On August 30, 2001, survivors, families, freedom fighters
and advocates from the world over would once again be commemorating the
International Day of the Disappeared. An annual event ot honor those who
"disappeared" during the darkest moments in their nation's respective
histories, it is also imagined as a venue for healing and self-catharsis;
to renew old ties among the victims' parents and children; and a reminder
of sorts to the younger folk of the price their elders paid for their
personal freedoms that they have so often taken for granted. A hallowed
date in Latin America for the past two decades, the Asian region has
followed suit last year, thus vindicating the international character of
our cause.
But noble as its intentions may be, the entire affair has
taken on the aspects of a lonely, if not abandoned, crusade. Time and
again, gatherings such as these have featured old and familiar faces who
have become immovable fixtures in the human rights community for several
years past. Yet, while the victims remain appreciative of such display of
empathy and solidarity, the fullness of such collective gratitude can only
be attained once their advocacy ceases to be an issue of a grief-stricken
minority but the core-concern of society at large.
It is perhaps for this reason that we have failed to make
a dent in the remolding of our various legal and political institutions -
of transforming these seemingly inexorable structures and bureaucracies
into instrumentalities for societal reform, of utilizing these
once-derided instruments of State oppression into focal points of rational
consensus that protect and promote civilian guarantees and human rights.
In Asia, where most societies are either controlled by
doddering authoritarian regimes or newly emerging democratic polities,
this apparent lack of success has become even more sordid and
problematical, with the authorities refusing to believe that such acts are
still occurring in their own time or are either taking more active steps
in undermining such tentative steps at recognition and remembrance. Last
July 18 for example, several hours after laying the foundation to an
intended monument dedicated to the Kashmir valley's desaparecidos,
Indian police stole the said stone and its brick base, stating that no
such structure can be built in government land and accused the organizers
of trespassing. If this could be unfold in the "world's largest
democracy," imagine other possible occurrences in Asia's less tolerant
regimes.
Worse, most of these governments have shown great
reluctance in prosecuting persons accused of perpetrating such violations
and indemnifying the survivors, the victims and their kin. Until today,
not a single case involving involuntary disappearance has been resolved in
the victim's favor; and the "assistance" that a few fortunate families
have received from the State are barely enough to keep them alive for
another day. Further, no law or legal instrument has been made to prevent
such occurrences in the future, thus making impunity as the Asian malaise
of the 21st century.
Under these circumstances, we once again gather to mark
the significance of August 30 and hope that after several years of crying
in the bleakness and groping in the dark, society would hear our plea. We
commemorate this occasion to state, in an unequivocal way, that the
struggle of the desaparecidos is the struggle of society as a whole
- not just of the families, not just of the bereaved, not just of the
victimized. Healing cannot come due to the expiation of a few individuals
but from the collective endeavor of our people through their advocacy,
through their justified rage, through their remembrance.
"The task of the writer, "Vaclav Havel once remarked, "is
to speak truth to power." He forgot to mention that in the rise and fall
of nations, each one of us is the writer of our own histories.
