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Arroyo Regime Has No Intention
of Ending Extrajudicial Killings
By Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson, Human Rights Committee
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
25 February 2007
The concerted negative reactions of the de facto president Gloria M. Arroyo,
executive secretary Eduardo Ermita, justice secretary Raul Gonzalez, and Armed
Forces of the Philippines chief of staff General Hermogenes Esperon Jr. to the
Alston statement and Melo commission report show that the Arroyo regime has
no intention of ending the extrajudicial killings by special teams or death squads
of the military.
Gloria M. Arroyo continues to evade command responsibility for the extrajudicial
killings. She has not called for the arrest and prosecution of Major General Jovito
Palparan for the butchery in his previous areas of command. She deliberately
refuses to hold responsible the military officers for the extrajudicial killings in
their areas of command. Police investigators and the Inter-Agency Legal Assistance
Group continue to cover up the murders, abductions and other crimes being
committed by the death squads.
Arroyo has allowed Ermita, Raul Gonzalez and Esperon to use their official positions
in attacking the UN special rapporteur Philip Alston and even the Arroyo-created
Melo commission. Worst of all, they continue to harp on the line of intrigue that
the victims of extrajudicial killings are "communists" who are being killed by
communists for being spies and malversing funds. By this line, they seek to
discredit and destroy both the progressive legal activists and the armed
revolutionaries.
Together with the national security adviser Norberto Gonzales, they tried to
hoodwink the Alston mission and the Melo commission with such line and failed
miserably. Instead, they unwittingly underscored the facts and truth in the
testimonies of the direct witnesses to the extrajudicial killings, including surviving
victims and families of those murdered and abducted.
But General Esperon, the notorious operative of Arroyo in the 2004 elections,
knows no limits for his malice and stupidity. He holds a press conference to
recycle a film clip spliced by the military propagandists in 1987 and to accuse
the Chief Political Consultant of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, Prof. Jose Maria
Sison, of having identified legal national democratic forces, such as those in
the Bayan multisectoral alliance, as "NDF front organizations". The point of
Esperon is that the military is at liberty to murder progressive legal activists
by simply labeling them as communists.
Ad nauseam, Esperon continues to blame Rep. Satur Ocampo, NDFP Negotiating
Panel Chairperson Luis Jalandoni and Prof. Sison for the massacre perpetrated
by the Philippine Army in Leyte in 1984 and falsely accuses them of having
signed an order in the same year for the New People's Army to conduct a
purge in Leyte. Then, in a non sequitur leap, he makes the false claim that
there is an "internal purge" going on in the ranks of the revolutionary forces
from 2001 to the present.
Arroyo and all her top subalterns are hell-bent on continuing the extrajudicial
killings. They seek to counter the rise of popular opposition to their oppressive
and exploitative rule. They are driven by their own lust for power and lucre
and they are all emboldened by the Anti-Terror Act, which Arroyo is about
to sign. But they are blind to the lessons provided by the rise and fall of the
Marcos fascist dictatorship. They are inciting the people to fight back and
undertake all forms of resistance.
If they can survive the wrath of the people and flee the country, Arroyo
and her accomplices will still be chased to the US where they have accumulated
properties and financial assets. There, like the unlamented Marcos, they will be
made to face charges of corruption, money laundering and command responsibility
for human rights violations, especially for the torture, disappearance and murder
of so many people. ###
REFERENCE:
Ruth de Leon
Executive Director
NDFP International Information Office
Tel.+31-30-2310431
Fax +31-84-7589930
Email: [email protected]
http://www.ndfp.net
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