[lit-ideas] Phillipines and the US

  • From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 4 Apr 2006 03:50:47 -0700 (PDT)

Something on the current problems of the Phillipines:

Since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo joined the US
global "War on Terrorism", the Philippines has become
the site of an on-going undeclared war against peasant
and union activists, progressive political dissidents
and lawmakers, human rights lawyers and activists,
women leaders and a wide range of print and broadcast
journalists. Because of the links between the Army,
the regime and the death squads, political
assassinations take place in an atmosphere of absolute
impunity. The vast majority of the attacks occur in
the countryside and provincial towns. The reign of
terror in the Philippines is of similar scope and
depth as in Colombia. Unlike Colombia, the rampaging
state terrorism has not drawn sufficient attention,
le3t alone outcry, from international public opinion. 

Between 2001 and 2006 hundreds of killings,
disappearances, death threats and cases of torture
have been documented by the independent human rights
center, KARAPATAN , and the church-linked Ecumenical
Institute for Labor Education and Research. Since
Macapagal Arroyo came to power in 2001 there have been
400 documented extrajudicial killings. In 2004, 63
were killed and in 2005, 179 were assassinated and
another 46 disappeared and presumed dead. So far in
the first two months of 2006 there have been 26
documented political assassinations. 

An analysis of the class and social background of the
victims of this systematic state terror in 2005
demonstrates that the largest sector, about 70, have
been peasants and peasant leaders involved in land and
farm labor disputes. The military has invariably
accused the murdered and disappeared peasants of links
to or sympathy with the communist guerrillas or Muslim
separatists. The victims include members of the
national farmers' association, Kilusang Magbubukid ng
Pilipinas (KMP), as well as Igorot, Agta and Moro
indigenous minority peasant leaders involved in
protecting their lands. One notorious massacre
occurred in late November 2005 when 47 peasants and
their legal representatives held an open, public
meeting over a land dispute in Palo, Leyte in the
Visayas. A large force of soldiers surrounded and
attacked the meeting killing 9 peasants outright and
arresting over a dozen. An additional 18 'disappeared'
and are presumed dead. The 'Palo Massacre' of the
members of the San Agustin Farmers Beneficiaries
Cooperative and Alang-Alang Small Farmers Association
was at first presented by the armed forces as a
military encounter with the New Peoples Army and a few
homemade weapons were planted on the victims. In this,
as in all other cases, none of the perpetrators have
been punished and there has been no official
investigation. 


http://www.counterpunch.org/petras03172006.html

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