Surface the Disappeared! Hold the Fascist State Accountable!

Statement of the ILPS in Collaboration with the ILPS Commission on Peoples’ Rights (Commission 3)

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On this International Day of the Victims of Enforced Disappearances, also known as the Day of the Disappeared, (August 30, 2026), the International League of Peoples’ Struggle stands alongside families, human rights defenders, and grassroots movements struggling to find those who have been forcefully disappeared. Today is not just a commemoration—it is a renewal of our shared resolve, struggle, and demand for justice. We honor the families searching for their loved ones and refuse to allow the names and stories of the disappeared to be erased.

For families of the disappeared, this day is not merely a commemoration. It is a day of remembrance, struggle, and renewed resolve. We stand in solidarity with the mothers, fathers, spouses, children, siblings, friends, and comrades who continue to search for their loved ones and refuse to allow their names and stories to be erased.

Enforced disappearance is not simply the taking of a person. It is the deliberate attempt to erase a human being from society—to conceal their whereabouts, deny their existence, silence their families, and evade responsibility.

Across the world, enforced disappearance continues to be used as a weapon of political repression. Activists, human rights defenders, journalists, environmental and land defenders, indigenous peoples, community organizers, political dissidents, and ordinary civilians have been abducted and disappeared for challenging powerful interests and resisting state policies.

The victims come from different countries and struggles, but the pattern is disturbingly familiar: surveillance, threats, vilification, red-tagging or political labeling, abduction, secret detention, torture, and ultimately the denial of information about the victim’s fate and whereabouts.

A Global Legacy of State Repression

Enforced disappearance is not a phenomenon confined to a particular country or historical period. It is a fascist tool of counterinsurgency that has been deliberately employed by imperialist powers and carried out by their client states and security forces in the neocolonies to suppress political opposition and social movements that threaten the business interests of financial oligarchs.

During the twentieth century, counterinsurgency doctrines developed in the context of colonial wars—including the French experience in Algeria—contributed to the development and spread of methods involving surveillance, intelligence operations, secret detention, torture, and disappearance. These practices were subsequently adapted and incorporated into anti-communist and counterinsurgency frameworks employed by states across the world, including through military training and security cooperation during the Cold War.

In Latin America, US-backed military dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, and elsewhere used enforced disappearance to terrorize populations and destroy organized opposition. Thousands were disappeared, while families were deliberately denied information about their loved ones. In Argentina, the Mothers and Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo transformed their search for their disappeared children and grandchildren into a powerful movement for truth and justice. Guatemala was the site of one of the bloodiest campaigns of state terrorism in Latin America, resulting in more than 45,000 people being forcibly disappeared over the course of the 36-year war, during which brutal methods of torture and execution were employed; today, thirty years after the signing of the peace accords, the families continue to seek justice.

In Asia, enforced disappearance has likewise been used against political opponents, activists, indigenous peoples, and communities resisting state and corporate interests. In Indonesia, mass political violence in the 1960s was accompanied by widespread disappearances and killings. In Pakistan, enforced disappearances have remained a vicious tool of control against people demanding their right to self- determination, particularly in Balochistan and other areas affected by militarization and conflict.

In Turkey, Morocco, Western Sahara, and other parts of the Middle East and Africa, political dissidents, journalists, activists, and members of national and ethnic movements have faced abduction, secret detention, and disappearance.

In Palestine, the Zionist state has subjected Palestinians to arbitrary detention, secret detention, and disappearance amid decades of occupation and armed conflict. Families continue to demand information about relatives whose whereabouts and conditions remain unknown.

In Kenya, the abductions and disappearances of activists and government critics amid widespread protests against IMF-WB imposed austerity measures, extreme taxes on basic necessities, and state neglect have generated widespread concern and demands for accountability.

In India, violent counterinsurgency operations employing extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearance have terrorized indigenous peoples, human rights defenders, political activists, and the communities in which they live, largely in areas where large corporations seek unfettered access to land, water, mineral and agricultural resources.

In the Philippines, enforced disappearance has a long and painful history—from the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr. to successive administrations that continued to employ militarization, counterinsurgency, and political repression against activists and communities.

These experiences demonstrate that enforced disappearance is not an isolated act committed by rogue individuals. Where institutions permit perpetrators to operate with impunity, disappearance becomes a method of governance and repression.

Enforced disappearances exemplify fascism–a violent mechanism imperialist powers and their client states use to maintain control amidst devastating crisis and rising popular resistance to their rule. The struggle against enforced disappearances is inseparable from the struggle against imperialism, fascism, and all forms of class exploitation. We urgently call on all peoples to unite against these crimes, demand justice, and hold perpetrators accountable. Only through collective resistance, truth-seeking, and solidarity can we end enforced disappearances and build a world founded on dignity, justice, and genuine freedom.

Surface the Disappeared!
Hands Off Rights Defenders!
Activism is not Terrorism!
Resist Imperialism! Resist Fascism!
Resist State Terror!
Fight Back Fascism!
Fight for Peoples’ Rights!

To Remember is to Fight!

For the memory of the disappeared and for the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressive capitalist regime!

Long live the struggle of the peoples!

JUSTICE FOR ALL VICTIMS OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES!

TO REMEMBER IS TO FIGHT!

¡PRESENTES POR EL CAMBIO!

Signed,

International League of Peoples’ Struggle and ILPS Peoples’ Rights Commission