9/4/2012
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| A young man stands by graffiti depicting people disappeared during
the 1960-96 civil war, during the celebration of the Army Day, in
Guatemala City, on June 30, 2011. AFP PHOTO/Johan ORDONEZ |
By Paul Seils, vice president of the International Center for Transitional Justice
On September 12, 1981, in downtown Tegucigalpa, Manfredo Velasquez
was abducted in broad daylight by heavily armed men dressed in civilian
clothes driving a white Ford without license plates. He was never seen
again.
Manfredo was a student whose “activities” in a national student union
were deemed by the Honduran junta to be dangerous for “national
security.” The precise fate of Manfredo will never be known, but
witnesses testified that he was almost certainly tortured and then
killed by the security forces that took him. Seven years later, in a
historic first judgment, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found
the government of Honduras responsible for Velasquez’ disappearance.
However, forced disappearance continues as a state-sanctioned practice
in many countries even today.
And it is not only the dictatorships of Latin America that were in
thrall to the “benefits” of such approaches. The response of Assad’s
regime to calls for reform and democracy in Syria included multiple
incidents of forced disappearance. Systematic long-term detention
practiced under Mubarak in Egypt, Ben Ali in Tunisia and Gaddafi in
Libya are also examples. Behind by the grandiose, Orwellian disguise of
“extraordinary rendition,” the United States and many of its allies have
been engaged in executing or colluding in a practice that is nothing
other than forced disappearance.
The reason, it seems clear, for the practice of “extraordinary
renditions” is to allow those disappeared to be subjected to treatment
that would be plainly illegal in the US. Morally it is indefensible.
Strategically it is nonsensical: what could be more self-defeating in a
battle to defend values than to subvert them so completely in the face
of attack. While the Obama administration has taken steps to limit the
practice, some forms of it continue and there has been no attempt to
reckon with past practices.
It is possible for all sorts of people to carry out forced
disappearances, but our concern should be first and foremost with state
actors. It is hard to imagine a more cowardly or terrifying abuse of
state power than to subvert the most fundamental rights of an individual
by disappearing them. Make no mistake – disappearance is a terror
tactic – a tactic of terrorism. The means of its execution may become
more sophisticated, but the fact that a state is behind it should make
it more, not less reprehensible.
The aims of disappearance as a tactic are multiple: it rids the state
of opponents, real or imagined; it says “you are nothing, your identity
is nothing, your existence is nothing”, it inflicts massive cruelty on
those disappeared to provide an extra layer of terror to those left
behind; it leaves loved ones burdened for life, condemned to a twilight
of fear-filled unknowing. It is hard to think of any carefully planned
practice that could so perfectly encapsulate the capacity for human
beings in power to debase themselves and dehumanize their victims.
From the day Manfredo Velazquez was taken his family tried to find
out where he was but the legal system in his country made a mockery of
his and his family’s rights. They could find out nothing.
The decision of the Inter American Court on Human Rights in the
seminal “Velazquez Rodriguez” case, seven year’s after Manfredo was
disappeared is, arguably, one of the most important court decisions on
human rights. It established important standards on what State
authorities had to do to make sure the practice of forced disappearances
were stopped and in what states had to do to remedy any such
violations.
At the heart of those remedies was the identification of the right to
truth – that a victim or the victim’s relatives had a right to know
what had happened and why; a right to justice – that those responsible
for the violations and especially the organization systematic practice
of forced disappearance should face justice; and that meaningful
reparations should be made to the victims. Manfredo’s case, in many
ways, is the first court case to set out the legal ideas that marked the
birth of what we today know as transitional justice – the ways in which
the rights of victims should be addressed in the wake of massive
violations.
While the practice of forced disappearance as a state tactic has a
long history, it came under the spotlight during the 1980’s when
Argentina and then the Inter-American Human Rights system began to hold
those responsible to account. August 30 has been recognized as the UN
International Day of the Disappeared. One of the most significant
developments in human rights protection of recent times was the
International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced
Disappearance which entered into force on 23 December 2010.
These are concrete manifestations of important developments,
highlighting which, we hope, will help lead to the eradication of the
practice.
The primary message of today must be that it has to stop. That such a
practice is not acceptable, under any circumstances. But that is not
enough. The legacies of disappearances need to be addressed – the
families of the disappeared must have access to the facts – where were
their loved ones taken, what happened and why; and those responsible
must be held to account. Nothing can encourage such inhumanity so much
as impunity.
Manfredo Velazquez never appeared after his Honduran captors abducted
him, and it may be cold comfort to his loved ones that his case was a
seminal moment in the protection of dissident voices –however palatable
or reprehensible their views- around the globe. It is harder now than it
was in the past for states to abuse the trust of power so grotesquely.
Forced disappearance is a crime against humanity. The decisions made by
politicians and officials authorizing such practices in different
countries cannot be justified legally or morally. They must be held to
account and be shown for what they are: enemies of a civilized society.
Source: http://ictj.org/news/forced-disappearances-are-crimes-against-humanity-can%E2%80%99t-be-justified
