Rights groups focus on forced 'disappearance'
Rights groups focus on forced 'disappearance'
Grant Peck, Associated Press, Bangkok
Asian human rights activists on Tuesday called for making kidnappings and killings by government agencies a specific crime, distinct from kidnapping and murder covered by criminal laws.
The call came at a meeting of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances, or AFAD, to review progress since their group was established in May 2000.
Member organizations come from Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Indian-controlled Kashmir.
"Priority number one is enactment of laws criminalizing involuntary disappearance as a separate offense," Philippine labor lawyer and AFAD chairman Edcel Lagman told a news conference.
He said the objectives of the group were to secure justice for the disappeared, to put an end to the system of impunity that generally keeps perpetrators from being punished, and to prevent future abuses.
AFAD is pushing for the issue to be tackled by both national laws and international agreements, he said. Lagman said treating involuntary disappearances as a special, distinct offense would make them easier to prosecute.
"Let's call a spade a spade," he said. "In cases of involuntary disappearances there are political implications not attendant in cases of common crimes."
He said that involuntary disappearances are by definition crimes committed by the authorities, because rebel groups can be prosecuted under existing laws.
The number of disappeared in the countries where AFAD groups are active is hard to pin down because different criteria are used to count them.
KDC Kumarage of Sri Lanka's Organizations of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared said that 60,000 people were estimated to have disappeared at the height of that island's civil conflict in 1988-90, while one official commission put the total at about 28,000.
Usman Hamid of Indonesia's Commission for the Disappeared Victims of Violence said his group had documented 1,039 cases since 1965, a surprisingly low figure for the world's fourth most populous nation with a population of 228 million and a history of repression.
He explained that the total did not include cases from such trouble spots as Irian Jaya, East Timor or Aceh. Other reasons for the low count included the difficulties of doing investigations under the regime of former president Soeharto, and a reluctance to speak out on the part of the fearful families of the victims.
The Philippines logged 1,767 cases since the regime of the late Ferdinand Marcos, and Kashmir about 2,000 cases.
One of Lagman's own brothers, Hermon, also a labor lawyer, remains unaccounted for after disappearing in 1977. Another, prominent left-wing activist Filemon "Popoy" Lagman, was victim in February last year of what Lagman claimed the first political killing to take place under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo.
AFAD members said they can claim some small victories so far.
Lagman said the number of disappearances in the Philippines was declining, and a congresswoman is expected to submit a bill establishing a truth commission to ascertain the fate of the disappeared.
In a Sri Lankan case involving the disappearance of 27 schoolchildren, several army officers and a school principal were tried and seven of 11 were found guilty and jailed.