HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Two PPT Jurors on Government Watch List

UTRECHT, The Netherlands―Two prominent individuals who served as jurors in the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) Second Session on the Philippines held in The Hague, The Netherlands last March 21-25, are on the “watch list” of the Philippine Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) which is an attached agency of the Department of Justice (DoJ).

BY D.L. MONDELO
Bulatlat

UNDER WATCH: Malaysian activist Dr. Irene Fernandez and Norwegian NGO leader Oystein Tveter, who served as jurors in the PPT Second Session on the Philippines, are both on the Arroyo government's watchlist.

UTRECHT, The Netherlands―Two prominent individuals who served as jurors in the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) Second Session on the Philippines held in The Hague, The Netherlands last March 21-25, are on the “watch list” of the Philippine Bureau of Immigration and Deportation (BID) which is an attached agency of the Department of Justice (DoJ).

Lawyers Irene Fernandez (Malaysia) and Oystein Tveter (Norway) were among the PPT jurors who gave a guilty verdict to the Macapagal-Arroyo and Bush administrations for committing grave war crimes against the Filipino people.

“I am not bothered by that list,” Fernandez said a day before she flew back to Kuala Lumpur. “I don’t see any reason for including my name on that list. I cannot compromise my stand on human rights and justice. That watch list comes from a repressive regime.”

“We don’t get any protection,” Fernandez stressed. “We stand solidly behind the cause of the PPT. If anything happens to any of us jurors, the PPT will strongly campaign.”

Also asked to comment on the remarks of the Dutch ambassador to the Philippines who said that the PPT is an “international kangaroo court,” Fernandez, who also served as the vice president of the PPT Second Session on the Philippines (second in line to Dr. Francois Houtart, Catholic priest from Belgium) said, “He doesn’t know what he (the Dutch ambassador) is talking about. He doesn’t understand the basis of the PPT. His comments are ridiculous. He should get his facts straight first!”

The watch list that was stamped “secret”was shown earlier to Fernandez by a PPT secretariat staff and was dated Feb. 6, 2007. It was originally a “blacklist” prepared before and during the 12^th ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Summit in Cebu City, Philippines. It was prepared by the offices of Cesar Garcia of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) and Norberto Gonzales Jr. who is Macapagal-Arroyo’s national security adviser, and signed by Alipio Fernandez Jr., commissioner of the BID.

On Jan. 19, 2007, the “blacklist” (also called exclusion order) which contained the names of 459 foreign nationals, was downgraded to a “watch list” but contained the names of the same individuals.

U.S. lawyer Brian Campbell, whose name appears on both the blacklist and watch list, was refused entry to the Philippines upon arrival at the Manila international airport last year. The denial of entry to Campbell caused a “stir” last December.

Two Canadians who are on the list were reportedly questioned when they were about to leave the Philippines this year. Many Filipino-Americans, Filipino-Canadians and European human rights activists and lawyers are also on the list.

The 459 foreign nationals on the watch list include, aside from PPT jurors’ Fernandez and Tveter, peace and human rights activists who participated in several fact-finding missions on the extrajudicial killings of militants. The reports of these missions brought to the attention of the international community the impunity of the political killings and paved the way for such high-caliber missions to the Philippines as that of the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston, and an international tribunal such as the PPT.

Fernandez is well-known in Malaysia as a social activist and a firm advocate of the rights of women and migrants. She was a recipient of the 2005 Right Livelihood Award, considered as an equivalent of the Nobel Prize.

Tveter is a former Norwegian Foreign Ministry Official in Zambia and South Africa and a former executive of the Norwegian Church Aid and the Centre for Partnership in Development, also in Oslo, Norway. He was awarded the most coveted King’s Golden Medal of Merit for his “lifelong engagement in the development of human rights and international solidarity work.”

Norway is serving as third country facilitator between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the peace negotiations. Bulatlat

Editor’s Note: D. L. Mondelo is Bulatlat’s correspondent for Europe.