On May 17-18, the International People’s Tribunal (IPT) 2024 — Katarungan: The Filipino People Vs. the US Government, and the Marcos and Duterte Regimes — was held in Brussels. According to its website, the IPT “is a quasi-judicial forum convened by the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL) and the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS) to investigate and address alleged war crimes committed by the US-supported Marcos and Duterte regimes. It serves as a platform for victims and advocates and their organizations to present evidence and legal arguments related to the crimes committed against the Filipino people.”
Pax Christi USA has a history of challenging the spread of US militarism overseas, including in the Philippines. We support the work of the International People’s Tribunal, and affirm the courage and witness of Filipino activists, church and religious communities, workers, and all who face terror-tagging, harassment, and even death due to their tireless efforts for a just and lasting peace in the Philippines.
People’s tribunals — which operate independently from governments and inter-governmental institutions — are a positive contribution to the peace movement: They are creative, grassroots movements that prioritize the voices of those most directly affected by human rights abuses and vilified by their own governments.
The following statement was posted on Instagram by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines:
International People’s Tribunal: US, Marcos and Duterte guilty of massive war crimes
Use this link to read the full statement at the website of the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines.
The prosecution [for Katarungan: The Filipino People Vs. The US Government, and the Marcos and Duterte Regimes] established through ample and credible evidence that the defendants, in carrying out their counterinsurgency campaign during the armed conflict, willfully engaged in a litany of egregious violations of international humanitarian law against the Filipino people. The United States government played a key enabling role, rendering it complicit in these atrocities. These abhorrent crimes included the killing of civilians, intentional attacks on civilians, indiscriminate warfare causing excessive injury and environmental damage, forced displacement, blocking humanitarian aid, acts of terror against civilians, extrajudicial killings, torture, desecration of the dead, abductions, unlawful detentions, and fabricated charges.
After careful consideration of the extensive evidence, the tribunal unanimously found defendants Ferdinand Marcos Jr., former President Duterte, the Philippine government, Joseph R. Biden, and the United States government guilty of the alleged war crimes and violations of international humanitarian law.
This unequivocal verdict resoundingly condemns the defendants’ flagrant defiance of international rules of armed conflicts and fundamental human rights.
In wake of this critical ruling, ICHRP calls upon its members, network and people inspired by this tribunal to immediately hold a week of action in response, from May 21-27, mobilizing the broadest solidarity support for the Filipino people against the intensive, US-backed counterinsurgency campaign that causes deep suffering and oppression in the Philippines.
Ideally, everyone who reads the above essay will also read the full statement by the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) provided by the link. I applaud the members of the ICHRP for fearlessly naming our president and government as codefendants in war crimes against the Filipino People for their unending supply of lethal weaponry to the Marcos (father and son) and Duterte régimes. Sadly, the suppression of the Philippines goes all the way back to the end of the Spanish American War in 1898 when the U.S. converted that former overseas province of Spain into a de facto military base. My modest suggestion is that ICHRP also present their case before the International Criminal Court (Cour Internationale Pénale) in The Hague.
David-Ross Gerling, PhD