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Thursday, July 13, 2006
Police units established in Negros to stop militant killings
MALACAÑANG said police detachment centers have been set up in key areas in Negros Occidental to prevent the killing of peasant leaders in that province.
Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor said he was ordered by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to help Task Force Mapalad, the peasant organization whose farmer-leaders have been victimized by a wave of killings.
Defensor said the detachment centers were set up in key areas where there were many killings and where there are tensions or potentials of killings. He said the agrarian reform department will submit a list of the cases to his office.
“Definitely, the President looks at the peace and order situation as a matter how each commander has performed and definitely the militant killings would be part of that including the common crimes that we see today,” he said.
He said an in-house Malacañang survey showed a lot of confidence in the law and order campaign although the militant killings are more political in nature.
As of last May, eight Task Force Mapalad members have been killed, three of them in the month of May alone.
The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has formed an inter-agency task force to look into the killings allegedly related to agrarian reform disputes.
Meanwhile, Defensor also said Malacañang had nothing to do with the alleged abduction of two University of the Philippines (UP) student-activists.
He said President Arroyo was an activist in her time and she will not tolerate the curtailment of the people’s rights.
Meanwhile, the government washed its hands off the spate of killings of journalists and activists in the country but not after pointing an accusing finger at the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as the culprit.
In a meeting with the officers of the Kapisanan ng mga Broadkaster ng Pilipinas (KBP) and the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) at the Department of Justice (DOJ), Police General Avelino Razon Jr., revealed the existence of a document that was seized from communist rebels during an armed encounter between government forces and insurgents in Tagkawayan, Quezon last May 23.
Razon Jr., who heads Task Force Usig, which was tasked to investigate and resolve the killings of journalists and Left-leaning activists, said the document contained a portion that orders New People’s Army (NPA) rebels to conduct operations against what they perceive as “infiltrators among their ranks.”
Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez Sr., who was present during the meeting, said the best proof that the NPA is carrying out such kinds of operations is their admission on the “Kampanyang Ahos”, which claimed the lives of hundreds of active NPA members who were summarily executed in the 1980’s, when the rebel movement was believed to have been infiltrated by government spies.
Razon said the document contained orders to execute members of militant groups so that it would be blamed on the government.
Human rights and other cause oriented groups however said the killings are part of the government’s all-out war against insurgency after President Arroyo gave the military and the police two years to lick insurgency.
Rachel Khan of the CMFR said it could be a new strategy (of the NPA), which is very alarming.
But Razon insisted that it was hatched by the NPA, the CPP’s military arm.
He said the meeting at the DOJ was held so that the media groups and the government could compare their figures and for them to have an update on the status of cases that were filed in court against the suspects of media and activist killings. (JMR/ECV/Sunnex)
(July 13, 2006 issue)
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