July 2, 2015
We, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), have the honor to endorse and support the International Peoples’ Tribunal on Crimes of Pres. Benigno Simeon Aquino III and the US Government as represented by Pres. Barack Obama against the Filipino People (IPT 2015) to be held in Washington D.C. from 16 to 20 July, 2015.
We have readily agreed to endorse and support IPT 2015 because the issues and charges raised by the Filipino people and particular victims as plaintiffs against the defendants are related to the concerns of the ILPS. We have therefore urged our member-organizations to participate in IPT 2015. And we are determined to disseminate the proceedings and judgement of the tribunal in order to help enlighten and rally the people of the world against the human rights violations committed by the defendants against the Filipino people as a nation, as groups and as individuals.
We recognize the IPT 2015 as a formation that upholds the right of peoples to hold states to account in view of the failure of the Philippine reactionary state and international institutions to uphold standards as embodied in Philippine as well as international laws and instruments under the International Bill of Rights Law. It is just to hold the Philippine reactionary state to account for violations of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed in 1998 by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
We wish IPT 2015 to achieve the utmost in exposing the crimes of the US government headed by President Barack and the current Philippine puppet government head by President Benigno Simeon Aquino III; in exerting greater international pressure on the Philippine and US governments to stop human rights violations in the Philippines, including enforced disappearances, illegal detention torture, extrajudical killings and mass displacement of people; in establishing the existence of a state policy to engage in human rights violations under the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan; and in demanding command responsibility from Aquino as Commander-in-Chief and his subordinate commanders in the various armed services.
The gross and systematic violations of political and civil rights are interconnected with the systemic violations of economic, social and cultural rights. All these human rights violations are engendered by the escalating exploitative policies and programs under the auspices of the US-dictated neoliberal policy of imperialist globalization. The worsening crisis of the US and world capitalist system is aggravating the crisis of the Philippine ruling system of big compradors and landlords. The burden of the crisis is always being shifted to the people.
The US and other foreign monopolies are transgressing economic sovereignty and national patrimony, keeping the Philippines underdeveloped and impoverished, plundering the human and natural resources to extract superprofits, attacking the livelihood of the people and destroying the environment. The US is violating the national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Philippines by using one pretext after another, like the “global war on terror” and the China-Philippine maritime dispute to reestablish US military bases and deploy more US troops in the Philippines.
We are confident that abundant and overwhelming concrete evidence shall be presented to the IPT 2015 as a court of public opinion to prove criminal guilt of the defendants for their violations of the Filipino people’s individual and collective rights under international law. The jurors are leading public figures of high professional and moral standing and are qualified to render a just verdict based on a thorough and fair assessment of the evidence and in accordance with applicable legal standards.
We are certain that the IPT 2015 will build on the achievements of previous people’s tribunals and will enrich such a mode of seeking justice to condemn the crimes of the hight and mighty, hold them accountable and repudiate impunity. The IPT 2015 will help to strengthen the will of the Filipino to fight for full national independence, democracy, development through land reform national industrialization, social justice and cultural progress and will foster the solidarity and mutual support between the Filipino people and other peoples.
For the International League of Peoples Struggle,
Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson
International Coordinating Committee