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Enforced disappearance is one of the worst human rights violations
A few years ago, I listened to Tita Radilla, a Mexican woman human rights defender, talk about the disappearance of her father. I’ll never forget it.
“People ask ‘why don’t you forgive?’ Because they don’t tell me what they did to my father. Is he dead or alive? I don’t know…. Is he cold, hungry or thirsty? Is he in pain? We’ve spent our whole life like this. They say, ‘Don’t reopen the wound’. ‘Reopen’? The wound is open, it never healed.”
Today, on International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, and as the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders turns 20, we pay tribute to those brave people who have been forcibly disappeared as they stood up for human rights and those who continue to fight against enforced disappearances despite the constant threats, harassment, and lack of response from the authorities.
Enforced disappearance is one of the worst human rights violations. It has a devastating impact on the victim, their family and friends and society. Relatives and friends of people who have been forcibly disappeared feel anguish decades after they last had news of their loved ones. The uncertainty about not knowing what happened, wondering whether they are still alive or perhaps still suffering in some horrible place, makes enforced disappearance an ongoing agony.
It has long been a tactic of repressive governments seeking to silence dissenting and critical voices. Enforced disappearance does not just affect one individual: it spreads fear like wildfire as a product of its secrecy and impunity, sending a chilling message to many others. No one can feel safe, because no one knows what happened and who might be next.
For Amnesty’s recent report “Deadly but preventable attacks”, we talked to relatives, friends and colleagues of human rights defenders who have been killed or forcibly disappeared simply because of the work they do. These attacks send a ripple effect expanding outwards to loved ones, other human rights defenders and entire communities, with fear and despair seeping into their everyday life. This is further exacerbated when there is no accountability, sending a message that these are tolerated by the authorities, increasing the risk these abuses might happen again. Enforced disappearances are an atrocious tactic used to intimidate human rights defenders. And when human rights defenders are silenced, who will stand up for the rights of all?
Over the past year we have seen minor progress. In Thailand, authorities finally announced they would open a special investigation into the case of land rights activist Pholachi Rakchongcharoen, known as “Billy”, an ethnic Karen activist who was forcibly disappeared while in custody in 2014. Thai authorities also pledged to progress with a long-delayed bill criminalising enforced disappearances in 2018.
More than two decades after the armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia ended, 12,000 people remain missing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. The fate of the missing remains unresolved and their relatives are still bravely demanding truth, justice and reparation.
In other cases, those seeking truth, justice and reparations for people who have been disappeared have themselves been targeted. Last year, students in Bangladesh peacefully protesting at the lack of truth and justice for Kalpana Chakma, an Indigenous woman human rights defender who was forcibly disappeared in 1996, were attacked by the security forces.
Calling for truth, justice and reparations for victims of enforced disappearance takes time, courage and dedication. Friends and families are often forced to lead the efforts to find their loved ones and, in the process, become human rights defenders themselves. They need our support and solidarity.
As we commemorate the International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances and remember those who have been forcibly disappeared, we must also embrace the struggles of those brave human rights defenders who continue fighting to put an end to this atrocious crime and unite with them in their call for truth, justice and reparation.
Lisa Maracani, campaigner and researcher - Human Rights Defenders, Amnesty International.
