HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Retired General, Wife Held
by U.S. Immigration
Will
ask foreign affairs department to file diplomatic protest
Several cases of Filipinos being harassed allegedly by U.S. immigration personnel
have been documented. It turns out even a long stint as a former military
official and a current job as consultant for a subsidiary of a
government-owned and controlled corporation, are not guarantees enough for
protection against such high-handed treatment.
BY
ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
A retired Army
brigadier-general and his wife said they were harassed by U.S. immigration
personnel upon their arrival at the airport in Dallas, Texas last Tuesday.
ENRAGED: Retired
Brig. Gen. Raymundo Jarque (center) lashes out at the "dirty
Americans" as son Raymundo Jr. (left) and wife Zenia (right)
look on during their press conference in Makati City, Sept. 23.
Photo by Alexander
Martin Remollino
|
Brig. Gen Raymundo
Jarque (ret.) and his wife, Zenia, went to the U.S. to visit their
daughter Melissa, a resident of Dallas, and to seek treatment for the wife
who was in need of a medical transplant, the couple told a news conference
in Makati City Friday. They were detained overnight at the Dallas city
jail before being deported, they said. They arrived back in Manila late
Friday morning.
Their son Raymundo Jr.,
who also spoke at the news conference, told his sister not to worry when
informed that their parents were being held for questioning. “Worst case,”
he recalled having told his sister, “my father will be sent back home but
there should be no issue with my mother.”
|
The elder Jarque left
the military service in 1995 in protest against what he described in media
interviews as trumped-up corruption charges against him filed by some of
his fellow officers. That same year he shocked the nation by defecting to
the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA). Two years later, he surfaced as
a consultant in the peace negotiations between the Government of the
Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the
Philippines (NDFP).
Jarque now works as a
consultant for a subsidiary of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC).
The CPP-NPA is
included in the U.S. Department of State’s list of “foreign terrorist
organizations (FTO).” The NDFP, however, is not included in the list.
“Shocked and confused”
“We were shocked and
confused and scared and angry upon learning that both of them including my
sickly mother were sent to a city jail, in separate cells, with other
common criminals,” the younger Jarque continued. “When my father protested
and just requested to talk to my mom first before they were separated, the
jail guards refused and literally pushed my father to the other cell like
a common criminal.”
“They were not
allowed to receive calls,” the younger Jarque added. “They were only
allowed to make a call or two at a maximum of a few minutes each. My
sister prepared Filipino food since they were only served a single cupcake
for breakfast. It was not permitted to be brought in.”
The elder Jarque
added that they were not even allowed to change their clothes, and were
deprived of sleep as they were subjected to hours of interrogation.
Newspaper reports on
Sept. 24 quoted Matthew Lussenhop, spokesperson of the U.S. Embassy in
Manila, as denying the couple was arrested. He refused to give more
details, however, invoking privacy rules.
Executive Secretary
Eduardo Ermita, who indicated the U.S. government has its own immigration
laws, admitted having known Jarque. “I know he is no terrorist,” Ermita
said in a radio interview, “but we could not criticize the Americans on
the basis they used in deporting him because they have their own
information.”
According to the
elder Jarque, his daughter had told him and his wife that an immigration
officer in Dallas had informed them that they had received an order dated
Sept. 6 to declare as inadmissible to the U.S. all persons linked to the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NPA – including their
spouses and children.
“Why include spouses
and children?” the younger Jarque asked. “(Like) my mother, I do not have
any affiliation with the CPP-NPA. So if I go to the U.S., they will also
arrest me because I am a son of General Jarque? Let us assume, for
argument’s sake, that my father did commit a crime. Why should I be
penalized for that?”
“This Sept. 6 memo of
the U.S. government has far-reaching implications,” the younger Jarque
added. “For what does this mean – is the U.S. government now saying that
any spouse, son or daughter should be held equally accountable for their
spouse or father’s activities? Will the U.S. forces in Iraq now be
shooting and killing spouses and children just because their father is a
suspected terrorist?”
That was not their
first visit to the U.S., the elder Jarque told Bulatlat in a
subsequent interview. Holding a 10-year multiple-entry visa issued in
1999, the retired brigadier-general first went to the U.S. in September
2004, a good seven years after he surfaced as a consultant in the GRP-NDFP
peace talks; he was not harassed then, he said.
“Directions from
somewhere”
Asked for his
thoughts on why it was only now that he and his wife were harassed upon
arriving at the U.S., he surmised that it “has directions issued from
somewhere.”
“The hot topic of the
day in the U.S. is terrorism,” he said. “I am a former consultant of the
NDFP, and they associate that with the CPP-NPA. So someone must have given
directions from somewhere, and these were followed with the assistance of
their assets here, because they now have Homeland Security personnel at
the U.S. Embassy whose line of work deals with international ‘terrorism.’”
President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo had presided at the summit of the United Nations (UN)
Security Council a few weeks before. Among the topics discussed in the
summit was the enactment of anti-“terrorist” legislation in
member-countries as part of the U.S.-led global war on “terror.”
A few days prior to
the UN Security Council Summit, both the U.S. Department of State and the
British Embassy in the Philippines had issued statements urging the
Philippine government to expedite the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Bill
now pending in Congress. Various groups, including the National Union of
Journalists of the Philippines (NUJP), have assailed the Anti-Terrorism
Bill for containing provisions that are said to include even the exercise
of basic civil liberties in its definition of “terroristic” activities.
“Perhaps we were made
samples of what is coming forth,” the elder Jarque said. “Because the U.S.
is becoming more and more paranoid about international ‘terrorism.’ So
they are starting to hunt down suspected ‘terrorists’ including their
spouses and children. That must be a signal to militant groups.”
Condemnation
In a statement
e-mailed to the media from Utrecht, The Netherlands, NDFP chief negotiator
Luis Jalandoni condemned what he described as the “inhuman treatment” that
the Jarque couple received in the hands of U.S. immigration officials.
“The U.S. is
reprehensible for using its so-called war on terrorism to unjustly and
without any basis brand the Communist Party, the New People’s Army and
Prof. Jose Maria Sison, the NDFP Chief Political Consultant as
‘terrorists’ and proceed to stigmatize, humiliate and abuse other NDFP
consultants like (Brigadier-General) Jarque, including his wife, and thus
violate their human dignity and rights,” he said.
“The U.S. keeps on
sending out the message to the whole world that it is against the GRP-NDFP
peace negotiations and is hell-bent on upsetting these negotiations by
threatening and attacking persons involved in these,” Jalandoni added.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon,
a former Armed Forces chief of staff and a classmate of the elder Jarque
at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), had previously also condemned
the U.S. harassment of the Jarque couple upon learning of the incident
through former classmates. “Why in the first place did they issue him a
visa only to deport him when he gets there?” the senator said Thursday in
a televised interview.
The elder Jarque said
he and his wife plan to ask the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to
file a diplomatic protest.
Aside from the Jarque
couple, other high-ranking government officials have also experienced and
protested U.S. immigration officials’ alleged shabby treatment. Among them
were Senate President Franklin Drilon, Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile and Loi
Ejercito-Estrada and economist Winnie Mosod.
The inclusion of the
CPP-NPA and NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison in the FTO
list of the U.S. state department has been one of the contentious issues
in government peace talks with the NDFP. Bulatlat
BACK TO
TOP ■
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION ■
COMMENT
© 2005 Bulatlat
■
Alipato Publications
Permission is granted to reprint or redistribute this article, provided
its author/s and Bulatlat are properly credited and notified.