The UN blamed the Philippine military yesterday for many of the political murders that have rocked the country and pressed President Gloria Arroyo to rein in the amount of bloodshed.
Wrapping up an investigation into what rights groups say are more than 800 political assassinations, UN special envoy Philip Alston said many of the killings stemmed from the military's campaign against left-wing guerrillas.
Alston said the government was responsible for a climate of impunity but said he did not have evidence to support allegations by the nation's leading human-rights group that Arroyo had ordered or condoned the murders.
"The increase in extrajudicial executions in recent years is attributable, at least in part, to a shift in the military's counter-insurgency strategy," Alston told reporters.
"In some areas, an appeal to hearts and minds is combined with an attempt to vilify left-leaning organizations and to intimidate leaders of such organizations," he said.
"In some instances, such intimidation escalates into extrajudicial executions," he said -- adding that many of the killings had been "convincingly attributed" to the military, which he said was in "almost total denial."
Philippine forces have been battling for decades against communist insurgents who effectively control parts of this vast island nation and fund their activities by extorting "taxes" from shops and businesses.
Local rights group Karapatan says more than 830 people have been murdered for political motives since Arroyo came to power in 2001 -- many of them leftists, and some of them accused by the army of links to the guerrillas.
The military, one of the most powerful institutions in the country, has accused rights groups of inflating the numbers of victims and said that many of those listed as dead were guerrillas killed in clashes with the armed forces.
But Alston said that, while leftist organizations were also guilty of propaganda, most of the cases they presented "proved credible under cross-examination."
He declined to give an overall tally of the killings but said: "I am certain the number is high enough to be distressing."
Lieutenant Colonel Bartolome Bacarro, a military spokesman, said at least four soldiers were being investigated, and that one had been officially charged, but declined to comment when asked if Alston's remarks were unfair.
The Australian-born lawyer, who met Arroyo and members of her Cabinet as well as families of victims during his almost two-week mission, said he did not think that orders for the murders had come from on high.
"I do not believe that there is a policy at the top designed to, or which directs, that these killings take place," Alston said.
"I am clear on that," he added.
Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, said Arroyo should persuade the military to improve its reputation "by acknowledging the facts and take genuine steps to investigate."
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all