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Friday, February 23, 2007
Amnesty International calls for action to end Philippine political killings (2:38 p.m.)
MANILA -- The Philippine government must take decisive action to end a spate of killings of left-wing activists in the face of compelling evidence of military involvement in the deaths, Amnesty International said Friday.
"The body of evidence is now so compelling that it can no longer be ignored: there is substantial confirmation of the pattern of political killings in the Philippines," Natalie Hill, Amnesty International's deputy Asia Pacific director, said in a statement.
The international human rights watchdog released its statement after a UN human rights investigator and a Philippine fact-finding commission found members of the military culpable in a number of extrajudicial killings.
Amnesty International said the findings "should give the impetus to the government and all political parties and groups to act decisively to end the political killings in the run-up to the legislative and local elections in May."
Local human rights group Karapatan has blamed security forces for most of the more than 800 killings it says occurred since 2001, when President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power, including the deaths of more than 300 left-wing activists.
Arroyo has vowed to resolve the issue "with fairness and justice, and to uphold the good name of 99 percent of soldiery who take the cudgels of our national security 24 hours a day, seven days a week," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Friday.
The Philippine fact-finding commission said Thursday that retired army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan and his superiors may be held responsible under the principle of command responsibility. It said some elements of the military, particularly Palparan, were responsible for an undetermined number of cases "by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings."
A day earlier, UN investigator Philip Alston slammed the military for being in "a state of denial" about the "significant number of killings" of left-wing activists by soldiers.
Armed forces chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon has called the reports unfair, criticizing the commission and Alston for ignoring evidence of alleged rebel assassinations and internal purges.
A lack of accountability for the political killings remains a critical challenge because despite the hundreds of killings over the past six years, no one has been convicted, Amnesty International said.(AP)
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