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From: kang bondet
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
BD press release on the Marcos deposits, March 25, 1996:
Swiss support for litigation of Filipino torture
victims
Since March 1986, the infamous Marcos deposits have been
frozen on Swiss bank
accounts. A US district court in 1995 supported a claim
by 10,000 Filipino torture victims of
2 billion dollars of Marcos assets in Switzerland.
Appeals from the Swiss banks have since
defered the execution of this court ruling. On March 25,
1996, public-interest organizations
in Switzerland came out in favour of the claim of the
torture victims.
On March 24, 1986, the Swiss government froze all
fortunes of the Marcos family on Swiss
bank accounts. In due course the new Filipino government
requested international legal
assistance in order to retrieve the ill-gotten wealth.
Because of endless appeals and
dilatory judicial procedures, the deposits have still not
been released from Switzerland. In
February 1995, a U.S. district court granted a class of
9,541 Filipino torture victims access
to 1.964 billion dollars of Marcos deposits on Swiss bank
accounts. The Swiss
government rejected this decision as being in conflict
"with Swiss sovereignty and
international law".
At the tenth anniversary of the freeze of the Marcos
deposits, Swiss public-interest
organizations publicly supported the claim of the
Filipino torture victims. At a press
conference in Z|rich, Gertrud Ochsner of the "Action
Group Swiss Financial Center - Third
World" recalled the embarrassing collusion between Swiss
banks and the repressive
Marcos regime. As early as 1968, Ms. Ochsner pointed out,
the banks started to
cooperate with Ferdinand Marcos in order to stash away
ill-gotten fortunes, and blocked
any attempts to recover the frozen deposits ever since.
Peter Bosshard of the "Berne
Declaration" criticized the "two-faced neutrality of the
Swiss authorities" vis-a-vis the Marcos
deposits. He said that on constitutional grounds the
Swiss government refused to put any
pressure on the Swiss banks or courts to speed up the
process of international legal
assistance. Yet the same government directly interfered
with the litigation in the United
States and threatened to apply sanctions if the appeal of
the Swiss banks was not heeded.
The spokesman of the "Berne Declaration" called upon the
Swiss government to refrain
from any further interference with the U.S. litigation,
and to provide channels for torture
victims to seek redress in Switzerland.
Robert Swift, the legal counsel of the Filipino torture
victims in the U.S., also participated in
the Z|rich press conference. He pointed out that
Switzerland was effectively obligated to
grant access to the Marcos deposits. According to the UN
Convention against Torture,
each government must make sure that torture victims
"obtain redress and have an
enforcable right to fair and adequate compensation".
Switzerland has signed the
Convention, but has not instituted any legal mechanisms
for redress so far. Mr. Swift said it
was "an extraordinary commentary on the common decency of
public officials that
governments strenously opposed the recovery of a landmark
judgment by 9,541 indigent
victims of torture, summary executions and
disappearance". If Switzerland refused to
comply with its international obligations, the legal
counsel warned, it run "the risk of being
classified with other international pariahs".
Bern Declaration (BD) Switzerland
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Didistribusikan tgl. 29 Jan 1999 jam 13:39:17 GMT+1
oleh: Indonesia Daily News Online <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.Indo-News.com/
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