RP prosecutes activists, not killers - UN

October 30, 2007  --  Got something to say?
Print This Post Print This Post

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon UNITED NATIONS - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has conveyed to the UN General Assembly a report based on the findings of UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston on the unexplained killings in the Philippines.

Ban said Alton was grateful for the full cooperation of the government during his visit to Manila but was critical of the judicial system.

Alton said in his report that the priorities of the Philippine criminal justice system have been distorted and has been increasingly focused on prosecuting civil society leaders rather than their killers.

The report is essentially the same as the preliminary report Alton submitted after he visited the Philippines last February. Alton spoke with members of a large number of civil society organizations with diverse views, interviewed witnesses to 57 incidents involving 96 extra-judicial executions, and also received files regarding a total of 271 extra-judicial executions (during the Arroyo administration), said Ban in his report to the assembly.

Depending on who is counting and how, the total number of such executions ranges from over 100 to over 800. Counter-insurgency strategy and recent changes in the priorities of the criminal justice system are of special importance to understanding why the killings continue,” Alton said.

Over the past six years, there have been many extra-judicial executions of leftist activists in the Philippines. These killings have eliminated key civil society leaders, including human rights defenders, trade unionists, land reform advocates and others, intimidated a vast number of civil society actors and narrowed the countrys political discourse,” the Alton report said.

The report also noted that many government officials have concluded that numerous civil society organizations are fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New Peoples Army.

One response has been counter-insurgency operations that result in the execution of leftist activists.
In some areas, the leaders of leftist organizations are systematically hunted down by interrogating and torturing those who may know their whereabouts, and they are often killed following a campaign of individual vilification designed to instill fear into the community,” it also said.

The report, submitted in accordance with General Assembly resolution 61/173, also noted that the special rapporteur concluded at the completion of his visit that the military was in a state of denial concerning the numerous unexplained executions in which its soldiers were implicated.

Military officers argue that many or all of the extra-judicial executions have actually been committed by the communist insurgents as part of an internal purge, it said.

It noted that the NPA does commit extra-judicial executions, sometimes dressing them up as revolutionary justice, but the evidence that it is currently engaged in a large-scale purge is strikingly unconvincing.
The militarys insistence that the ?purge theory? is correct can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility,” the report said.

Some of the other situations in which extra-judicial executions occur in the Philippines were also studied during the visit. Journalists are killed with increasing frequency as a result of the prevailing impunity together with the structure of the media industry,” it noted.

The report said that disputes between peasants and landowners, as well as armed groups, lead to killings in the context of agrarian reform efforts, and the police often provide inadequate protection to the peasants involved.”

Share This
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading ... Loading ...

Posted by News Team | Filed Under US News 

Comments

Got something to say?





Authentic Diecast Model Cars
Close
E-mail It