Counterinsurgency tactics, weak justice system lead to killings of activists - UN

The government’s new counterinsurgency program and the distorted priorities of the criminal justice system help explain why hundreds of activists have been killed in the Philippines, a United Nations report to the general assembly in New York said. The report, titled “Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions," contains the interim findings of Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur who visited the Philippines, among other countries, on February 12 to 21 this year. “Many in the government have concluded that numerous civil society organizations are ‘fronts’ for the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed group, the New People’s Army (NPA). One response has been counterinsurgency operations that result in the extrajudicial execution of leftist activists," the UN report said (read it here). The report also lamented that the priorities of the country’s criminal justice system have been “distorted," since investigators tend to focus more on prosecuting civil society leaders “rather than their killers." It noted that in some areas, activists and 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." The government has denied adopting any policy that has led to these killings and enforced disappearances. For its part, the military high command at first blamed the NPA for the killings, insisting that the rebel army was having its internal “purge." Recently, Armed Forces chief of staff Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. acknowledged that some rogue soldiers could have been behind some of the killings. Alston said he found little evidence that the communist guerrillas were engaged in a large-scale purge. “The military’s insistence that the ‘purge theory’ is correct can only be viewed as a cynical attempt to displace responsibility." A death squad likewise operates in Davao City, according to the report, “routinely killing children and others in broad daylight." Alston recommended that the UN General Assembly strengthen the ability of the special procedures system to prevent and respond to serious violations of human rights. - Newsbreak