Lennox Hinds: Unlikely Lawyer
Prof. Lennox Hinds, who
sat in the Presidium of Judges of an International People’s Tribunal that
indicted President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for human rights violations,
hardly looks like a lawyer and didn’t originally intend to be one. He
decided to become a lawyer amid the advent of the civil rights movement in
the U.S. in the 1960s, and nearly 40 years later he’s still at it.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
You’d hardly think
he’s a lawyer if you didn’t know he is one – what with an earring on his
left ear – something that is not usually associated with lawyers, who are
known for being very formal in their attire. But a lawyer he is, and an
internationally renowned one at that.
Lennox Hinds, 65,
permanent representative of the International Association of Democratic
Lawyers (IADL) to the United Nations (UN), sat Aug. 19 in the Presidium of
Judges in an International People’s Tribunal that indicted President
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for human rights violations committed under her
watch.
|
IPT judge Lennox Hinds (foreground) |
The IPT conclude the
International Solidarity Mission (ISM) that investigated allegations of
human rights violations against the Arroyo regime.
A total of 4,207
cases of human rights violations committed by the Arroyo administration
from January 2001 to June 2005 were presented to the IPT that convened at
UP Diliman. The cases affected 232,796 individuals, 24,299 families and
237 communities. At least 400 were victims of summary execution, while 110
were victims of forced disappearances. Twenty of those killed were human
rights workers.
The cases range from
extra-judicial killings or summary executions, assassinations, massacre,
disappearances, torture, forced evacuation and displacement, illegal
arrest and detention, and other violations constituting crimes against
humanity.
The IPT deliberated
for nearly a whole day at the Film Institute of the University of the
Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City, and Hinds looked tired after the
event. But he found some time to answer questions from reporters.
Asked whether he had
anything to say to Arroyo, Hinds replied: “I would ask her why has she
failed to investigate the allegation of extrajudicial killings,
kidnappings, and massacres that have occurred. Why hasn’t she investigated
and come out with a report which could refute what has been said here?”
The IPT found Arroyo
guilty of crimes against humanity and urged foreign governments to
withdraw support for her government, while at the same time resolving to
support the campaign to oust her.
But Hinds admitted
that the verdict of the IPT has no “real” legal effect, and would not
result in the arrest of Arroyo.
It is more of a
“political weapon,” he said. “It is sent around the world and so on and so
forth, and the impact then is on world opinion,” he said. “First of all it
is domestic opinion then world opinion, because people in the world have
seen evidences and will cause the government being indicted to have
problems in its foreign relations.”
Hinds, who teaches at
the Rutgers University Law School in New Jersey where he took his law
degree, is known around the world as an expert in international
humanitarian law. But a lesser-known fact about him is that law was not
his original career.
He originally took
chemistry at the City College of New York in Manhattan, and did
post-graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
the University of Minnesota.
As chemist, he worked first for Charles Pfizer & Company and then at
Cities Service Research & Development Company.
His experience with
exploitation in the corporate world, as well as the advent of the civil
rights campaign in the 1960s, made him decide to shift careers from
chemistry to law. He got into the civil rights movement, fighting against
racial segregation in the U.S. as a member of the Congress of Racial
Equality; as well as campaigning for housing, education, and employment
for Black Americans.
After receiving his
law degree, Hinds worked for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),
and eventually became director of the National Conference of Black Lawyers
(NCOBL) of the U.S. and Canada. The NCOBL, he says, had as clients
personalities and organizations who traditional civil rights organizations
considered as too radical for them to defend: among them the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), South West African People’s Organization (a
Namibian liberation movement), and the Liberation Movement for Angola.
He is best known to
have served as legal counsel for former South African President Nelson
Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC), which for decades waged
an armed struggle against apartheid in the said country.
Mandela was once
labeled a “terrorist,” but he is now hailed worldwide as an anti-racist
hero. Does Hinds see any similarities between Mandela’s experience and the
plight of political groups in the
Philippines that have been named
“terrorist” organizations?
“Yes, Mandela was
declared a terrorist at one time, and most groups and individuals who have
been fighting for liberation against a repressive regime are declared to
be terrorists,” he said. “George Washington was. Thomas Jefferson was. All
of those who signed the Declaration of Independence – the British
government at that time had ‘Wanted’ posters for them – they were wanted,
dead or alive. If the American Revolution had been lost, they would have
been hanged.”
“So most regimes who
face opposition – especially if there’s an armed struggle – describe those
who fight against them as common criminals, and in today’s parlance,
terrorists,” he added.
Aside from being the
permanent representative to the UN of the IADL – of which he is also the
vice chairman – Hinds has been teaching full-time at the Rutgers
University School of Law since 1978, the same year he co-founded the
Stevens, Hinds and White which he continues to manage. At 65, he continues
the work he started as a young civil rights activist in the late 1960s,
and shows no sign of throwing in his towel. Bulatlat
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