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"Karapatan has a list of 863 victims. Their
friends and families suspect the
military and the police and their special agents and auxiliaries of
having killed them. The Armed Forces of the Philippines also has a
list of 1,335 victims of CPP-NPA liquidation teams. The Manila Times
publishes this special report as its contribution to the Supreme
Court-sponsored National Consultative Summit on Extrajudicial
Killings and Enforced Disappearancaes—Searching for Solutions
tomorrow and Tuesday, July 16 and 17, at the Manila Hotel."
We in The Manila Times have only
one appeal to make to the participants of the Summit. Never to
forget that the victims are human beings.
We print the pictures of 39 of
them.
They often appear as mere
statistics in the presentations of human rights groups as well as of
the government, the military and the police.
They have been killed—robbed of
their God-given gift of life. Some of them were tortured and
humiliated before they were killed. They were deprived of their
dignity as human beings in the last hours of their lives.
Karapatan, the leftist
human-rights group that some government officials and generals want
to count among the so-called enemies of the state for being
affiliated with other groups that are closely kinked with the
National Democratic Front, has a count of EJK victims that the
military and the police dispute.
Karapatan says the EJK victims
from January 2001 to the end of May 2007 total 863.
Karapatan says in that period 8
businessmen, 22 church workers, 418 farmers, 4 fisherfolk, 9
government employees, 26 human-rights workers, 74 indigenous
peoples, 9 local government officials, 65 Moros, 41 professionals,
10 unborn persons, 4 of unknown designations, 32 urban poor, 65
workers, and 120 youth and students. All in all 863.
Karapatan bitterly protested its
exclusion from the set of groups invited by the Supreme Court to
join the summit. Ernesto B. Francisco Jr., a lawyer and admirer of
the organization wrote the Chief Justice and expressed surprise
“that about 99 percent of the victims of extrajudicial killings do
not seem to be represented in the summit. Indeed, it is ironic that
a national effort to help the victims of extrajudicial killings
might not hear the voice of the victims.”
“With all due respect,” the
letter writer continued, “for the summit to be successful, it
should have the cooperation and participation of groups like
Karapatan and other organizations which happen to be identified with
the Left. These groups have been in the forefront of the campaign
against extrajudicial killings ever since.
“Without the participation of
Karapatan and other organizations identified with the Left, there is
also that great possibility that the summit will suffer the same
fate as the Melo Commission, which fate was primarily brought about
by the fact that it was boycotted by the Left,” Atty. Francisco
said.
Some observers have tried to
guess what in the mind of the justices when they decided not to
invite Karapatan and other leftist groups. They believe the justices
do not want the Summit to turn into a debating match between
Karapatan and similarly minded groups against the AFP and PNP
representatives to the summit.
Anyway, what Karapatan will say
will be brought to the attention of the justices and the other
participants, through other participants who respect Karapatan.
The PNP view
The PNP’s Task Force Usig,
which is very much engaged in helping solve the problem of the
killing of media personnel, will present a position paper at the
summit.
In its review of the current
situation, Usig presents these figures from 2001 to the present.
Party-list members killed: 116,
of which 55 are now active cases in court and 61 under
investigation.
Newsmen killed: 27, of which
21are now active cases in court and 6 are under investigation.
Total militant party-list members
and newsmen (whether militant or not) killed 143, 76 cases filed in
court and 67 still being investigated by Usig.
Usig reports that the highest
number of party-list members slain was recorded in 2006 and the
lowest in 2003. In 2007, 4 valid cases were recorded, 1 case of
frustrated homicide with abduction and 5 cases of abduction were
also recorded.
Out of Karapatam’s list of 836
victims, Usig has acknowledged only 122, has excluded 529, is
working to verify 185 cases.
Out of Amnesty International list
of 57 EJK victims Usig has acknowledged 23, has excluded 27 and is
still verifying 7l.
Out of Bayan Muna’s list of
131victims, Usig has acknowledged 71, excluded 59 and is verifying
1.
Usig maintains that
“considering the evidence at hand, TF Usig is pursuing all angles
including the possible involvement of the CPP/NPA, ultra rightist
elements, other destabilizing forces and organized crime groups or
“a combination” of these groups.
There will surely be participants
in the summit, however, unleftist they may be, who will present the
Karapatan viewpoint.
Although government officials
have berated the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for having
made a report that does not just give a slap on the wrist to the
military and the government, the participants in tomorrow’s summit
will most likely pay heed to what he said.
--Rene Q. Bas
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