On August 30, 2002, the international human rights community commemorated the International Day of the Disappeared. Simultaneous activities were conducted by AFAD member-organizations to give due honor to the desaparecidos and to once again renew its resolve never to let this thing happen again.
INVOLUNTARY DISAPPEARANCES:
A VIOLATION OF THE UNIVERSAL RIGHT TO LIFE
(A Statement issued by AFAD during the Commemoration of the International Day of the Disappeared on August 30, 2002)
August 30, 2002 – On the occasion of the International Day of the Disappeared, the
Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), composed of seven
organizations from China, Kashmir of India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka and
Thailand, remember those who were made to involuntarily disappear by the states which
ironically claim to uphold and protect human rights.
Today, linking arms with the Federacion Latinoamericana de Asociaciones de Familiares
de Detenidos-Desaparecidos (FEDEFAM) or the Latin American Federation of Associations of
Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees, who has pioneered and championed the cause of the
disappeared since 1981 and who had initiated this commemoration, AFAD gives due respect and
honor to the desaparecidos. In their struggle for a better world, the victims were brutally made to
disappear and must have been killed. Coming from nations large and small, they have the equal
right to life regardless of origin, race, color, religion and political belief. Such is founded on
human rights’ very universality, which is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Not only are the desaparecidos the sole victims of this human rights violation, but also
their families and their communities, notwithstanding the greater society, which has been
deprived of the desaparecidos’ promising future. For them, unless found alive and well, there is
no more future. The most that society could do is to ferret out the truth, so that one day, justice
and peace shall be realized and that both present and future generations shall be able to savor
the fruits of their struggle.
Asia has been at the forefront of change for the past half a century. Dubbed as having
“the fastest growing region in the world,” Asians have witnessed an array of ambitious political
leaders bent on industrializing societies at lightning-pace at the cost of civil liberties and
fundamental freedoms. Labeled as the national security paradigm during the 1960s and 70s and
later re-dubbed as “Asian values,” industrialization has merely created fragile economies with a
large number of poverty-stricken (and often unlettered) masses suffering beneath an enclave of
an affluent and abusive few. As the people face economic dislocation and social marginalization,
their leaders are mired in corruption, cronyism and nepotism, which are anathema to the speedy
delivery of even the most basic social services such as food, housing, education and medical
care. Hence, the emergence of social movements for societal reform and greater
democratization. Tragically, these struggles have often been suppressed and harassed resulting
in blatant human rights violations, the most atrocious of which is involuntary disappearance.
The myth which many Asian governments want to project that involuntary disappearance
is only a Latin American experience has been shattered through the voices of the families of the
disappeared in Asia collectively united in AFAD.
The gruesome Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989 in Beijing, China has
continued to bring unfathomable pains and sufferings to the Mothers of the Tiananmen Massacre
Victims, whose children were plucked out from their lives from the dead of the night like helpless
leaves from a tree. Professor Ding Zilin, who lost her 17 year-old son during the massacre,
portrayed commendable courage and bravery by leading the family members of the victims in
submitting a legal petition to China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate on May 17, 1999
demanding an investigation into Li Peng’s responsibility for the bloodshed. The book, entitled “
The Truth About the Beijing Turmoil mentions of 3,000 civilians wounded and over 200, including
36 university students were killed. Ding Zilin said that for security reasons, her group has
documented only 13 out of about 3,000- 4,000 cases of involuntary disappearances.
In the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir, involuntary disappearance has become a normal
phenomenon, with at least 5,000 reported cases for the period 1991-1993 alone. The Indian
government, in its latest pronouncement on July 18, 2002, admitted that in Kashmir, there have
been 3,185 missing persons since 1985. To honor the disappeared, the families of the victims
want to establish a monument, the foundation stone of which was taken by the Indian government
a few hours after the groundbreaking on July 18, 2001. Aggravating the situation is the ingrained
practice of most police personnel to cremate the victims’ remains, thus depriving the families of
the opportunity to ever see the remains of their loved ones again. Moreover, human rights
defenders themselves are victimized.
In Indonesia, while enforced disappearances have been an almost daily occurrence
during Suharto’s “New Order” regime, only 1,148 cases have been documented. While new
cases continue to happen without let-up, proper documentation would still have to be done on the
PKI supporters and sympathizers who were deliberately liquidated in 1965 and dissident ethnic
minorities from Aceh, Irian Jaya and the former province of East Timor. Even with the change of
administration through the assumption of former presidents Habibi and Wahid to power, violence
continued. With President Megawati presently in power, the resolution of past cases is far from
sight and the stop to the on-going violence unimaginable. On the contrary, it has worsened.
Even the office of KontraS, the AFAD member in Indonesia, was raided by more than 500 armed
men who confiscated voluminous organizational files, destroyed office equipment and physically
hurt KontraS’ personnel.
Being splashed in newspapers and magazines is the war between Pakistan and India. In
recent months, this has worsened resulting in wanton transgressions of human rights including
involuntary disappearances. The Human Rights Movement has documented human rights
violations in the area. These include, among others, killings, illegal detention and involuntary
disappearances. The Human Rights Movement, established in 1990 and registered under the
voluntary social welfare agencies registration and control ordinance of 1961, organized some 15
families of the disappeared three years ago. Due to heavy firing across the line of control, a
comprehensive documentation is impossible.
In the Philippines, with the demise of the Marcos dictatorship notwithstanding and the
subsequent restoration of democratic rule, justice still remains elusive for all victims of involuntary
disappearances. 1,778 cases are still pending with no single perpetrator being punished and no
reparation given to the families. 221 have surfaced dead while 305 surfaced alive. During the first
16 months of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s administration, 13 cases have been
documented. A law penalizing enforced disappearances has yet to see the light of day despite a
decade of lobbying. The test cases pending in court are witnessing the very slow pace of the
judicial system coupled with security problems of the witnesses. No single perpetrator has been
convicted yet.
In the southern part of Sri Lanka, a small country of 18 million people, there are about
60,000 cases of enforced disappearance, one of, if not the largest so far in the entire world. Of
this number, only 16,742 cases have been established and verified while about the same number
of the families and victims have been granted minimal compensation. While the three visits of the
UNWGEID to the country were able to confirm this wanton transgression of human rights, the Sri
Lankan government has yet to implement UNWGEID’s recommendations.
In Thailand, there are 293 cases of disappearances, which occurred during the brutal
suppression of the May 1992 demonstration against Army General-turned-Prime Minister
Suchinda Kraprayoon. Families continue to press the Thai government to disclose the more than
600-paged report about the massacre and reveal the whereabouts of the remains of the victims.
Yet, despite such persevering efforts, the Thai government just opened some sketchy reports of
what happened. While some of the families of the victims have received compensation, still, they
are demanding for the return of their loved ones’ remains for proper cremation and for the
establishment of a monument in honor of the May 1992 heroes. A decade has passed since the
infamous May 1992 event, yet the families of the victims have to see light in their long search for
the truth.
What makes this perfidy more flagrant and abominable is the fact that enforced
disappearance is not confined in Asia alone, but assumes an international character irrespective
of culture, tradition, boundary or locality. The January 8, 2002 report of Mr. Manfred Nowak,
United Nations independent expert in charge of the existing international and human rights
framework for the protection of persons from enforced or involuntary disappearances, pursuant
to a resolution of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, stated: “Over the past
twenty years, the Commission’s thematic Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances has transmitted some 50,000 individual cases of disappearances to
Governments of almost 90 countries in all regions of the world. “
To respond to this international phenomenon, AFAD, in cooperation with FEDEFAM and
many other freedom-loving organizations and individuals, work for the ratification of the United
Nations Draft Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary
Disappearances and conduct international solidarity, lobby and campaign work to combat
impunity.
On this occasion, the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances firmly
renews its resolve neither to forget the past nor allow the same thing to happen again. Never
again!
Signed by:
MARY AILEEN D. BACALSO
Secretary-General
