Foreign delegates to the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) that convened Aug. 19 in Quezon City have urged the international community to support the Filipino people’s move to force the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. They also asked foreign governments to withdraw their support or recognition for the President who has lost all power and authority to govern due to the charges filed against her including gross human rights violations.

By Bulatlat

Photo gallery:  The International People’s Tribunal

Foreign members of the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) that convened Aug. 19 in Quezon City have urged the international community to support the Filipino people’s move to force the resignation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

They also asked foreign governments to withdraw their support or recognition for the President who, they said, has lost all power and authority to govern due to the charges filed against her including gross human rights violations.

This came up as the Presidium of Judges of the IPT, led by American law professor, Lennox Hinds of Rutgers University, Nobel Peace Prize nominee Irene Fernandez of Malaysia and lawyer Hakan Karakus of Turkey passed judgment on Mrs. Arroyo guilty as charged for gross human rights violations in her role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the national police. Hinds was also a lawyer for Nelson Mandela, independent South Africa’s first president while Karakus is the president of the International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL).

According to Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, who closed the one-day tribunal participated in by some 100 delegates from 15 countries including the Philippines, the findings of the IPT and the International Solidarity Mission (ISM) preceding it will be used for the impeachment of the President in Congress.

The documented evidence and testimonies presented to the tribunal will also be used to pursue charges against the Arroyo government earlier cited at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, it was also learned. Similar reports also came from the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the U.S. state department.

The President is facing impeachment in Congress for culpable violation of the Constitution; bribery, graft and corruption; and betrayal of public trust. The crimes alleged to have been committed include electoral fraud in the 2004 presidential race, jueteng (illegal numbers game) payoffs and human rights violations.

Torch march for justice and peace

The trial of Mrs. Arroyo led by the IPT was observed by about 1,500 people who packed the Film Institute at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. The participants held a torch march for justice and peace to the Quezon City Memorial Circle later in the afternoon.

The ISM and tribunal were also endorsed by Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General and founding chair of the International Action Center; prominent scholar and U.S. foreign policy critic Prof. Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and Jitendra Sharma, former justice of the Supreme Court of India.

United Nations Judge ad Litem Romeo T. Capulong, who served as chief of people’s prosecutors, clarified that the Tribunal has the mandate, authority and legitimacy to try Mrs. Arroyo and co-defendant U.S. President George W. Bush, Jr. for human rights violations and crimes against humanity. The tribunal’s mandate, authority and legitimacy, Capulong said, stem from the fact that in the Philippines “reign of terror has replaced the rule of law… and can therefore serve as the highest moral authority on behalf of victims of human rights violations.”

The tribunal serves as alternative forum where victims of crimes can seek redress for legitimate grievances and immediate actions and remedies can be proposed.

Bush was also found guilty by the tribunal for making the Philippines “the second front” of his war on terror and for his military support for Mrs. Arroyo which, according to the charges, boosted the President’s and the military’s impunity to commit crimes against humanity.

4,207 cases

A total of 4,207 cases of human rights violations committed by the Arroyo administration from January 2001 to June 2005 were presented to the tribunal. The cases affected 232,796 individuals, 24,299 families and 237 communities. At least 400 were victims of summary execution; 110 were victims of forced disappearances. Twenty of those killed were human rights volunteers.

The cases range from extra-judicial killings or summary executions; assassinations, massacre, disappearances, torture, forced evacuation and displacement, illegal arrest and detention, and other violations constituting crimes against humanity.

Several witnesses, including two children, were presented by the panel of prosecutors to testify about the Hacienda Luisita massacre on Nov. 16 last year; abductions and extra-judicial killings committed in Mindoro and Eastern Visayas; cases of torture, massacres and other cases in Surigao and Sulu.

The verdict of guilty on Mrs. Arroyo for her crimes against humanity was handed down by the college of jurors composed of 11 lawyers, human rights figures and educators from Belgium, Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, the U.S., Canada and Turkey.

The jurors noted that Mrs. Arroyo’s soldiers, policemen and other security forces were in violation of the Bill of Rights of the 1987 Philippine Constitution; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Convention Against Torture; the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law signed by the government and the NDF in 1998; and the 1986 GRP-MNLF peace agreement.

Mrs. Arroyo was found guilty not only as commander-in-chief of the AFP and PNP but also for her failure to prosecute the alleged perpetrators for the atrocities committed in four years of her presidency. She was also cited for her failure to uphold and protect the civil and political rights of the victims, among others.

Most of the victims of the human rights violations were unarmed civilians, including women and children, who were suspected by government forces as rebels or rebel sympathizers. Many came from militant people’s organizations and progressive party-list groups like Bayan Muna who were tagged by government authorities as either “communist fronts” or “terrorists.”

The tribunal judges said that the widespread abuses could serve as sufficient basis for the forfeiture of power and authority that Mrs. Arroyo continues to hold.

They also asked the government to pay the victims or their surviving kin compensation and moral damages and to declare a public apology for the crimes committed. Bulatlat