Human rights, peace and transitional justice

Several questions have to be confronted regarding the prospects of transitional justice, peace, and human rights under the Duterte administration. For purposes of this discussion, transitional justice refers to any resolution on modalities of accountability in relation to the settlement of ongoing conflicts between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the several rebel movements presently engaged in different stages of peace talks with the GPH, viz., the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). We have formulated the following:

1. At what point is the issue of transitional justice and human rights an important or even a sincere objective by each protagonist in the ongoing peace talks/negotiations?

2. Is the GPH as represented by the Duterte administration, as the dominant party in the peace talks who will ultimately be responsible for disarming and absorbing the armed rebel forces into mainstream society, even capable of enforcing transitional justice and human rights, when it itself will ultimately be the subject of prosecution for massive extra-judicial killings of suspected criminals as a crime against humanity under international humanitarian law and as duly adopted in Philippine municipal law?

3. Up to what point are the ongoing peace talks based on a sincere effort to resolve long-standing conflicts and putting an end to the historical and social roots of such conflicts, and are therefore approached from a framework of achieving transitional justice and human rights, rather than being used in a utilitarian manner by the Duterte administration to diffuse and neutralize the major armed threats to his administration, thereby coopting the major legal organizations of the armed left on one hand, and the remaining armed threats posed by the MNLF Misuari Group, and even the MILF?

4. How is civil society to position itself in the middle of all these forces, with the primordial concern that while peace talks are foremost among the objectives of any progressive organization, the fact remains that these involve political interest groups with objectives to State power, and not merely to national reconciliation, peace, unity and justice?

5. Particular to the CPP-NPA-NDF, how do we approach the reality of a continuing Marxist- Leninist- Maoist orientation in this group towards the ultimate capture of State power in the Philippines, and that the peace talks for them is just a modality for furthering this ultimate objective, rather than as a strategic objective where the national democratic movement finally lays down its arms in exchange for electoral and democratic participation in Philippine society?

6. In relation to all these, what is the possible agenda and vision-mission of international NGOs, aid organizations, and interest groups in the present Philippine context of massive state-sponsored EJKs, peace talks, and re-alignment of political forces in Philippine society?

We are at a watershed of our history. The next few months will determine our future in the next few years, or even decades.

With regard the first question, several matters must be brought up for consideration:

1. Transitional justice for Muslim Mindanao and the victims of the Philippine State’s war on the Muslim population of Mindanao since 1972 must be settled and must encompass a clear and specific program in any final and transitional peace document to be signed by the GPH and the MILF, aside from the passage of a Bangsamoro Basic Law, or a Federal Constitution, whatever is the ultimate agenda of the Duterte administration that it deems fit for purposes of assimilating into the State apparatus all rebel forces.

2. Transitional justice on the perpetrators of the Mamasapano Encounter in January 2015, both from the GPH and MILF sides, that resulted in the killings of soldiers, Muslim civilians, and MILF combatants.

3. Transitional justice on Nur Misuari and the MNLF for its premeditated invasion and occupation of Zamboanga City in September 2013, which resulted in the burning of the city and the killing of hundreds of civilians and government soldiers and policemen. Presently, Misuari is on his way to political rehabilitation, care of President Duterte, much like the Dictator Marcos, the latter having been responsible, on the other hand, for the murder of thousands of Muslim civilians during the savage War of Jolo in 1972- 73 against, ironically again, the Misuari- led MNLF.

4. Transitional justice on the CPP-NPA for its national purges conducted in the 1980s and 1990s against its own officials and members from Southern Luzon to Mindanao, resulting in the execution by kangaroo courts of hundreds of revolutionary fighters of the underground national democratic movement.

5. Given the primordial goal of the Duterte administration of appeasing armed rebel groups in order to diffuse opposition to his administration and coopt armed threats, is transitional justice on crimes committed by the rebel groups engaged in the ongoing peace talks even in the agenda, or is everything ready to be forgotten?

On the second question, it is doubtful that a regime that has committed crimes against humanity with the summary execution of around 6,000 human beings to date is even capable of implementing any peace program, especially one with a serious and comprehensive transitional justice component. Although the peace talks should go on, it is doubtful if these can proceed or be taken independently of the need, ultimately, for transitional justice to be dealt upon the Duterte Regime itself for its own crimes against humanity.

While the Duterte administration may be conducting peace talks on the armed rebel fronts, it is rending asunder Philippine society in another front, painting all non- belligerent legal opposition as the real threats to the country and to his administration, thereby undermining democratic processes of intervention and popular participation. Threats against legal opposition and civil society in general are becoming real with the organization of the Kilusang Pagbabago, under the communist Secretary to the Cabinet Jun Evasco, who is responsible for social movements and organizations in the Duterte administration.

In the meantime, the bloody drug war continues, and is being used for a new McCarthyism, with its narco-state scare and supposed list of 10,000 public officials protecting drug lords and involved in the drug trade. The drug scare is the new McCarthyism of our times in the Philippines, with terrorism a far second. The scare is being maintained with the daily EJKs of an impoverished sector of the population. And so the killings continue. ( To be continued)