Cindy Domingo & Michael Withey: The Assassinations of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes
Channel: Ed Mays
Date: 2018-09-28

On June 1, 1981, two young Filipino activists - Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes - were murdered in Seattle in what was made to appear a gang slaying. The victims’ families and friends suspected they were considered a threat to Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos and his regime’s relationship to the United States and formed the Committee for Justice for Domingo and Viernes to investigate.  As the investigation and court case wore on, it was exposed that the FBI, CIA, several other intelligence agencies, and the Reagan administration were involved in the assassinations at least by knowing in advance and ran the subsequent attempted cover-up.

Seattle human rights attorney and close friend to the slain men, Michael Withey, dropped out of law practice to pursue the case with the committee. His book, Summary Execution: The Seattle Assassinations of Silme Domingo and Gene Viernes, describes the ten-year struggle for justice and subsequent legal victory against the Marcos regime - the first time a foreign head of state has been held liable for a murder of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil.

Cindy Domingo, sister of Silme Domingo and co-founder of the Committee for Justice, speaks about the work of KDP, the only revolutionary organization that emerged in the Filipino American community during the politically turbulent 1970s and '80s. Her book, A Time to Rise: Collective Memoirs of the Union of Democratic Filipinos (KDP), is an intimate look into the workings of the KDP, which overcame cultural and class differences to band together in a single national organization to mobilize their community into civil rights and antiwar movements in the United States and to fight for democracy and national liberation in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Thanks to Elliott Bay Books
Recorded 9/13/18

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