Message Of Support To The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal On The Occasion Of The Convening Of The Second Session On The Philippines
Warm greetings of solidarity to the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal, its officers, the jurors and the prosecutors on the occasion of the convening of the Second Session on the Philippines at The Hague, The Netherlands!
We likewise convey our best wishes to the organizers and the International Coordinating Secretariat for bringing into fruition this very timely PPT Second Session on the Philippines.
We salute the Filipino mass organizations, institutions and individuals who serve as initiators, plaintiffs, coordinators and documentors in this historic event.
The International Association of People’s Lawyers (IAPL), being an international group of anti-imperialist human rights lawyers and law students from various countries especially where imperialist exploitation are most severe, human rights violations are most widespread and the peoples’ struggles are most intense, wholeheartedly supports this PPT session to look into the gross and systematic violations of human rights, economic plunder, and transgressions on the sovereignty of the Filipino people.
As a clear expression of our profoundest condemnation of the unmitigated killings and disappearances by forces linked to the Philippine government and as a fitting tribute to our fallen comrades in the profession and to those who continue to serve the people notwithstanding these attacks, the IAPL just held its 3rd Congress in the Philippines where we vowed to give special attention to international campaigns to help end these onslaughts on the democratic rights of activists, farmers, workers, urban poor, religious, women, students, lawyers, indigenous people and community organizers.
Complementary to previous initiatives of various fact-finding missions and tribunals made by international organizations that included independent lawyers’ organizations, it is time that the international community takes a step higher. It is time to put even greater moral pressure on a government that is seriously perceived to be illegitimate and openly supported by the US that has unleashed a war of terror on oppressed and exploited individuals, peoples, nations, and states.
As a very respected and prestigious body, we are confident that the PPT will properly evaluate the overwhelming amount of credible evidence that would support the Filipino people’s valid claim that the US-Arroyo regime has violated with a false sense of impunity international law amounting to war crimes, crimes against humanity and violations of international humanitarian law.
We trust that the proceedings and findings of the PPT Second Session on the Philippines that will culminate in March 2007 would cumulate the indubitable bases for holding the US-Arroyo regime accountable for its shameful disregard for the rights of its own people and the rights of the Filipino nation.
Indeed, there will always be a time for reckoning. And the IAPL will be one with the PPT and the Filipino people in making sure that justice is ultimately served.#
30 October 2006,
For reference: Atty. Edre U. Olalia, President