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Permanent Peoples' Tribunal in Den Haag
Entry 4 of 34 | show all | print this entry |
(Den Haag, Sunday, March 25, 2007)-Shortly after I returned from the States at the end of February I got an e-mail message from a gentleman from the Philippines named Jun Saturay. He said he appreciated my work as a poet and cultural activist and wanted to introduce me to some pressing issues in his native land. Jun sent me some information and invited me to participate in the closing event, a cultural evening at a sympathetic church in Den Haag on Sunday, March 25th.
According to Jun's literature, the Permanent People's Tribunal in Den Haag had agreed to investigate the situation in the Philippines for the second time. Founded in June 1979 in Italy by law experts, writers and other intellectuals, the Permanent People's Tribunal succeeded the Russell Tribunals and the International War Crimes Tribunal which exposed the war crimes committed against the Vietnamese people.
The first Session on the Philippines was convened in 1980 to hear the people's case against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It was the first international juridicial body to condemn the US-sponsored Marcos dictatorship. Now the PPT will hear the indictment by the Initiating Group of Phjilippine Organizations against the current regime headed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the US government backing her and "multilateral agencies acting as their accomplices" in violating the Filipino people's individual and collective rights and for crimes under international law.
The Tribunal would investigate violations of human rights, especially civil and political rights, with particular focus on summary executions, disappearances, massacres and torture. The indictment alleges that under the Arroyo regime-since 2001-there have been more than 750 victims of extra-judicial killings, more than 180 have been abducted and forcibly disappeared, more than 200 have survived assassination attempts, and ten of thousands have become internal refugees as a result of military operations which include indiscriminate bombings and strafing of rural communities.
This sounded pretty bad to me and I agreed to meet with Jun to talk about the Tribunal and associated events. He had just seen the film U.S. vs. John Lennon and thought how great it would be if a celebrity artist like John Lennon would embrace their cause and perform at their event. I explained pretty carefully that I was no John Lennon and couldn't be counted on to draw more than a few hundred people at best to any event. Although I meant something to him, I was basically a minor figure in the underground reality and pretty much totally unknown to anyone else.
But the beautiful thing was that Jun had brought four of his children with him to meet this guy they had seen in the John Lennon movie, three of them in their teens and one younger girl and all of them incipient artists, musicians, intellectuals and social activists being groomed by their father in the affairs of the people and the arts.
The six of us sat outside the Café Bettola drinking coffee and discussing the problems in their native Philippines and in my own United States and just had the most wonderful time. I'd do anything with this lovely family just to be able to spend some more time with them and enjoy their enthusiasm and compassion and intense humanity.
So on this bright Sunday afternoon Adam Brook and I took the train over to Den Haag and were met at the Centraal Station by two of the fabulous Saturay sisters who led us through a quick bus and tram ride to the church where the closing cultural ceremonies organized by their father would be held. Jun had asked me to read a couple of poems for his guests as part of the program, and I was good to go.
The church was filled with participants from the Tribunal who'd come to celebrate the guilty verdict delivered against the Arroyo regime and to eat some Filipino food, hear some music and be entertained and informed by the speakers, the guerrilla theatre troupe and other performers invited by Jun, who also played guitar, led the band of youthful musicians centered on his own family, and stage managed the show.
My own contribution to the festivities, a short set of poems that ended with "Smells Like Sulfur Here," my transcription into verse of Hugo Chavez's speech to the United Nations last September, was very warmly received, and after a tasty plate of Filipino food we caught the tram, the bus and the train back to Amsterdam, where Henk Botwinik and Adam Brook and I cut an episode of the John Sinclair Radio Show in the lobby of the place we still call the Winston Hotel-although it's changed owners and names since our last visit-the next evening.
John Sinclair Radio Show #127
St. Christopher Hotel, Amsterdam
Monday, March 26, 2007 @ 6:45-7:45 pm [20-0707]
The St. Christopher Hotel is the former Winston International Hotel in the Warmoustraat, now part of a British chain but as warm and hospitable to the Radio Free Amsterdam krewe as ever. We're posted in the lobby in a quiet Monday night at the end of March, playing fine records & talking plenty shit, as usual, with the sounds of the Forgotten Souls Brass Band, Fats Domino, Frankie Lee Sims, Howlin' Wolf, Fela, John Sinclair & Dr Dorothy Goodman, Johnny Adams, Irma Thomas, Eye Contact, Johnny J & The Hitmen, a talk with Adam Brook and an excerpt from a long interview with Dr. Michael Aldrich about the early days of the marijuana liberation movement.
Playlist #127
[01] Forgotten Souls Brass Band: Doin' Time
[02] Intro, Opening Tokes & Comments with Henk Botwinik
[03] Fats Domino: When I See You
[04] Fats Domino: Poor Me
[05] Fats Domino: What a Price
[06] Mike Aldrich: Birth of LEMAR
[07] Comments with Adam Brook re: Dr. Michael Aldrich
[08] Frankie Lee Sims: Walkin' with Frankie
[09] Howlin' Wolf: Down in the Bottom
[10] Fela: Sorrow Tears & Blood
[11] Comments & Conversation with Adam Brook re: Den Haag Rally
[12] John Sinclair & Dr Dorothy Goodman: Smells Like Sulfur Here
[13] Comments & Conversation with SuperDude
[14] Johnny Adams: Two Years of Torture
[15] Irma Thomas: I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free
Hosted by John Sinclair for Radio Free Amsterdam
Produced, engineered & recorded by Henk Botwinik
Mastered & posted by Henk Botwinik
Executive Producer: John Sinclair
Special thanks to Adam Brook, Anthony Murrell
Sponsored by Eat at Jo's in the Melkweg
©(p) 2007 John Sinclair
Podcasted by www.RadioFreeAmsterdam.com @ April 2, 2007
-420 Café, Amsterdam
April 1, 2007
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