International Day of the Disappeared 2022

ILPS Commission 3 Statement

We commemorate the International Day of Victims of Enforced Disappearance this year with stronger resolve and a renewed hope that we may be able to stop counting more victims, more desaparecidos in our countries, and throughout the world.

However, the world continues to face a global crisis. There is no let up with the imperialist powers in squeezing the world’s resources dry, exploiting the poor and marginalized across countries through puppet regimes and unholy alliances with the local ruling class. The people have yet to recover from the global pandemic, but systemic oppression and repression remains as the greatest challenge in the exercise for social change.

From this context, the crime of enforced disappearance continues. Many, if not all, of the desaparecidos are significant voices in their respective contexts and peoples’ struggles – and this is what state forces and fascists want silenced. They were forcibly taken away from their families, loved ones, and the bigger communities that they belong to, that they fight with. Enforced disappearances are systematically done, as part of a larger policy of silencing the people’s struggle for rights, and against oppression and exploitation.

Justice is far more elusive for victims of enforced disappearances, especially because no government or state will directly admit that there is a policy of abducting and missing persons. State forces who mastermind and implement the abductions would also seem nameless and faceless – they are all the more silent about these crimes, as they enjoy promotions and favors, as lapdogs and mercenaries.

International treaties like the United Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance have yet to reach universal ratification and implementation. As we continue to call on nation-states to sign the Convention, stronger is our call to demand justice and accountability from them for the crimes of enforced disappearance committed from past regimes to present.

We continue to demand justice, and commit to strengthen our solidarity to victims and families of enforced disappearances in Latin America, Asia Africa, and the Mediterranean. We join you in remembering today all the disappeared. We support the families’ search of their loved ones, and putting the perpetrators to justice.

Throughout history, families of desaparecidos have made their mark in letting the world know the crime of enforced disappearance. This has also forced regimes in answering for our cries of justice and punishing the perpetrators, however long and arduous.

More importantly, united, we have raised our voices in solidarity and resistance with the struggle of the people, for the greater cause of justice, genuine peace, and a society that does not rob the people of their lives, rights, and a brighter future for generations to come.

As we remember, we do not forget what remains true: putting a stop to the most cruel rights violations and fascism will be won through painstaking struggle. And so we continue to say: Desaparecidos, presentes! Surface all victims of enforced disappearances! Justice! ###