Saturday, June 30, 2007 Carvajal: The real enemy By Orlando P. Carvajal Break Point
EVEN assuming that the military has nothing to do with extrajudicial killings, they can still be held accountable for failure to find the perpetrators of this crime. They are definitely more damned if they are the killers but they are still damned if they are not because of their failure to solve these killings and find the masterminds.
What puzzles many is why the government insists that unless the generals come out in the open these allegations will remain just that, mere allegations. It has been made clear that unless the accusing generals come out of anonymity, the government does not intend to launch a full-scale investigation into the possible complicity of top civilian or military officials in the extra-judicial killings and abductions of activists.
Yet, it was Senator-elect Antonio Trillanes IV who first alleged that “composite teams run by the intelligence community including intelligence units from each major service command” are the ones carrying out political killings and abductions.
Bishop Pueblos followed with the allegation that all President Arroyo has to do to stop extrajudicial killings was to order it to be stopped. This can only mean that the responsibility for the killings goes all the way to the commander in chief.
So, why can’t they investigate on the basis of Trillanes’ and Pueblos’ allegations? Are they saying Trillanes and Pueblos are non-entities and that only generals, if they come out in the open, can be honored with the full-scale probe the situation calls for?
If the military is not in any way involved in these killings, they should welcome an investigation to clear their name. They would still be damned for incompetence. But better that than complicity in a crime that has no place in a democratic country that subscribes to the UN charter and allegedly respects the universal human rights in that charter.
The proper response would have been for PGMA, as commander-in-chief, to guarantee the safety of the generals while a full-scale investigation is being conducted. She should not have merely agreed with the Supreme Court in calling for a summit on these killings. As this country’s leader she should have led us towards truth, transparency and decency in our ways of dealing with those who disagree with us politically.
The roots of activism are found in the poverty and powerlessness of the neglected masses. Unless people are liberated from poverty and hopelessness, the more militant people will just become. Militants are still with us because poverty is still the lot of too many of us. The enemy of the state is not the activist farmer or laborer. The real enemy of the state is the crooked government official who deprives peoples of their right to a better life.
