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"In the eyes of the world, Ms Arroyo is now in the infamous pantheon of human rights violators. If only for this, she should be immediately impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate," said Bayan Muna party-list Representative Satur Ocampo.
Ocampo joined the human rights advocates in turning over the evidence they had gathered to the impeachment prosecution team. The impeachment complaint against the President also accuses her of abetting numerous human rights violations perpetrated by the military.
"The voluminous evidence submitted to the IPC would be valuable in the impeachment complaint. No self-respecting member of Congress can turn a blind eye to such well-documented violations and Ms Arroyo's role in them," Ocampo said.
The human rights advocates also said that they supported moves to impeach the President.
"The human rights situation in the Philippines has reached alarming proportions which deserves international attention," said Canadian Barbara Waldern, one of the IPC jurors.
A signal
"This impeachment proceeding will send a signal to all countries in the world that the head of state could be indicted for acquiescence and abetting massive human rights abuses by state security forces," she said.
Waldern was among the 85 foreign delegates of the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) that visited areas of the country where the human rights situation "was at its worst," on Aug. 14-18.
The "judgment" of the IPC, which concluded its mission, was signed by all local and foreign delegates. It read:
"The Defendants (President Macapagal-Arroyo and ranking officers of the AFP and PNP) are hereby adjudged to have forfeited any right or authority to occupy their current political positions and hereby ordered removed from positions of power and perpetually and absolutely disqualified from holding any public office."
"The foreign delegates will urge our home countries to withdraw support to the Philippine President if she continues to acquiesce from the worsening human rights violation in the Philippines," said Kawal Ulanday, a member of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan from the United States and IPC juror.
"The worst violations, such as summary executions and enforced disappearances were deliberately and systematically done by state armed forces against legitimate political dissent, this is a serious crime against humanity which merits serious penalties in the international tribunals," added Selma Benkhelija, a lawyer from Belgium and IPC juror.
In a text message to the Inquirer, Philippine National Police spokesman Chief Superintendent Leopoldo Bataoil said the PNP would investigate any charges of human rights violations.
"We maintain that we do not tolerate human rights violations and we have certain police operational procedures or rules of engagement to follow in certain situation(s)," Bataoil said. "Any deviation from the same, we will make them answer for it including the immediate supervisor on the ground if evidence warrants."
The judges
The IPC held Ms Arroyo responsible for the 4,207 cases of human rights violations from January 2001 to June 2005, which included 400 victims of summary executions and 110 victims of forced disappearances.
Those who testified in the tribunal included witnesses to the Hacienda Luisita massacre in Tarlac province on Nov. 16 last year, abductions and extrajudicial killings committed in Mindoro and Eastern Visayas, and cases of torture, massacres and other cases in Surigao and Sulu.
On the Hacienda Luisita incident, Bataoil urged the mission to also look into the "human rights violations [committed by] the picketers who injured a lot of our policemen in the area during our peacekeeping operation at that time."
The court's judges included American law professor Lennox Hinds of Rutgers University, who was also a lawyer for Nelson Mandela, independent South Africa's first president; Nobel Peace Prize nominee Irene Fernandez of Malaysia, and lawyer Hakan Karakus of Turkey, president of the International Association of People's Lawyers.
Besides Chomsky, the endorsers of the IPC were Ramsey Clark, former US attorney general and founding chair of the International Action Center, and Jitendra Sharma, former justice of the Supreme Court of India.
Police rights
Finding alleged evidence of extrajudicial killings, the international mission concluded that the Arroyo administration violated the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Philippine Constitution, the GRP-NDF (National Democratic Front) Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law, among others.
Ocampo said the unresolved political killings under the Arroyo administration were an "enormous hindrance" to national reconciliation.
"A president that allows and encourages the killing of her own people for political ends, especially of her critics and human rights advocates, doing a grave injustice, culpably violates the Constitution and loses the moral right to govern and to unite the nation," said Ocampo, who is himself a former political detainee during the Marcos dictatorship.
He said that the reported relief of Brigadier General Jovito Palparan as head of the Army's 8th Infantry Division in Eastern Visayas indicated the President's "grudging admission of the politically motivated murders, abductions, torture, forced disappearances and other human rights violations" reported to human rights group Karapatan and the IPC and ISM.
Palparan's removal from Eastern Visayas and his expulsion from the military have long been demanded by Eastern Samar Representative Catalino Figueroa and various people's organizations.
"In spite of the rising incidence of political killings in Mindoro Oriental when Palparan was provincial military chief, Arroyo promoted him from colonel to brigadier general. True, he was removed from Mindoro but he pursued the same bloodthirsty campaign against anti-Arroyo activists," Ocampo said.
Guilty
The international mission was particularly appalled by the military general accused of numerous human rights violations in the course of his intensive anti-insurgency campaign.
"Due to the particular heinousness of his offenses, we particularly make a specific finding of guilt against (Maj.) Gen. Jovito Palparan," the group said.
The general, who had vowed to wipe out the insurgents, denied the allegations.
The international mission said evidence against the Arroyo administration demonstrated "beyond reasonable doubt that these human rights abuses are widespread, systematic and were done with impunity."
Support for Arroyo ouster
It also supported calls for Ms Arroyo's ouster and asked the international community to do the same.
"The defendants are sentenced to pay compensation and indemnification for the victims' rehabilitation, restitute their material and moral damages, and issue a sincere public apology to the Filipino people, and that all prisoners incarcerated because of political repression be released," it told the Philippine government.
The group further asked the Filipino people to file a complaint with the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
University of the Philippines (UP)
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