These narratives of disappearance are recorded so vividly since they emanate out of the experiences of those who suffered in a very chilling manner. These are confessions of those who know. Indeed, if not for the persons who have recalled and recounted their terrifying ordeals, one could just transform these true stories into horrifying fiction and not as hard facts.
In the account of the cruelties that were perpetrated in Bolivia along with the use of enforced disappearances, one learns of the coup d’ etat which resulted in violent repression and the subjugation of political organizations, labor unions and social movements, ably assisted by American power.
The 1971 coup d’ etat became notorious due to the cases of detention, torture, disappearances and other violations of human rights under General Hugo Banzer Suarez1. The risks involved drove many activists and human rights activists underground just so that they can perform their daily tasks and political activities.
This was the time of the horrible Plan Condor when the police and army forces of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay collaboratively endeavored in exterminating justifiable insurgency in the south of Latin America.
In 1976, the contributor from Bolivia Dr. Nila Heredia, President of the Latin American Federation of Associations of Relatives of Disappeared-Detainees (FEDEFAM), was herself placed in solitary confinement for months as she and her colleagues were branded as “Che Guevarists.” Torture was endemic to pressure or kill those reckoned dangerous by the powers-that-be. The author’s husband was imprisoned. He and the writer were politically active. Then the writer’s husband disappeared and her husband’s own mother who, endeavoring to trace her son, also ended in her disappearance.
The situation in Western Sahara was no better as presented by Abdeslam Omar Lahsen, President of the Association of the Families of Detained and Disappeared. The dark history of colonization and the struggle for independence of the Western Saharan people had led to huge numbers of disappearances, one victim of whom is the writer himself who involuntarily disappeared and was physically and mentally tortured for 16 days. Furthermore, his two uncles also disappeared.
Human rights have fared no better in the old world, as the conditions in Indonesia bring ominous prospects. From the report of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), one can see that 2004 was a dismal year for human rights. In that year, the institutions that were mandated to uphold human rights became paralyzed. Cases of human rights violations were deliberately overlooked by the state. The said institutions failed to help out victims looking for justice due to legal or procedural excuses and other bureaucratic and political subterfuges. Appeals from the international community were ignored while the state devised legal and political means to protect the perpetrators of human rights violations.
The state made no attempt to establish meaningful democracy, rule of law and human rights protection and promotion in Indonesia. Rather, perpetrators of humanitarian crimes were even exonerated. The state lacked the sincerity and political will to face the truth, while the supposedly Truth and Reconciliation Commission degenerated into an “amnesty commission!”
The political murder of Munir—a leading Indonesian activist and chairperson of AFAD demonstrated continuing repression and use of a new type of terrorism. Murder, kidnappings and disappearances of other human rights workers illustrate Indonesia’s resort to unjust repression. Aceh and West Papua could have no hope of peace and its prospect became even more miserable with increased military operations.
However the tsunami disaster of December 2004 exposed the crises in human rights and humanitarianism that had persisted for so long in Indonesia and aroused humanity’s concern, which the Acehenese had been hoping for long. Notwithstanding these developments, hostilities between the Indonesian Army and Gerekan Aceh Merdeka (GAM /Free Aceh Movement) continued and it is feared that it may disrupt relief and humanitarian efforts in Aceh. Our author from Indonesia, Atty. Sri Suparyati, calls for an immediate political reconciliation with a ceasefire and political agreement between the Indonesian government and GAM.
As in Bolivia and, western share other countries in the Asian region, the principal cause of human rights violations is the central role of the military during emergencies. The part taken by the army in the Indonesian National Revolution provided the precedent for their repeated intervention in politics. It forced Sukarno to disband the Constituent Assembly and nullify the 1950 Constitution so as to replace it with the Charter of 1945.This measure closed Indonesia’s experiment with constitutionalism and instead committed violations of human rights with an excuse it needed to guarantee national security—a hollow logic indeed.
A stress on stability and security is misused to curtail civil liberties and human rights and to grant impunity to perpetrators of abuses. Under Suharto, a false case of a coup was concocted and liberal and human rights activist were murdered and 500,000 to a million actual or alleged “leftists” were imprisoned out of whom, only about a thousand were legally charged.
The military’s power has pervaded all spheres of government and most human rights violations are perpetrated by the military. In Aceh, after the disastrous tsunami, a Military Operation Zone was proclaimed. About 5,000 people disappeared, there were 3,000 custodial killings and 128 cases of rape, 23 students also disappeared—and all these atrocities were the work of the army.
The writer on the section on Indonesia nevertheless is looking forward to better conditions including reconciliation in the year 2005, despite the formidable challenges facing them.
In the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir in India, persons are taken into custody on suspicion without giving any reasons or information about their places of detention or any judicial supervision. No due process and other legal guarantees are ensured to them. In Jammu and Kashmir, “disappearances” are resorted to stifle the movement for fundamental rights. The state remains deaf about disappearances. To check this horrible spate of disappearances, the Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP) was set up in 1994. Extra-judicial killings, murders, custodial torture and deaths, rape and forced labor were regular affairs. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) which was established to “protect and promote human rights” and the courts afford little relief.
Although the Human Rights Commission gave some promises of cessation of disappearances, the government foiled its implementation. Since November 2002, after the present government assumed office, 144 disappearances occurred in various parts of Jammu and Kashmir. The police do not entertain complaints of disappearances. In instances where the courts were able to identify the perpetrators of disappearances, the Indian government would refuse permission to prosecute them under Article 6 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. Although the State Ministers admitted that several thousand persons disappeared from April 2003 and many more have either died or disappeared, no inquiries have commenced to probe them.
It has been declared by courts in habeas corpus cases that police and army officers are responsible for disappearances but the judges lamented that nobody takes court orders seriously. It is a great tragedy that India, well known for its great democratic traditions, is indifferent to grave violations of human rights including disappearances and extra-judicial killings by its agents.
Sri Lanka, on the other hand, once boasted of its democracy, its peaceful attainment of independence in February 1948 and granting of universal suffrage as early as 1931. However, the island now has to hang its head in shame for its record of unaccounted disappearances in the custody of the police, the armed forces and vigilante squads aided and abetted by the state.
The Public Security Ordinance (PSO) enacted during British rule and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) introduced by the majority Sinhalese government to suppress the legitimate aspirations of the minorities, have been used to suppress agitation against arbitrary rule and promotion of basic human rights. Both of these pieces of legislation blatantly violate the international human rights obligations of Sri Lanka.
Extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances and torture grew common and alarming. Custodial killings later were facilitated by the PTA and emergency laws framed under the PSO. During the period between 1987-1991, thousands disappeared in Sri Lanka. The UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (UNWGEID) which visited Sri Lanka thrice stated that Sri Lanka has the second largest number of inexplicable cases of disappearances.
The Organization of Parents and Family Members of the Disappeared (OPFMD) was formed by a group of activists and family members of victims in the backdrop of the mass disappearances which occurred in the late 1980s. It launched a campaign against disappearances and extra-judicial killings with great dedication and amidst threat to their own lives. They were able to attract the attention of the international community towards the horrendous violations of human rights being committed by the agents of state.
The numerous Presidential Commissions and other committees which were created by the state to probe the disappearances have documented many thousands of enforced disappearances and have identified many perpetrators but only a few junior officers have been indicted with a very low conviction rate. While the Commissions and committees may have recommended many salutary steps, including prosecution of the perpetrators, reparation and preventive and protective action, there is still no visible political will to implement them since those who are at the helm of affairs of the state heavily rely on the police and armed forces for their survival. This writer feels that the solution of the ethnic conflict, which has created a protracted armed conflict, will bring back peace and a certain degree of human rights protection to the island-nation once more.
In the Philippines, disappearances began in 1971 with the abduction of student leader and youth patriot Charlie del Rosario. It was soon followed by the mass abductions of student leaders, union activists, peasant organizers and even ordinary citizens. The context of disappearance was economic hardship and the widening gap between the “haves” and the “have nots.” People protested in the streets and demanded the overhaul of the political system and a more equitable and democratic social consensus. Against this background, militant groups flourished, organizing huge demonstrations which usually ended in violence and forays with the police.
As dissent increased against martial law and Marcos’ tight-fisted rule, so did involuntary disappearances which climaxed in 1985 when FIND was established. Yet even after the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, the darkness of the dictatorship left behind a sense of danger to the country. In 1990, the UNWGEID visited the Philippines and confirmed that involuntary disappearances did occur under Marcos and Aquino and made its recommendations.
A fact-finding committee established under the regime of Fidel Ramos set out with noble intentions to deal with disappearances, but owing to its flaw of tapping the assistance of the military and other public persons, it failed. The major problem lies in the judiciary. It provides no benefit to complainants of involuntary disappearances.
Human rights lawyers are not as active now unlike during the Marcos era, since human rights violation are now not so apparent and ubiquitous. The issue of disappearances is now sectoralized and localized unlike during the martial law days when victims, activists and lawyers acted in unison in order to create a rights-based regime. Now, the Families of Victims Of Involuntary Disappearance (FIND) is engaging with the House of Representatives and the Philippine Commission on Human Rights in fighting against disappearances which will break new ground for organizations in other countries as well.
As one turns to the story of Thailand, hopes get dampened but the quest for justice and end to involuntary disappearances remains strong. The military was able to gain control of the country through a series of coups in an otherwise economically stable country, which only accrued to their advantage and the benefit of the affluent. Consequently, the Thai people have consistently struggled in the recent past to seek freedom and democracy, sometimes even resorted to uprisings, the most prominent being in October 1973, October 1976 and May 1992. The army violently suppressed all uprisings by killing, injuring, maiming or making the participants disappear. In 1992 , it was reported that 1,000 persons died while many others also went missing. The government however stated only 42 were killed; but later acknowledged that 22 were killed; 293 disappeared, and 11 seriously injured and 47 wounded Amnesty laws were then promulgated to perpetuate impunity to the officers involved.
The Relatives Committee of the May 1992 Heroes was formed to search for the missing and campaign for justice. Official investigations launched by the Interior Ministry proved to be of no avail. Despite many moves by the Relatives Committee, the government was unmoved. The victims of the massacre and their relatives who still survive are in mental anguish so as to wrest justice from an indifferent government. They want to ensure that there will be no May 1992 again in Thailand.
In addition to the country papers which have been examined above in this Introduction, there are also the experiences that were recounted by some of the victims from Indonesia, Kashmir (India), Thailand, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The telling accounts of those who experienced or acquired information from within these countries amply and vividly confirm what the country papers reveal. They should be imperatively read and reflected upon to know what really happens in countries that profess to be free, fair and even elect leaders by popular vote.
Only the very few rich and the military really run the affairs in these countries with otherwise ostensible executive heads and even elected legislatures. Commonly, it is the military that sustain an unjust, and exploitative, narrow economic and social structure. The numerous poor—be they urban proletariat or the rural indebted peasantry—languish in poverty. The prescriptions of religions mean nothing except to offer solace to the helpless multitude as the affluent elitist few have their day and way.
As all studies herein demonstrated that disappearances of activists is a facile and common way to suppress those who clamor for equity, fair play, freedom and democracy. Judiciaries remain impotent in the face of strong armed forces who prosper, carrying on torture, rape and enforced disappearances (which is the euphemist term for extra-judicial) killings of those who seek the good life for the majority that governments fail to provide.
Amidst all these, the genesis and growth of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a federation of associations concerned with involuntary disappearances, is an apt organizational response to such a malady. The solidarity, lobby and campaign and public information work AFAD has done for the last six years has, in no small measure, proven to have made a difference to the families of the disappeared in Asia. The Federation’s cooperation with FEDEFAM and the African Network Against Disappearances (RADIF), for certain, has fortified the international movement against involuntary disappearances, thus contributing to the gargantuan task of erasing the phenomenon of enforced or involuntary disappearances from the face of the earth.
Organizations and civil society wedded to the principle that justice must prevail and that arbitrary arrests, solitary confinement, torture, extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances should cease can win eventually, eclipsing tyrannical military regimes. Hence, democracy, liberty, and equality should further be strengthened in our respective societies.
The inspiring Foreword by Mary Aileen Bacalso in this compendium Healing Wounds, Mending Scars is encouraging when one recalls that the silence of good people is tantamount to the triumph of evil in society.
Footnotes
1 Hugo Banzer Suarez was the head of the military junta and took control of Bolivia from 1971 to 1978, in a period known as the Banzerato. He formed his own party called AND (Nationalist Democratic Action). In 1997, he again became Bolivian President, this time through an election. A devout Catholic, he once asked, on Good Friday of 2000, forgiveness for the crimes that he committed in the 1970s. It was uncertain however, if his plea was heeded by his victims. He died on 5 May 2002.
