Kiko, he is called by his friends, is a member of the AFAD Secretariat and is currently taking his MA in Political Science at the University of the Philippines. An avid reader, he likes reading the works of Marx, Gramsci, Foucault and X-Men Comics. He subscribes to the philosophy of Spider-man that “with great power comes great responsibility.”
A cursory glance at the Asian continent would readily reveal a region marked by a diversity of cultures, religions, dialects and folklore. Stretching across a vast expanse from the icy steppes bordering the Russian frontier to the tropical islands dotting the Pacific, Asia can be defined, not by any unifying thread, but by the celebration of difference and explosive variety among its peoples—from their respective modus vivendi to the very pigmentation of their own skin.
Tragically however, it is this sense of difference—this fundamental right to differ—that is now being questioned by an increasing number of Asian leaders in most parts of the continent. As party dictatorships in the disguise of “socialist states” fell one-by-one throughout Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, Asia remains a virtual hostage by callous elite rulers and high-handed military regimes which would brook no question or dissent so as to perpetuate their rule.
This is the ironic fate of the Asian region—of having a people blindfolded using pieces of polka dot cloth with their hands laced in colorful iron.
Repressive Laws, Erroneous Ideology
Moreover, the power of these elites is further guaranteed through an array of legal measures and mechanisms designed to stifle dissent and cajole the population to submission. Meant to address real and perceived threats to the state, they are specifically crafted as both preventive and punitive measures against acts of subversion and “terrorism” by granting additional authority to its agents.
Despite its varying titles and each and every country, “these emergency laws” share five common characteristics, namely:
- granting of fairly extensive powers to arrest and interrogate suspected dissidents without due recourse to judicial procedures;
- the prerogative to detain suspects even without charges;
- restriction of movement, whether individual or collective, through the imposition of curfews, house arrests and internal banishment;
- provision of special courts with exceptional procedures that mitigate traditional safeguards reserved for defendants; and
- imposition of severe penalties, such as death, for even the slightest infraction.
Such overtly authoritarian measures are further justified by relying on the notion of what scholars now call as “Asian values.” Promoted by strongmen such as Singapore’s Lee Kuan-Yew and Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, this intellectual strain argues that Asians (like good Confucians) value order over change, hierarchy over equality and collective endeavor over individual rights. They further assert that notions such as human rights and democracy, despite their laudable ends, are essentially Western concepts and are therefore, alien and impractical amidst the Asian setting.
Context of Disappearances
Such grand ideological explanation, however, fails to take into account the persistent efforts of numerous groups and individuals that challenge these authoritarian regimes with the hope of establishing a novel political consensus based on the very ideas that “Asian values” reject. It is also in this context of political contestation that human rights violations are committed.
Unable to quell the tide of protest against these highly arbitrary regimes, elites would usually resort to the physical abuse and elimination of these dissidents as desperate means to refurbish their faltering legitimacy. As a consequence, numerous rights abuses are perpetrated, the most horrendous of which is enforced or involuntary disappearance.
Patterned after the repression against the Jews by the Hitler’s Nazi ilk at the height of World War II, this practice was first utilized by military regimes in Latin America and has subsequently been used by their counterparts in the Asian region.
Described by the United Nations as a crime against humanity, enforced disappearance refers to the abduction of a person by agents of the state and subsequently denying their whereabouts. Since the victims’ names do not appear on the official government and/or military records, desaparecidos are therefore deprived of the legal protection readily available to common prisoners.
Furthermore, the state’s responsibility in the perpetration of an enforced disappearance can take the following forms:
- by using as a specific policy of the state;
- by enacting “internal security or emergency laws” that blurs human rights protection, or by lifting legal obstacles to ensure the same;
- by appointing persons willing to carry out such tasks to positions of authority (especially in the police and military);
- by encouraging security personnel to engage in such actions by promising various forms of rewards;
- by removing institutional checks and balances;
- by creating a climate of fear through the manipulation of the mass media and other forms of intimidation; and
- by enacting laws granting immunity to perpetrators and other human rights violators.
As the last item would show, impunity is very embedded in the structure of terror that has been created by these authoritarian regimes. This is mostly carried out by either passing legislation that place suspected human rights offenders beyond judicial purview or by refusing to investigate past violations after a more democratic regime have been put in place.
But while advocates in Latin America have made significant inroads in the struggle against impunity (such as the adoption of the Inter-American Convention on the Involuntary Disappearances of Persons), the Asian region is only now taking the initial steps in achieving justice and the recovery of truth. Even as this piece is being written, no high official has ever been brought to justice. And even if the minor officers are caught, no one ever receives harsh penalties. This is further exacerbated by the ineffectiveness of the various government agencies tasked go investigate these matters.
But given the enormity of the problem, one must hasten to ask: What shall we do?
To this query, the international movement against disappearances has identified four principles or standards by which to fight involuntary disappearances:
- TRUTH—the establishment of facts regarding past and present violations.
- JUSTICE—the responsibility of government to bring suspected perpetrators to court.
- REDRESS-measures taken to address a situation wherein a person or more have been harmed and damages have been incurred through compensation, rehabilitation and restitution.
- RECUPERATION OF HISTORICAL MEMORY – the imperative of bringing into collective memory the disappeared and the very context of their disappearance so that society may never forget and that it may learn the lessons of the past.
In more concrete terms, these standards can be manifested by:
- publicly condemning every incident of involuntary disappearance perpetrated by state agents;
- emphasizing that security personnel can only resort to force when strictly required and with only the minimum extent necessary;
- extending protection to possible victims such as dissidents and human rights activists;
- establishing mechanisms intended to locate and identify victims of enforced disappearances whether they are dead or alive;
- criminalizing enforced disappearances through enactment of national legislations;
- offering human rights courses as part of police and military training;
- undertaking sweeping judicial reforms to ensure that future litigations would yield positive results;
- ratifying and implementing international treaties and covenants containing safeguards and remedies against enforced disappearances; and
- building of monuments as an explicit admission of states of their responsibility of cases of disappearances.
Challenge to Asian Human Rights Advocates
But more than these legal measures, human rights defenders must also be able to further deepen their unities as the sine qua non for any successful reform initiative. Enforced disappearance is a humanly created scourge, and would therefore require human solutions. It is not a product of impersonal forces beyond our control. Neither is it brought about by the logic of history nor the zeitgeist—the spirit of the times. It is us who will determine our victory, ordinary people of flesh and bone. And in every step that we make towards justice, we are then able, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, to “expand the limits of the possible.”
