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Issue Number 25/26, December
2005
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 25/26, December 2005
PUTTING BUSH ON
TRIAL IN THE PHILIPPINES
- Mary Ellen O’Connor
Being a juror in a trial
where the accused is George Bush is the stuff of leftie
dreams. And when that jury is of one mind about his
crimes, well…….throw the book and sing the
Internationale!! On August 19, 2005, a crowd of 2,000
students, workers, trade unionists, nuns and priests,
human rights activists and international supporters
gathered in the Film Institute of the University of the
Philippines in Manila to hear the proceedings of a
People’s Tribunal. On trial were George Walker Bush,
President of the United States and Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, President of the Philippines, et al.,
accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross
violations of human rights and international humanitarian
law. For a Peoples’ Tribunal is in fact the only way
that such allegations ever see the light of day in a
country where established channels of justice have never
served the ordinary people.
It also functioned as the well-choreographed conclusion
to an International Solidarity Mission, convened to
garner the support of the international community for the
Filipino people, victims of George Bush’s
“second front in the war on terror.” Post
September 11, the Pentagon decided that the significant
minority of Moslems in the south of the Philippines would
suffer in solidarity with their brothers in the Middle
East. This front (in every sense of the word) is a useful
cover for police/military attacks on any progressive
movements or anyone standing in the way of the powers
that be.
The accused had received at their Embassy and Palace
respectively, hand-delivered indictments and invitations
to defend. The night before the Tribunal I overheard a
slightly panicky discussion about what to do should
representatives of the accused either appear or try to
sabotage proceedings. However it was noted with due
solemnity (and probably relief) at the beginning of the
Tribunal that the defence had chosen not to appear.
Presiding as judges were three distinguished
international human rights lawyers/activists, namely
Professor Lennox Hinds, Professor of Law, Rutgers
University New York and Vice Chair of the International
Association of Democratic Lawyers; Dr. Irene Fernandez,
Founder and Director of Tenaganita or Women’s Force
(Malaysia), recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize;
and Hakan Karakus, (Turkey) President of the
International Association of People’s Lawyers. The
nine prosecutors were all Filipino human rights lawyers
and the 12 jurors were drawn from the international
solidarity mission.
Gruelling Evidence
After a moment’s silence for the fallen victims of
human rights violations, the prosecutors proceeded to
interview the witnesses, who all testified under oath. A
lot of the evidence was accompanied by graphic video
footage or photos. First up was Marie Hilao-Enriquez (see
elsewhere in this issue for details of her October 2004
NZ speaking tour. Ed.), Secretary-General of Karapatan
(Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights),
the Filipino human rights organisation which convened the
Mission. She gave the overarching view of the human
rights situation in the Philippines, highlighting the
fact that 20 human rights activists had been killed in
the year to date.
The next witnesses were Rene Galang and Rex Zarate,
survivors of the November 2004 Hacienda Luisita (sugar
refinery) massacre, in which seven picketers were shot
dead and 42 injured after the Government turned an
industrial dispute over to the military. Then came 13
year old Adeliza Albarillo from Mindoro who witnessed the
killing of her parents three years ago. Their crime was
belonging to Bayan Muna, a political party whose name
translates as “People First.” After some
questioning, this witness was excused by the judge
because having to relive the horror of her parents’
death was simply too much for her. Journalist-survivor,
Virgilio Catoy, gave evidence of a kidnapping and summary
execution also in Mindoro. This island, and the island of
Samar, in the Eastern Visayas, have been subjected to the
brutal rule of one General Jovito Palparan who has earned
for himself several promotions and the title “the
Butcher of Mindoro”. A 15 year old boy witness
managed to give an account of the kidnapping, torture and
summary execution, in Samar, of his activist father,
Julius Calubid. We also heard from Ceriaca Sescon, mother
of three, whose husband was abducted four months earlier,
making him one of the desparicedos (the disappeared.)
Finally we saw a video of a ten year old child witness of
the Padiwan massacre. He lost his father, mother,
grandfather, uncle and brother in a killing by the armed
forces in March 2005.
It was gruelling stuff. After lunch there were reports
from the five solidarity teams that had visited different
human rights hotspots. Stacks of documentary evidence
were presented to the judges. At one stage an over-hyped
female, bearing a strong resemblance to President Gloria,
came rushing down the aisle waving papers, screaming
hysterically to be heard, indicting herself left, right
and centre until the judge had her escorted out of court.
This, we realised, was our bit of light relief.
Guilty Verdicts Greeted With Music &
Jubilation
Finally the jurors withdrew to reach a verdict. We found
the accused guilty as charged for crimes against humanity
in the form of extra-judicial killings, torture, forced
disappearance, forced confessions and other human rights
violations. When the foreman, Canon Barry Naylor from the
United Kingdom read out the verdict, the theatre erupted
in applause. There followed the judgements:
That such crimes are in breach of multiple international
conventions and agreements including the United Nations
Charter, the 1949 Geneva Convention and several others,
which were listed.
That the defendants be further charged at the United
Nations General Assembly, the International Criminal
Court and other listed international bodies.
That the defendants be arrested and ousted from power.
That the defendants be made to serve penalties of life
imprisonment and perpetual disqualification from any
public office.
That the defendants be made to pay compensation and
indemnification to their victims.
The Kiwis in the crowd suddenly realised that the band
had broken into none other than our own “E ia
ie” albeit with Filipino lyrics. Whether this is a
throwback to an ancient shared Filipino-Maori culture, or
whether it had been picked up at a Pacific Music Festival
we never established, but for us it seemed as good an
expression of international solidarity as the
Internationale.
The Tribunal papers were forwarded to Congress where the
case for an impeachment against Macapagal-Arroyo was
being debated. This was firstly on grounds of electoral
fraud, human rights violations only being added in an
amendment (the attempt to have the President committed
for an impeachment trial foundered for lack of votes.
Ed.). Real progress in the Philippines will only come
about with an end to the United States presence,
demilitarisation, breaking the political hold of the
landed families and rooting out the culture of
corruption. No mean feat, any one of them.
Edre Olalio, head of the Tribunal team, stressed in the
briefings for the Tribunal that this was unashamedly a
political exercise and that no one was to get hung up on
legal niceties. As I danced with other participants on
stage at the end, I knew that the People’s Tribunal
was both the most gruelling and most heartening political
occasion I had ever attended. I can only hope the people
of Louisiana and Alabama (devastated by Hurricane Katrina
and abandoned by the Bush Administration) take it into
their heads to do something similar.
This was published in the Otago Daily Times,
30/9/05. Ed. Mary Ellen O’Connor, of Nelson, is
a PSNA member and a teacher and writer. She had
previously visited the Philippines in 1996.
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