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COVER

CONTENTS

 EDITORIAL

COVER STORY

- Never Again To Ask Question: Where are You?

NEWS Features

FROM VICTIMS TO HEALERS
PSYCHO-MORAL SUPPORT TO
THE FAMILIES OF VICTIMS OF
ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCE

The Brave
Women
Human Rights Defenders

The Ordinance Anticlimax and its Aftermath...

Expression of Pain
Wives of the Disappeared
Bare Their Hearts...

A Glow in the Dark:
The AFAD’s 11th Anniversary

Eleven years of trials and
triumphs towards a world
without desaparecidos

NEWS FEATURES

To See With The Heart
A Sharing 


The State of human Rights in the Philippines:
Wearing off the Facade 

Peru: A Milestone in the Struggle for Justice
Fugimori is sentenced to 25 years in prison
for crimes against humanity
 

A Reflection: Between the Devil
and the Deep Blue Sea


Sri Lanka: Human Rights Under Fire

Report on the Lobby for the United Nations Convention For the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and Workshop of Women Human Rights Defenders

announcement
Helping the Families of the
Disappeared help themselves...

Solidarity Message


literary
Mothers of the Disappeared
 

 


Solidarity Message


Solidarity Message
 Mexico City,
4th of June 2009
 

Dear members of the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances,

I write in my capacity as Chairperson-Rapporteur of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or involuntary Disappearances to warmly and wholeheartedly congratulate the Asian Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD) on its eleventh anniversary of its struggle against enforced disappearances.

I wish to salute the exceptional contribution of the AFAD to the promotion of the rights of those who disappeared and their families in the past 11 years. The AFAD’s commitment to facilitate the search for the disappeared has been evident in its continuous cooperation with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. Throughout the years, it has been an invaluable source of information of the Working Group, acting not only as the source for individual cases of disappearances, but also providing us with information of the situation concerning enforced disappearances throughout Asia.

It is somewhat difficult for us to believe that more than 60 years after the Nazi regime in Europe and 30 years after the dirty wars in Latin America, the practice of enforced disappearances is still so widely carried out. This is largely because enforced disappearances are indeed, a tool of social control, through terror, that still pays off for those who commit it. For the perpetrators, it does not matter if behind each case of enforced disappearance, there is a family and community suffering profound and sustained pain. They do not care if the families of the disappeared go through continuous emotional and material hardship and years of uncertainty as to the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones.

With enormous courage, some of these families have decided to try to move ahead with their lives and while searching for their loved ones, to pursue also truth and justice. The AFAD took the lead in Asia in this journey to a world without disappeared people, which, although too slowly for those who are searching for the missed ones, starts bringing results.

The AFAD was also one of the most active networks of non-government organizations in lobbying on Governments for the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, and continues its tireless efforts for ensuring its entrance into force as soon as possible. This landmark international human rights treaty has been adopted within four years only from the beginning of the negotiations, entered into force in December 2006 and has now reached eleven out of twenty ratifications needed for entering into force. This remarkable achievement is the outcome of an outstanding cooperation among Governments, international organizations and civil society in which the AFAD played a crucial role.

It is therefore an honor for me to send this message of solidarity to the AFAD on this important occasion.

Please accept my best wishes for the continued success of the AFAD’s activities and for this important commemoration.
 

With warmest regards.
Saludos y un fuerte y afetuoso abrazo.

SANTIAGO CORCUERA
Chairman-Rapporteur
Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances
United Nations
 


VOICE August  2009

 

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