This story
was taken from Bulatlat, the Philippines's alternative weekly
newsmagazine (www.bulatlat.com, www.bulatlat.net, www.bulatlat.org).
Vol. VII, No. 9, April 1-7, 2007
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
Two PPT Jurors on Government Watch List
BY
D.L. MONDELO 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 12th 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. © 2007 Bulatlat
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