Statement on the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances

KATRIBU Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas joins the families of the desaparecidos and the people in the continuing fight to surface all disappeared.

On this day, we continue to call for the immediate surfacing of Indigenous Peoples’ rights defenders Dexter Capuyan, Bazoo de Jesus, Felix Salaveria Jr., James Jazmines, James Balao, Jonas Burgos, and all other desaparecidos. They were forcibly disappeared because of their commitment to defending land, life, and the rights of the people.

These abductions and enforced disappearances because of political beliefs and activism prove that the state continues to protect the interests of the few: the powerful and the rich.

The state is responsible and accountable. The state creates conditions that drive people to rise and fight for their rights, only for them to be met with violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. They are criminalized, red-tagged, branded as terrorists, abducted, forcibly disappeared, and even killed.

For Indigenous Peoples, defending their lands and asserting self-determination is their right. It is a defense against destructive projects, militarization, and criminalization. Yet the state treats this struggle as a threat. State forces, including the military, and institutions such as the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), continue to harass, criminalize, and terrorize Indigenous communities and defenders.

The NTF-ELCAC continues its counter-insurgency operations under Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s administration, now reinforced through the government’s National Action Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD). Behind its claims of “unity, peace, and development” is the same machinery of counter-insurgency that serves the interests of the feudal lords, big business corporations, and the imperialist interests of the United States. It militarizes communities, divides the people, and suppresses those who fight for their rights.

This is not unity. This is not peace. This is not development. It is state terror disguised as a peace program. A government that allows people to disappear cannot claim to uphold peace. Genuine peace demands genuine social, economic, and political reforms that uphold the rights of the people.

On the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, KATRIBU reiterates its call to surface the disappeared and hold perpetrators accountable.

Continuing cases of enforced disappearance are a product of state counter-insurgency and repression. Ending these violations requires addressing the roots of the armed conflict and pursuing a just and lasting peace.

KATRIBU calls for the resumption of formal GRP-NDFP peace talks (Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines) to address the roots of the conflict and advance a just and lasting peace.

Reference:

Beverly Longid

National Convener,

KATRIBU Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas