Chilean Lawmakers Join Mapuche Hunger Strike

Chilean Lawmakers Join Mapuche Hunger Strike

By Patrick Vanderpool
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

SANTIAGO, Chile – Several Chilean lawmakers have joined the indigenous Mapuche-lead hunger strike against dictatorship-era terror laws. Tucapel Jimenez, Hugo Gutierrez, Sergio Aguilo and Manuel Monsalve, who belong to a human rights commission in the lower house of the Chilean Congress, have demanded that President Sebastian Piñera begin negotiations with the inmates.

The Chilean government has been critical of the congressmen’s actions, calling them “irresponsible and populist.”  During a recent visit to the Arica-Parinacota region of Chile, President Piñera added that he expected the lawmakers’ behavior to be “as deputies of the Republic, with responsibility” and to take measures to solve the problem instead of making it worse.

The four congressmen involved in the hunger-strike visited several Mapuche prisoners in Temuco jail. When they refused to leave, the prison guards apparently removed the legislators forcefully. 

Commenting on the removal, Congressman Aguilo said that“[w]e left a meeting we were having with the (Mapuches); we were tricked, they told us that it was to talk about a practical matter and there they told us that we would be forced to leave. They didn’t beat us, but in the scuffle my glasses were broken.”

Congressman Gutierrez said that “[t]his is the new government’s way and I think it’s a clear sign that there’s no form of dialogue here. What we experienced in one brief moment, the Mapuches have experienced historically, and I hope the government stops repressing people.”

After being removed from the facility for trying to grab onto some of the prison’s bars, the congressmen traveled to the building of the Unitary Workers’ Central and continued to vocalize the strike.

This sort of internal pressure appears to be effective to a small extent. 

Piñera recently proposed legislation that would effectively end the portion of the disputed law that allows civilians and minors to be tried by military commission.  While Piñera has taken this small step, his government has not engaged in negotiation with the Mapuche prisoners, nor does it appear that the government is willing to consider that option.

Piñera has, however, called on the Roman Catholic Church to mediate the dispute between the Mapuche and the Chilean government.

For more information, please see:

People Daily – Chilean President Criticizes Lawmakers on Strike Supporting Indigenous Mapuche – 11 September 2010

Latin American Herald Tribune – Politicians who Joined Inmates’ Hunger Strike Ejected from Chile Prison – 10 September 2010

BBC – Chilean MPs Join Hunger Protest by Indigenous Detainees – 9 September 2010

Reuters – Chilean Lawmakers Join Indigenous Hunger Strike – 9 September 2010

Trial of the Maguindanao Massacre

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

MANILA, Philippines – A powerful political family is brought to trial for plotting what is known as the deadliest incident for journalists since 1992, when the Committee to Protect Journalists began recording journalist deaths.  On November 23, 2009, 57 people – 32 of them journalist and media personnel, were slaughtered as they traveled in Maguindanao province with intentions of filing “gubernatorial candidacy papers for a local candidate”.

Poem in memory of the journalist slain in the massacre
Poem in memory of the journalist slain in the massacre

Nine months later, there are 19 people who stand accused at trial, out of a total of 195 named in the overall prosecution, while 127 suspects remain at large. The ultimate question remains, “whether the people who ordered the killings – not just the triggermen — will ever be brought to justice. The well-known identities of the political in-group behind the killings are believed to be local allies of former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Ampatuan Jr, then a local mayor, allegedly led the massacre to stop the rival from running against him for the post of governor of Maguindanao province in this year’s national elections.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia chief of HRW, said five people with knowledge of alleged abuses by Ampatuan and his supporters have been killed since the massacre. 

“It is difficult to fight these devils,” she told AFP news agency. Knowing the dark history of and rampant nature of political killing, she remarks, “We want to see the light of justice.”

The first witness is a man named Lakmudin Saliao, once sworn in he testified that Ampatuan’s father, Andal Ampatuan Sr., and brother, Zaldy Ampatuan, were present at a meeting on November 17 where they helped plan the massacre. The witness, a former house servant, said the family had discussed killing their political rivals six days before the ambush in which 57 people died.

Journalists in provincial Philippines have been killed regularly; typically they are gunned down by two men on a motorcycle, as they make their way to work, or drop off their children at school, or meet a source for lunch.

Since 2000, 32 journalists, other than those who died in Maguindanao, have been killed and in only five of the cases has there been even partial justice. In none of the cases have the more politically well-connected men who paid them and ordered the executions have ever been tried, let alone found guilty.

Convictions of the killers of journalists in the Philippines are so rare that CPJ’s Impunity Index, which measures the rate of successful prosecutions, ranks the country third worst, behind only Iraq and Somalia.

The Secretary of the Philippines’ Justice Department, Leila de Lima, has called the trial a “litmus test” for the country’s judicial system, according to press reports.  The Maguindanao “litmus test” will really be a report not just on the state of the nation’s judiciary, but a frank indicator of the country’s future.

The summation of this trial will not address one of the root causes of the massacre, the Philippines tolerance for locally run paramilitary forces, which under national laws are allowed to deputize local militias to combat Muslim separatist fighters in the country, the Ampatuan’s have built up what amounts to a large private army.

 “The government has not done anything to disable and disarm these paramilitary forces,” Evans said.

For more information, please see;

Al Jazeera English – Philippine massacre trial begins – 9 September, 2010

CNN – Trial expected to begin over Philippine massacre – 6 September, 2010

BBC – Ampatuan family ‘plotted Philippines massacre’ – 8 September, 2010

Huffington Post – The Worst Massacre You Never Heard Of – 23 August, 2010

Swaziland PM Makes Comments Advocating Torture

By Laura Hirahara
Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa


Pro-democracy protester in Swaziland; Photo Courtesy of the AP
Pro-democracy protester in Swaziland; Photo Courtesy of the AP

MANZINI, Swaziland- Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini stated yesterday he thinks dissidents and foreign protestors should be punished with the torture method sipakatane.  This comes just a week after 50 pro-democracy protestors were arrested in Swaziland’s main commercial center Manzini, some of whom are from neighboring South Africa.  The punishment, sipakatane, involves beating a person’s bare feet with a pedal that has wooden or metal spikes attached, often causing paralysis.  A statement from the government owned paper, Times of Swaziland, tried to put Dlamini’s comments in context stating, “Dlamini said every country or community had its own dissidents and it was up to government to deal with the noisy minorities, whom he said he wished would behave in a grown-up manner and stop behaving like children.”

Those in the trade unions say the prime minister’s statements are a “declaration of war” on all who oppose the government of Swaziland, both Swazis and foreigners.  The trade unions mobilizing their protests for democracy state several South Africans brought in to help have already been deported.  The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) deputy international secretary, Zanele Matebula, was driven to the border after police came in his hotel room and arrested him and other South Africans.  Protestors are advocating for democracy in Swaziland which is currently under the rule of Africa’s last absolute monarchy led by King Mswati III.

For more information, please see;

Guardian.co.uk- Swaziland Pro-democracy Protesters Threatened With Torture– 10 September, 2010

BBC- Swaziland Democracy Protests: ’50 Arrested’– 7 September, 2010

BBC- Swaziland Unions Condemn ‘Foot Torture’ Threat– 10 September, 2010

Ninth Circuit: State Secrets Trump Torture Victims’ Right to Sue

By R. Renee Yaworsky
Impunity Watch Reporter, North America

Binyam Mohamed, one of the plaintiffs who said he was tortured. (Photo courtesy of AFP)
Binyam Mohamed, one of the plaintiffs who said he was tortured. (Photo courtesy of AFP)

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—In what has been called a “sad day” for “torture victims” and “all Americans”, the Ninth Circuit ruled that possible exposure of state secrets outweighs victims’ right to seek damages.

The Ninth Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 6-5 on Wednesday to block a lawsuit by individuals who claim they were tortured in CIA interrogations.  The alleged torture took place under the post-9/11 “extraordinary rendition” program which transported terrorist suspects to secret prisons.  The lawsuit was brought against Jeppesen, a Boeing subsidiary, for allegedly flying the suspects to locations where they were tortured.

The lawsuit was filed in 2007 by five such suspects who believed the program was illegally operated by the CIA and Jeppesen, leading to “forced disappearances.”

One of the plaintiffs, Binyam Mohamed, was captured in Pakistan and flown to a Morocco CIA “black site” where he says he was tortured.  He claims his penis was cut multiple times with a scalpel in efforts to make him confess involvement with al-Qaeda.

The court’s decision supports the president’s power to invoke the “state secrets privilege” and dismantle lawsuits that concern national security.  The majority agreed with the Obama administration that if the lawsuit proceeded, state secrets could be exposed.

In his decision for the majority, Judge Raymond Fisher explained the case as “a painful conflict between human rights and national security.”

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, writing for five dissenting judges, expressed concern that the lawsuit was dismissed too hastily.  “[The alleged victims] are not even allowed to attempt to prove their case by the use of nonsecret evidence in their own hands or in the hands of third parties,” he wrote.

The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Ben Wizner of the ACLU, has promised to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.  “If this decision stands,” he said, “the United States will have closed its courts to torture victims while extending complete immunity to its torturers.”

Wizner categorized the decision as “a sad day not only for the torture victims whose attempt to seek justice has been extinguished, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation’s reputation in the world.”

Reprieve, a human rights group, stated that the court had “derailed another precious chance at a legal reckoning with the excesses of the war on terror.  Yet again, those responsible for torture and rendition have used ‘state secrecy’ to avoid facing up to their crimes in court.”

Opponents of extraordinary rendition worry that the practice outsources torture to countries where it is deemed acceptable.

For more information, please see:

Independent-Victims of extraordinary rendition cannot sue, US court rules-10 September 2010

San Francisco Chronicle-Court dismisses suit alleging ‘torture flights’-9 September 2010

Guardian-US courts must lift lid on torture-9 September 2010

AP-Appeals court lets government halt torture lawsuit-9 September 2010

Wall Street Journal-Ninth Circuit Rules 6-5 to Toss Rendition Case Against Boeing-8 September 2010