International Solidarity Mission

Introduction

April 22, 2005

Terror: this single word summarily describes the past 4 years of human rights in the Philippines under the watch of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In 2001, President GMA was propelled into power by the ouster of President Joseph Estrada and a popular people’s uprising. Since then, upwards of 3,500 human rights violation cases have been recorded by KARAPATAN, the nation’s largest and most progressive human rights alliance, totaling hundreds of thousands of individual Filipino lives. It should not be left unsaid that President George W. Bush’s open grumblings of war and terrorism, since the tragedy of 9/11 has helped to set the stage for the past 4 years of summary executions, enforced disappearances, heightened military exercises, mass displacement of peasants/farmers and state-sponsored terrorism that the Filipino people have had to endure.

The past year brought with it a bloody election which ushered another term of terror for the Filipino people, a massacre at Hacienda Luisita, leaving 14 dead and thousands of workers still on strike, 12 journalists assassinated, and 68 victims of enforced disappearance. There is no respite for the voices of dissent in the Philippines. In the first quarter of 2005 alone, we’ve seen an escalated number of killings, disappearances, and threats to the lives of leaders and representatives of progressive party-lists and mass organizations like Bayan Muna, BAYAN, and Anakpawis. Despite the recent spate of killings on our leaders and supporters the movement for true and lasting peace in the Philippines has only gotten stronger. KARAPATAN and BAYAN are sponsoring an international fact-finding mission this August 2005. Its aim is to bring the grave human rights situation to the surface to the international community and create world-wide pressure on the Philippine government to stop violating human rights with impunity as well as draw out the links between President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and President Bush’s war of terror.

We, BAYAN-USA, an alliance of mass organizations fighting for the national democratic movement of the Philippines, along with all of its member organizations, namely Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (SF/NY), ask you to stand in support and solidarity during this time of urgency. As an endorser, we only ask, at your capacity, to help with publicizing and promoting the International Solidarity Mission. The international community must speak out against the open killings of legitimate voices of dissent in the Philippines and demand the perpetrators be held accountable.

In this time of bloodshed in the Philippines, the true strength of the people still shines as they ask us to join in resisting state terror. Only through a concerted effort of all justice-seeking, peace-loving people across the world fighting against imperialism and its hideous effects, can we and the Philippines fully realize our human rights.

On behalf of BAYAN-USA and the ISM National Committee,

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Related Information:
ISM Background
ISM Media Advisory