Asia Pacific human rights activists to Aquino: Stop the killings!

By KARAPATAN
November 25, 2012

QUEZON CITY  –  Over forty human rights activists from Australia, New Zealand, Hongkong, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines gathered today in a conference on the human rights situation in the Philippines at the University of the Philippines Hotel in Quezon City, to reiterate their call for Phil. Pres. Benigno Aquino III to stop the killings and to pull out his government’s military troops in rural and urban poor communities.

Victims and kin of victims of human rights violations joined with the Asia Pacific human rights and peace activists in the said conference. Among those who recounted their experiences were Connie Empeno, mother of disappeared UP student Karen; Genasque Enriquez, an anti-mining Lumad leader from Mindanao who is being threatened with trumped up charges of murder and multiple frustrated murder by the military; Bae Adelfa Belayong, widow of slain Datu Mampaagi Belayong who was a staunch anti-mining advocate.

According to Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines, there had been documented cases of 114 victims of extrajudicial killings, 12 victims of enforced disappearances, 70 cases of torture, 447 illegal arrests and 29,613 victims of forced evacuation during the past two years of the Aquino government. Among the recent cases documented by Karapatan is the massacre of anti-mining activist Juvy Capion and her two sons in Tampakan, South Cotabato; the beheading of village councilor and peasant activist Ely Oguis in Guinobatan, Albay; and the labeling and harassment of Karapatan workers Jose Luis Blanco and Judde Baggo.

The conference aims to establish the – Asia Pacific Coordinating Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines, a regional network that will campaign for human rights issues in the country from national up to regional and international level.

Pastor Joram Calimutan, coordinator of the Asia Pacific Coordinating Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines (APCCHRP), said the formation of the network will consolidate the efforts of Asia Pacific activists to strengthen and amplify the advocacy for human rights issues in the Philippines, particularly the issues of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture, illegal arrests and detention.

“We have vigorously campaigned against the terror rule of Phil. Pres. Gloria Arroyo, when killings, disappearances and arrests especially against activists and leaders of progressive organizations in the Philippines. It is very disturbing to know that, despite Pres. Aquino’s promise to render justice for the victims and his government’s respect human rights, killings of farmers, indigenous peoples and the urban poor have continued,” Cameron Walker, Auckland Philippine Solidarity.

Peter Brock, Australia Action for Peace and Development in the Philippines, criticized Aquino’s disregard of indigenous people’s rights in favor of foreign mining companies such as the Australian company SMI-Xstrata.

“Not only has Aquino furthered the plunder of ancestral lands and resources through Executive Order 79, but he has likewise secured these exploitative industries’ interests by deploying paramilitaries and additional troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines to kill anti-mining IPs and to silence opposition,” Brock said.

The Asia Pacific activists particularly scored Aquino on his “deafening silence” on the massacre of anti-mining Lumad leader Juvy Capion and her two sons in Tampakan, South Cotabato last October 8, 2012.

“His silence bears the imprint of consent for these violations. Not only has he condoned impunity, he has likewise perpetuated it by not delivering justice for any of the 114 victims of extrajudicial killings under his administration,” Yi-Hsiang, Taiwan Committee for Philippine Concerns said.