Founding Congress Documents

WHEREAS, the Estrada regime’s all-out war in Mindanao, the Southern Tagalog region and other parts of the Philippines has turned into a national disaster;

WHEREAS, thousands of civilians have been killed and more than a million internal refugees have been uprooted in Mindanao, the Southern Tagalog region and other areas in the Philippines;

WHEREAS, the regime is fanning religious and ethnic conflicts and is organizing more fanatical vigilante and paramilitary groups notorious for their cruelty and brutality;

WHEREAS, the regime is perpetrating through its military, police and paramilitary forces, a huge number of human rights violations which consist of at least 436 documented cases from January to November 2000, involving 5,890 individuals and an additional 6,098 families, and from July 1998 when Mr. Estrada assumed office, up to December 1999, 538 cases of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law consisting of 84 cases of illegal arrests and detention involving 232 victims, 23 cases of extrajudicial executions involving 27 victims, 9 massacres resulting in 39 deaths, and 12 victims of forced disappearances.

WHEREAS, human rights and other people’s organizations in the Philippines are resolutely struggling to defend and uphold the strict observance of human rights and international humanitarian law and demanding that the Manila government  implement the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) , the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, and other International Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law conventions;

NOW, THEREFORE, we, the participants of the Founding Congress of the International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), hereby RESOLVE, as it is herely RESOLVED, to support the call of the Philippine Delegation to:

1. Condemn the all-out war of the Estrada regime and its rampant violations of human rights and international humanitarian law;


2. Support the Filipino people’s struggle to defend and uphold human rights and international humanitarian law;


3. Call for the implementation by the Manila government of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, and other International Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law conventions.