"These groups are being monitored. But the military does not employ death squads," he said, though he conceded there could be elements within the military carrying out their own "special operations."
The military command post here sits on a hillock and is constantly under attack by NPA rebels, who are known to have infiltrated many remote hamlets from where they recruit impressionable youths.
The spate of killings targeting activists has alarmed the EU, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Roman Catholic church, all of which have called on the president to take action to stop the killings. The blood has not stopped flowing.
Amnesty International said in a report in August that "a failure to prosecute any of the killers risk perpetuating a cycle of human- rights violations, not least by sending a message of de facto state tolerance for such practices."
RSS