France to RP: Sign UN convention vs enforced disapppearances

France strongly called on the Philippines to lead Asian countries in ratifying a United Nations draft convention aimed at preventing abductions of political dissidents and promoting human rights.

Charge d’Affaires Bernard Regnauld Fabre, of the French Embassy in Manila, said the UN Draft Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance seeks to establish measures to prevent politically related kidnappings as well as bring justice to victims and their families.

"This convention, of course, will be a major step for the international community against enforced disappearances. We hope the Philippines will sign and ratify the Convention as soon as it will be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly," Fabre told reporters.

"France can only encourage initiative to shed light on perpetrators. Patience and courage are necessary to this direction. The momentum is important because it is going to create an awareness of involuntary disappearances that are not acceptable," he added.

As defined in the preamble of the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance, adopted by the UN General Assembly in its Resolution 47/133 on Dec. 18, 1992, "enforced disappearances occur when persons are arrested, detained or abducted against their will or otherwise deprived of their liberty by officials of different branches or levels of government or by organized groups or private individuals acting on behalf of, or with the support, direct or indirect, consent or acquiescence of the government, followed by a refusal to disclose the fate or whereabouts of the persons concerned or a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of their liberty, which places such persons outside the protection of the law."

Enforced disappearance when "committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack" has been defined as a crime against humanity in Article 7(1)(i) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Asked to comment on the spate of killings of left-leaning activists and journalists in the country, Fabre said: "It is important to stop the violence. We are confident that this can be changed here."

The government has come under criticism from leftist and human rights groups following several disappearances of left-leaning activists that they blame on security forces.

Fabre emphasized that it has not yet been firmly established that all the killings and disappearances were politically connected.

"I can speak as a diplomat living in Manila and I can see what the newspapers are reporting every day and there is clearly disappearance in the Philippines. Disappearances are not something acceptable in the democratic society," he said.

Lawyer Gabriela Citroni, representative of the Italian delegation to the UN Inter-Sessional Working Group to Elaborate a Draft Legally-Binding Normative Instrument for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, stressed the capital importance of having more signatories to the draft UN convention.

The convention, she said, is very important because the UN Group on Forced Disappearance is not a judicial body and a tribunal.

"While majority of reports are coming from countries in Asia, it is lacking in regional mechanism for human rights. This does not exist in Asia," Citroni said.

Without mechanism protecting human rights, she said, governments are unable and unwilling to carry out legal proceedings against those suspected of involvement in disappearances.

"The perpetrators can do it again. For Asia, the convention might be of crucial importance. It is a very important instrument for prevention. There are many provisions intended to give widest possible prevention like the creation of a 10-member committee to carry out field mission with wide powers and competence to know individual powers. If Asian countries ratify the Convention this will make people file complaints in cases of enforced disappearances," she said.

After 25 years of pushing for ratification, the convention is now with the UN General Assembly awaiting approval.

"It will be very important to adopt this instrument but it is not sufficient because it should be ratified by 20 countries. And the goal is the highest number of countries to ratify the convention," she added.

Crime against humanity

Lawyer Carlos Medina Jr., executive director of the Ateneo Human Rights Center, said enforced disappearance constitutes a crime against humanity and it is a continuing crime because the fate and whereabouts of the person who disappeared remain unknown.

"The problem is that there is no law to address this situation in the Philippines. There is no mechanism in the Asia-Pacific region. The most important is to work for the ratification by the Philippine Senate. We should push the President to sign and the Senate to have the treaty ratified," he said. "We call on the Philippines to be second to Spain and first in Asia to have this convention ratified."

If approved by the UN, the draft convention would become a universally binding instrument.

Last month, Mrs. Arroyo named former Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo to head the special commission that will investigate the series of killings, for which her administration has been blamed for either condoning the attacks or not doing enough to stop them.

Malacañang plans to invite representatives from the European Union and international human rights organizations to monitor her government’s efforts at ending the spate of killings.

Leftist groups and critics, however, remained skeptical of her sincerity and that the killers would ever be brought to justice.

Mrs. Arroyo gave the commission wide powers and a "sweeping mandate for its members to put murderers behind bars and break this cycle of violence once and for all."

"Democracy in the Philippines will not stand for senseless political killings," Mrs. Arroyo said at a ceremony marking the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of opposition leader Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino.

Aquino was murdered in 1983 by soldiers of then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos. The outrage that followed his death culminated in the people power revolution which toppled Marcos in February 1986.

Human rights groups say more than 300 activists have been slain by suspected security forces since Mrs. Arroyo assumed office in 2001.

Mrs. Arroyo insisted that her government would never endorse such murders, stressing that "it’s time that the culture of political retribution stop."

International human rights groups have criticized the government for being unable to stop the spate of killings.

Amnesty International had earlier criticized the Philippine government for failing "to protect individuals and their human rights," citing the murder of 114 left-wing political and human rights activists, trade union leaders, lawyers, journalists, religious leaders and judges over the past five years.

The group said it recorded 51 political killings in the Philippines in the first six months of 2006, compared with 66 for all of last year.

Another group, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, said Mrs. Arroyo has shown "no political will to stop these killings."

The government, however, said the "blanket accusations" were unfair and security officials have denied any involvement, saying the murders may be part of an internal purge by communist insurgents as many leftist groups are seen as fronts of the rebels.

Also last month, Mrs. Arroyo previously ordered the Philippine National Police (PNP) to investigate the killings and gave it a 10-week deadline.

A PNP task force was formed earlier this year to investigate the killings but Mrs. Arroyo said she has grown impatient with its work.

Leftist human rights group Karapatan has put the number of politically motivated murders in the country since Mrs. Arroyo came to power in 2001 at over 700.

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said at least 83 journalists have been killed since 1986, including about 10 this year.

The military has denied any involvement and challenged human rights groups to produce evidence that soldiers were involved and file cases against them in court.

Most of the activists were killed by masked gunmen on motorcycles who attacked their victims on isolated roads or even at home, in front of their loved ones.