FOR failing to respond immediately to the clamor of farmers affected by the El Niño as they asked for food aid from the local government that resulted to the death of two farmers and injuring dozens in Kidapawan City early this month, human rights group Karapatan has brought the peasants’ plight before the international community.
Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan, said they have submitted copies of the farmers’ complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) through email over the weekend.
Attached in the complaint are the findings gathered by a fact-finding teams that conducted an investigation days after the incident.
It can be recalled that on April 1 about 6,000 peasants mostly from central Mindanao barricaded a portion of the Cotabato-Davao highway in Kidapawan to dramatize their protest against the inaction of the local government on food subsidy as the prolonged drought continues to destroy crops, the peasants’ main source of livelihood.
Reports said North Cotabato Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza has ordered the dispersal of the farmers that turned violent when police officers fired at the protesters. Dozens of the peasants were arrested by authorities but were later released on bail.
Palabay said the action of the law enforcers has violated the rights of the peasants as those who ordered the dispersal and the ones who carried it out should be held responsible for the incident.
“It is important that the international community is made aware of these gross human rights violations against the farmers, with all the visible signs of cover up on the accountability of the Aquino government and the Philippine National Police,” she said in a statement.
In the course of the investigation conducted by the National Fact-finding and Humanitarian Mission (NFHM), a group composed of nongovernmental organizations, after the dispersal, Palabay said the investigating team cited various “maneuvers” by both the PNP and the local government “to destroy evidence by clearing the crime scene through the use of bulldozers and water cannons, burning of personal effects confiscated from the protesters during and after the dispersal.”
The fact-finding team also noted that paralegals and quick reaction teams were prevented from leaving the Spottswood Methodist Center, where the peasants were staying at the time, “to gather important details and documentation on the incident and provide emergency support to the victims and their families.”
Karapatan, together with peasant organization Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, an umbrella of various people’s organizations, made up the core of the NFHM.
Palabay said Karapatan has formally requested three UNHRC officials to look into the bloody incident as alleged violations of internationally recognized pacts were committed during the dispersal, among them the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Recipients of the formal complaint are Maina Kai, special rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Michel Forst, special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, and Seong-Phil Hong, chair-rapporteur of the Working Group in Arbitrary Detention.
It’s ironic, Palabay said, that while the Philippines is a UN member and a signatory of these covenants and instruments, the country’s law enforcement agency, security forces and government officials have failed to comply with them on many occasions.
“We are also concerned that continuing acts of harassment were observed to have been committed by police, military and civilian officials to pave the way for a cover up on the accountability of State security forces, local and national government officials,” she said in the letter.
She added the peasants’ demands and protest actions against the government were legitimate, reasonable and urgent.
“In our view, the national government and the provincial government [are] accountable and negligent in providing relief to the drought-affected farmers, as well as in the misappropriation of calamity funds and most of all, in the violent dispersal of the farmers’ protest,” Palabay furthered.
While the 82 farmers who were arrested and detained by the police were released on bail on April 16, she said trump up charged of direct assault and frustrated homicide have yet to be dismissed.
“The arrest and detention of the farmers – of those who were shot, pulled from the protesters’ ranks and tortured by the police, to the elderly and pregnant women farmers, to the mere bystanders – show the inhumanity and callousness of the BS Aquino government institutions on the plight of the farmers,” she added.
In its report, the NFHM has recommended for the “indictment and prosecution of all police operatives on the ground responsible for the killings, frustrated killings, illegal arrest and detention, and other criminal acts committed during and after the dispersal.”
The groups are also calling for the investigation and prosecution of Aquino, military and police generals, as well as officials of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and Department of Agriculture (DA), for their “participation and complicity in the violent dispersal of the farmers, the various human rights violation committed as a result thereof, and other violations committed thereafter.”