DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / 30 Jul) - Violent Islamist groups in the Philippines have killed or injured more than 1,700 people in bombings and other attacks since 2000, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released Monday.
The report said the attacks, mostly in Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo, and other southern islands, have also included kidnappings, executions, and shootings. " Extremist armed groups have spread terror among civilians in the Philippines. They have bombed buses carrying workers, food markets where people were shopping, airports where relatives were waiting for loved ones, and ferry boats carrying families."
The 28-page report, "Lives Destroyed: Attacks on Civilians in the Philippines," contains personal accounts and photographs of bombing sites and of victims of attacks and their relatives. It describes how attacks have killed children, parents, husbands, and wives, and caused terrible suffering among wounded survivors and relatives.
The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), based in the southern Philippines, are implicated in or have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.
"Extremist armed groups have spread terror among civilians in the Philippines,"said John Sifton, senior researcher on terrorism and counter-terrorism at Human Rights Watch. "They have bombed buses carrying workers, food markets where people were shopping, airports where relatives were waiting for loved ones, and ferry boats carrying families."
The casualties since 2000 amount to more than the number of people killed and injured in bombing attacks during the same period in neighboring Indonesia (including the 2002 Bali bombings), and considerably more than the number of those killed and injured in bombings in Morocco, Spain, Turkey, or the United Kingdom.
The scale of the violence, however, has not received widespread attention outside the region. Human Rights Watch faulted the Philippines government for not prosecuting those responsible for attacks.
Although numerous suspects in bombing attacks have been arrested since 2000, Human Rights Watch said that very few have been successfully brought to trial, and prosecutions in some cases have been delayed for more than four years.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the recent passage of a new counter-terrorism law, "The Human Security Act," which contains dangerous over-broad provisions that violate human rights standards and broaden the scope of government power to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely.
Human Rights Watch said that existing criminal statutes were more than sufficient to prosecute acts of terrorism.
"The Philippines doesn't need a new abusive counter-terrorism law," said Sifton. "The government isn't using the laws it already has, so why does it need new provisions that violate human rights?"
The Human Rights Watch report provides compelling new information about many of the attacks that have occurred in recent years. For instance, it contains interviews with survivors of the February 27, 2004 bombing of the Superferry 14, a ferry traveling from Manila to Mindanao.
The bomb, which detonated just outside of Manila harbor, killed at least 116 people. The dead included 15 children, six of whom were under five years old. At least 12 families lost multiple members, and at least 10 married couples died together. Six of the children killed in the blast were students on a championship team sent by schools in northern Mindanao to compete in a journalism contest in Manila.
The report also details the February 14, 2005 Valentine's Day bombings of Manila and two cities in Mindanao. Human Rights Watch interviewed Mark Gil Bigbig, a 31-year-old student, who was eating at a fast-food restaurant in General Santos City when a bomb went off outside: "We were surprised . . . people were shouting, "It is a bomb! I looked down, and already I could see my blood splashing below me, and I dropped to the ground."
Bigbig suffered major trauma to his legs from shrapnel and broken glass, and today, more than two years after the attack, cannot walk without braces and crutches.
The report explains how survivors with minimal physical injuries have suffered. For instance, Aurelia Espera, a victim of a 2003 attack, tearfully told Human Rights Watch about seeing the bodies of her two children, one of them decapitated, and her mother-in-law: "I can never forget, I saw my children lying there in the street."
Members of the ASG and RSM are implicated in or have claimed responsibility for many of these attacks. ASG is an extremist Islamist group whose members broke away in the 1990s from the longstanding ethnic Moro insurgent groups based in the predominantly Muslim areas of the southern Philippines (Moro is a Philippine term for Muslim).
RSM, a group composed of converts to Islam, is closely tied to ASG. The two groups purportedly aim to push Christians out from Mindanao and the Sulu islands and "restore" Islamic rule over the Philippines.
"Abu Sayyaf and Rajah Solaiman have committed crimes on a massive scale," said Sifton. "They have intentionally bombed civilians, kidnapped ordinary workers and beheaded them, and extorted money from small businesses."
Both ASG and RSM maintain links with current or former members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the violent Indonesian Islamist group responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings. Philippine government officials claim that elements of the longstanding Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) have, over the last few years, provided sanctuary or assistance for ASG, RSM and JI members.
Since 2003, MILF and MNLF leaders appear to have largely cut ties with JI, condemned violence against civilians (and specifically ASG and RSM attacks), and provided active assistance to Philippine military forces in conducting operations against all three groups. The United States military is actively assisting in these operations.
Human Rights Watch said that it remains likely that "rogue" MILF and MNLF commanders, and so-called "lost commands, have continued to provide sanctuary and assistance to ASG, RSM and JI members at various times in the last several years.
Human Rights Watch urged the MILF and MNLF to continue condemning armed attacks on civilians by ASG, RSM and JI, and to continue working with authorities to apprehend those responsible for violent attacks.
"Moro leaders deserve credit for distancing themselves from armed groups that attack civilians," said Sifton. "But they need to ensure that they are controlling their own members."
Human Rights Watch said that the government's failure to prosecute suspects in attacks has contributed to a culture of conspiracy-theorizing in the Philippines, especially in the south.
Skeptical Moro and other opposition political leaders have embraced allegations that the government itself has been responsible for bombings claims which Human Rights Watch has seen no evidence to support.
Human Rights Watch called on the Philippine Department of Justice to put prosecutions back on track and hold fair and public trials.
Human Rights Watch also called on the United States and other interested countries to provide assistance to ongoing peace negotiations between the Philippines government and Moro leaders, to help ensure that agreements between the Philippine government and MILF and MNLF are enduring and promote respect for human rights, including the protection of the civilian population.
"To end the bombings, kidnappings, and other violence, other governments have to pressure Philippine leaders both in Manila and Mindanao to put a greater emphasis on protecting civilian life," Sifton said.
Showing posts with label Human Rights Watch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Human Rights Watch. Show all posts
Monday, July 30, 2007
Thursday, June 28, 2007
RP Military Involve In "Dirty War," Says U.S. Human Rights Group
MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / 28 Jun) – A U.S.-based human rights group accused the Philippine military of engaging in a “dirty war” in a campaign to silent political activists in the country.
In an 84-page report released on Thursday and titled, “Scared Silent: Impunity for Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines,” the Human Rights Watch said Manila should aggressively prosecute members of the security forces responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions in recent years.
Filipino militant groups said more than 800 people had been kidnapped and murdered since President Gloria Arroyo rose to power in 2001. Most of the killings, they said, pointed to the military as the culprit.
The report, based on more than 100 interviews, details the involvement of government security forces in the murder or “disappearance” of members of leftist political parties and nongovernmental organizations, journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, and agricultural reform activists.
To date there have been no successful prosecutions of any member of the armed forces implicated in recent extrajudicial killings, the Human Rights Watch in New York said. “There is strong evidence of a ‘dirty war’ by the armed forces against left-leaning activists and journalists,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The failure to prosecute soldiers or police suspected in these killings shifts the spotlight of responsibility to the highest levels of the government.”
While abuses have been common in the decades-long armed conflict between the government and the communist New People’s Army (NPA), unlawful killings appeared to shift into a higher gear in February 2006, after President Arroyo accused leftist political parties of allying themselves with military coup plotters.
In June 2006, Arroyo declared a new strategy of an “all-out war” to eliminate the NPA, which may have sent a signal to the military that abuses would be tolerated.
The NPA also continues to commit human rights abuses, including kidnapping and unlawful killings, which Human Rights Watch also condemned. But such abuses by insurgents do not justify the military or the government committing further human rights violations through extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of any person, including members of political groups and civil society organizations that are sympathetic to the insurgents’ cause.
Most of the victims of the political killings documented by Human Rights Watch were members of legal political parties or organizations that the military claims are allied with the communist movement.
None of the incidents investigated by Human Rights Watch involved anyone who was participating in an armed encounter with the military or was otherwise involved in NPA military operations. Each victim appears to have been individually targeted for killing.
Three motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and killed Sotero Llamas, the former Bicol region commander of the NPA, while he was riding in his car on the morning of May 29, 2006, through his home town of Tabaco City in Albay province.
Llamas, who had been imprisoned in 1995 for his membership in the NPA, was released in 1996, became a consultant to the peace process, and then became a founding member of the political party Bayan Muna.
The NPA said government soldiers assassinated Llamas.
In February 2006, Llamas was one of the 51 people whom the police accused of rebellion and insurrection and being involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Arroyo administration.
A judge dismissed the charges, but state prosecutors subsequently re-filed the case, which was still pending at the time of his death.
Three eyewitnesses currently in hiding told Human Rights Watch of the involvement of soldiers in the death of Pastor Andy Pawikan, a member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, on May 21, 2006. Pawikan, his wife, his 7-month-old daughter and three other women were walking home from church when they were stopped by a group of about 20 soldiers.
The women, including Pawikan’s wife, were allowed to proceed but the soldiers detained Pawikan, who was carrying the baby. After about 30 minutes, those who had just been with Pawikan heard “many” shots. They were too afraid to investigate.
After some time a group of soldiers came and returned the child to Pawikan’s mother-in-law.
The baby was covered in blood but otherwise uninjured. The next day soldiers from the locally based 48th Infantry Battalion told the villagers Pawikan had fought the soldiers and they had no choice but to shoot him.
Human Rights Watch also found that the Philippines government is consistently failing in its obligations under international human rights law to hold accountable perpetrators of politically motivated killings, and thus denying victims’ families justice.
One apparent roadblock to prosecutions is the seeming unwillingness of senior military officials to even recognize that superior commanders may be legally responsible for acts of their subordinates as a matter of command responsibility. Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. told the media, “Criminal acts only involve the individual.”
In response to growing international pressure, in August 2006 President Arroyo created a special police body, Task Force Usig, which she charged with solving 10 cases in 10 weeks. At the end of its mandate the Task Force claimed that 21 cases were “solved” by filing cases in court against identified suspects, all of them members of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines or the NPA.
Only 12 suspects involved in these incidents were actually in police custody. In August 2006, President Arroyo also created the Melo Commission to further probe the killings of media workers and left-wing activists since 2001.
The commission’s report, which was only made public under pressure from United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston, failed to provide any new information or analysis on the cases.
At the commission’s hearings, army and police officials were not challenged when they advanced distorted understandings of command responsibility, and were instead indulged in lengthy digressions on the importance of neutralizing the NPA threat. The Melo Commission’s mandate expires on June 30, 2007. Human Rights Watch said that while the government claims that it is doing all it can to address the abuses, it has taken few concrete steps to end the killings or prosecute perpetrators.
A Philippine military spokesman, Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, has accused the Human Rights Watch of not getting the side of the Armed Forces so it can answer all allegations against its members.
“We categorically deny allegations that there is a dirty war being waged by the Armed Forces, particularly against the leftist groups. It is an unfair reporting because we have been collaborating with any agency conducting investigation relative to extrajudicial killings. We are transparent as we can be,” Bacarro said.
He said all allegations of extra-judicial killings blamed to the military were old issue.
Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Its researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world and then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. (Juan Magtanggol and Juley Reyes)
In an 84-page report released on Thursday and titled, “Scared Silent: Impunity for Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines,” the Human Rights Watch said Manila should aggressively prosecute members of the security forces responsible for hundreds of extrajudicial executions in recent years.
Filipino militant groups said more than 800 people had been kidnapped and murdered since President Gloria Arroyo rose to power in 2001. Most of the killings, they said, pointed to the military as the culprit.
The report, based on more than 100 interviews, details the involvement of government security forces in the murder or “disappearance” of members of leftist political parties and nongovernmental organizations, journalists, outspoken clergy, anti-mining activists, and agricultural reform activists.
To date there have been no successful prosecutions of any member of the armed forces implicated in recent extrajudicial killings, the Human Rights Watch in New York said. “There is strong evidence of a ‘dirty war’ by the armed forces against left-leaning activists and journalists,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The failure to prosecute soldiers or police suspected in these killings shifts the spotlight of responsibility to the highest levels of the government.”
While abuses have been common in the decades-long armed conflict between the government and the communist New People’s Army (NPA), unlawful killings appeared to shift into a higher gear in February 2006, after President Arroyo accused leftist political parties of allying themselves with military coup plotters.
In June 2006, Arroyo declared a new strategy of an “all-out war” to eliminate the NPA, which may have sent a signal to the military that abuses would be tolerated.
The NPA also continues to commit human rights abuses, including kidnapping and unlawful killings, which Human Rights Watch also condemned. But such abuses by insurgents do not justify the military or the government committing further human rights violations through extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of any person, including members of political groups and civil society organizations that are sympathetic to the insurgents’ cause.
Most of the victims of the political killings documented by Human Rights Watch were members of legal political parties or organizations that the military claims are allied with the communist movement.
None of the incidents investigated by Human Rights Watch involved anyone who was participating in an armed encounter with the military or was otherwise involved in NPA military operations. Each victim appears to have been individually targeted for killing.
Three motorcycle-riding gunmen shot and killed Sotero Llamas, the former Bicol region commander of the NPA, while he was riding in his car on the morning of May 29, 2006, through his home town of Tabaco City in Albay province.
Llamas, who had been imprisoned in 1995 for his membership in the NPA, was released in 1996, became a consultant to the peace process, and then became a founding member of the political party Bayan Muna.
The NPA said government soldiers assassinated Llamas.
In February 2006, Llamas was one of the 51 people whom the police accused of rebellion and insurrection and being involved in the conspiracy to overthrow the Arroyo administration.
A judge dismissed the charges, but state prosecutors subsequently re-filed the case, which was still pending at the time of his death.
Three eyewitnesses currently in hiding told Human Rights Watch of the involvement of soldiers in the death of Pastor Andy Pawikan, a member of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, on May 21, 2006. Pawikan, his wife, his 7-month-old daughter and three other women were walking home from church when they were stopped by a group of about 20 soldiers.
The women, including Pawikan’s wife, were allowed to proceed but the soldiers detained Pawikan, who was carrying the baby. After about 30 minutes, those who had just been with Pawikan heard “many” shots. They were too afraid to investigate.
After some time a group of soldiers came and returned the child to Pawikan’s mother-in-law.
The baby was covered in blood but otherwise uninjured. The next day soldiers from the locally based 48th Infantry Battalion told the villagers Pawikan had fought the soldiers and they had no choice but to shoot him.
Human Rights Watch also found that the Philippines government is consistently failing in its obligations under international human rights law to hold accountable perpetrators of politically motivated killings, and thus denying victims’ families justice.
One apparent roadblock to prosecutions is the seeming unwillingness of senior military officials to even recognize that superior commanders may be legally responsible for acts of their subordinates as a matter of command responsibility. Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Chief of Staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. told the media, “Criminal acts only involve the individual.”
In response to growing international pressure, in August 2006 President Arroyo created a special police body, Task Force Usig, which she charged with solving 10 cases in 10 weeks. At the end of its mandate the Task Force claimed that 21 cases were “solved” by filing cases in court against identified suspects, all of them members of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines or the NPA.
Only 12 suspects involved in these incidents were actually in police custody. In August 2006, President Arroyo also created the Melo Commission to further probe the killings of media workers and left-wing activists since 2001.
The commission’s report, which was only made public under pressure from United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions Philip Alston, failed to provide any new information or analysis on the cases.
At the commission’s hearings, army and police officials were not challenged when they advanced distorted understandings of command responsibility, and were instead indulged in lengthy digressions on the importance of neutralizing the NPA threat. The Melo Commission’s mandate expires on June 30, 2007. Human Rights Watch said that while the government claims that it is doing all it can to address the abuses, it has taken few concrete steps to end the killings or prosecute perpetrators.
A Philippine military spokesman, Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro, has accused the Human Rights Watch of not getting the side of the Armed Forces so it can answer all allegations against its members.
“We categorically deny allegations that there is a dirty war being waged by the Armed Forces, particularly against the leftist groups. It is an unfair reporting because we have been collaborating with any agency conducting investigation relative to extrajudicial killings. We are transparent as we can be,” Bacarro said.
He said all allegations of extra-judicial killings blamed to the military were old issue.
Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Its researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world and then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media. (Juan Magtanggol and Juley Reyes)
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