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Volume 3,  Number 23              July 13 - 19, 2003            Quezon City, Philippines


 





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Bayan Muna to Question Immunity Pact in High Court

Militants are seeing red with the immunity granted by the Macapagal-Arroyo government to U.S. forces which, they say, practically serves as a waiver to the right to seek redress for injustices committed by the foreign troops.

By Ronalyn Olea
Bulatlat.com

United Nations secretary general Koffi Annan (left), with judges 
for the International Criminal Court (ICC), during its inauguration

In a leaders’ meeting in Quezon City organized by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan and Bayan Muna July 8, various organizations raised questions over Foreign Secretary Blas Ople’s signing of the Non-Surrender Agreement with the U.S. government.

The bilateral agreement signed last May gives U.S. soldiers immunity from prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The ICC is a permanent international tribunal that will prosecute individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

 

The Philippines was among the 120 signatories to the Rome Statute for the establishment of the ICC.  Former President Joseph Estrada signed it in December 2000. The treaty has not been ratified by the Senate upon Malacañang instructions, however.

Ople said the agreement does not need the ratification of the Senate.

However, Atty. Cleto Villacorta, Bayan Muna legal counsel, believed that the nature of the agreement is not suitable for an executive agreement. Villacorta argued that it is a major policy that should have been concurred by the Senate as a treaty.  

Bayan Muna announced their group will file a petition before the Supreme Court to question the immunity agreement.

Atty. Jayson Lamchek of the Public Interest Law Center (PILC) insisted that the Arroyo administration should have the ICC ratified in “principle of good faith.” He added that the other signatories to the Rome Statute expect the Philippines to sign the ICC and not any agreement that undermines the tribunal.

Before he resigned as foreign secretary, Vice President Teofisto Guingona Jr. had recommended to Macapagal-Arroyo the approval and transmittal of the ICC treaty to the Senate, stating that the country should welcome the opportunity of a permanent ICC especially since it “will help ensure that if member states fail to prosecute, the ICC can.”

The Macapagal-Arroyo government has formed a Cabinet Oversight Committee to deliberate on the ICC treaty before it is transmitted to the Senate for ratification yet no action has been taken despite calls for its immediate ratification by a Senate resolution sponsored by Sen. Loren Legarda and statements by Senate President Franklin Drilon that he approves of the ICC treaty and “does not see much problem getting the Senate to ratify it.”

In October, Party List Bayan Muna filed House Resolution No. 800 in the Congress urging the President to immediately transmit to the Philippine Senate for ratification the 1998 Rome Statute creating the ICC.

Thirty-eight congressmen supported the resolution.

Retired Navy Capt. Danilo P. Vizmanos, a former inspector-general of the Armed Forces and spokesperson of OUT NOW! said, “While Arroyo and Ople have yet to submit the ICC treaty for Senate ratification, they have signed what is practically a waiver for U.S. troops that exempts them from ICC jurisdiction."

U.S. military intervention

In a statement, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) spokesman Gregorio ‘Ka Roger’ Rosal said the immunity agreement is a “virtual act of surrender of the Philippines' sovereign right to seek redress in an international court for criminal acts committed by U.S. troops in the Philippines.”

"Expect American troops to act more brazenly and brusquely with this immunity agreement, assured as they are now by the Philippine government itself that they would not be made liable for whatever acts they may commit in the Philippines," Rosal added.

Rosal believed that “the collusion to de-operationalize the application of the treaty in the Philippines is definitely tied to the objective of further heightening and widening the scope of U.S. military intervention in the Philippines.” 

The CPP spokesperson
explained that this agreement “further emboldens the U.S. troops to commit aggression without restriction and without fear of any international law.”

He also recalled the latest controversial case of a GI named Reggie Lane who shot an unarmed Moro civilian named Buyong-Buyong Isnijal in Tuburan, Basilan in July last year. Lane was with two other American soldiers and several other Filipino troopers who were hunting down supposed Abu Sayyaf bandits.

U.S.’ pressure

Villacorta deemed that the immunity agreement is a template agreement imposed by the U.S. government. 

The American Service members Protection Act (ASPA) set out a July 1 deadline for most recipients of U.S. military aid to exempt U.S. soldiers and other personnel from prosecution before the ICC.

Recently, the U.S. has cut off military aid to about 35 countries for failing to meet the deadline.  U.S. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher revealed that about $48 million in aid will be blocked.

The Bush administration withdrew the U.S.’ signature to the Rome Statute and has instead sought a permanent exemption from prosecutions.

The NGO Coalition for the International Criminal Court said the ASPA, signed into law last August, is part of a multi-pronged Bush administration campaign to gain broad-ranging exemptions from the ICC.

On June 18, U.S. diplomats presented resolutions before the United Nations Security Council that would exempt “peacekeepers” in Bosnia and in all U.N.-authorized or –mandated operations from the jurisdiction of the ICC. Bulatlat.com 

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