Long quest for justice and accountability

“Despite not having any graves to offer candles and flowers, nor any idea about their whereabouts, we commemorate the memories and bravery of our friends and family members who were forcibly taken from us.”

Thus, on the observance of All Souls Day on Nov. 2, stated Desaparecidos, the association of families, friends and rights advocates demanding justice and accountability for the thousands of victims of “enforced disappearances” since the Ferdinand Marcos Sr. dictatorial regime.

“We also honor and remember the deceased relatives of desaparecidos (the Spanish term for the victims) who tirelessly demanded justice and sought answers on the whereabouts of their loved ones,” added Desaparecidos, through national chairperson Erlinda Cadapan.

The group estimates that around 1,900 persons have become victims of enforced disappearance since the 14-year Marcos dictatorship (September 1972-February 1986).

And not long after Marcos Jr. took office in July, four activists vanished: trade unionist Alipio “Ador” Juat, community organizer Elizabeth Magbanua and peasant organizers Elgene Mungcal and Elena Cortez. Pleas for their surfacing remain unheeded.

“We strongly echo the call to surface Ador, Elizabeth, Elgene and Elena – and all our [missing] loved ones,” Desaparecidos said, expressing fear that such cases “will increase under this administration, considering its penchant for human rights violations and disinformation.”

The enactment in 2012 of RA 10353 (the Anti-Enforced or Involuntary Disappearance Act) hasn’t stopped such cases, noted Desaparecidos. Moreover, the Philippine government has neither signed nor ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which came into force in December 2010.

“These, together with the recent cases of abductions and the absence of [government] action in solving previous pending cases, evidently show the State’s apathy towards us and its palpable lack of commitment to justice and accountability,” the association lamented. Despite this situation, it declared:

“We will not let our loved ones’ sacrifices be in vain. We vow to continue to speak our truths and strengthen our demand for justice and accountability. We urge the public to join and support our call: Surface all desaparecidos! Ilitaw ang mga nawawala!”

Coincidentally, on Nov. 3, the British publication The Guardian reported on a parallel quest for justice and accountability in the illegal arrest, torture, massacre and secret burial of 10 small farmers (campesinos) in Paraguay, in South America. The massacre was perpetrated in 1980 by the 35-year dictatorship of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). The dictator was ousted by a military coup in  February 1989 – three years after the Filipinos’ peaceful uprising ousted Marcos Sr.’s dictatorship. Stroessner went into exile in Brazil and died there in 2006.

The Stroessner regime was part of “Operation Condor” – a US-designed and -directed campaign of political repression and state terror to “combat terrorism and subversion” in Latin America starting in 1975. It involved Paraguay and the other rightwing dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Uruguay; later, Ecuador and Peru were sucked into “peripheral roles.”

But despite Stroessner’s ouster, his political grip has remained. His Colorado party, one of the pillars of the dictatorship, has maintained power “for all but five years since the start of democratization” in 1989, says The Guardian. The current president, Mario Abdo Benitez, is the son of Stroessner’s personal secretary. Benitez was a pallbearer at the ex-dictator’s funeral in 2006.

In 2008, a Paraguay Truth and Justice Commission reported at least 423 persons murdered by state forces, 18,722 tortured and 3,470 forced into exile by the Stroessner regime. Only a small number of hundreds of identified perpetrators of these crimes have been prosecuted.

Compared to the Philippines, however, Paraguay (population: 4.1 million) has done much better in addressing the crimes of the Stroessner dictatorship. In our case, “no one, but no one” – to use Marcos Sr.’s pet phrase in reference to torture cases – has been called to fully account for the following recorded crimes of his dictatorship: 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 tortured, 77 “disappeared” and 70,000 detained without charges.

In Paraguay, there is a department of historical memory and reparation under the Justice Ministry. Its head is Dr. Rogelio Goiburu, whose father was among those who were forcibly disappeared. The department has now recovered the remains of 37 such victims, but identified only four so far. It is now undertaking the effort to locate the burial site and retrieve the remains of the 10 farmer-activists killed in the Caaguazu region.

“This really is a shared national cause,” Goiburu said. “I don’t think there is a sound, reasonable person in our country who wants the events being investigated here to be repeated.”

Referring to the Benitez administration, he told relatives of the massacre victims and volunteers at the grave-digging site, “To this day, one of the crimes of this Stronista government is to erase memory” – the very opposite of what his office has been mandated to protect. (Does that ring a bell?)

Since 1984, relatives of the Caaguazu victims had been pressuring the government to recover their victims’ remains, until it was only recently that state funds were released for the search to be made.

“If we manage to recover their remains, then the torturers, those in power, the President – those who never paid us any attention – will see that we can demonstrate that [the torture and killings] happened,” vowed the daughter of one of the disappeared campesinos. “We’ll demand justice, even if there is no justice in Paraguay.”

Apolonia Flores was just 12 years old when the massacre took place. She and nine other campesinos were somehow spared from being killed and were imprisoned instead. The police recorded Flores as a “girl guerrilla fighter.” She told the search group:

“In this place I was shot six times, I was tortured, I suffered sexual violence. It left a scar, a giant wound across my entire body… I wished intensely [then] for justice in Paraguay. That’s what still drives me to keep going. I won’t ever stop. I’ll fight until the end.”

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