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Arroyo Regime’s Abuses Qualify as ‘Crimes Against Humanity’: Hague Tribunal

Published: March 26, 2007   |     |     |   Subscribe: RSS or Email    

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The responsibility of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)

The perpetrators of the killings and abductions are often uniformed men with no nametags, wearing bonnets or ski-masks and riding on motorcycles or vehicles with no plate numbers. Although the government is strongly denying any participation of the army in these killings, there are serious indications to the contrary. For instance the comprehensive documentation available on the case of the killing after torture of pastor Isaias Santa Rosa on August 3, 2006, has been specifically impressive: one of the perpetrators was killed as well during the operation and a written mission order (available to the evaluation by the PPT) by the army found on his body.

In the case of the killing of pastor Andy Pawican on May 21, 2006, uniformed soldiers abducted the victim, killed shortly afterwards.

The same is true in the case of Eddie Gumanoy and Eden Marcellana (documented with video and a very detailed collection of documents) abducted by uniformed soldiers and killed after having been tortured on April 21, 2003 on their way back from a human rights fact finding mission.

The creation on October 30th 1987 of the Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU) to serve as auxiliaries to the Armed Forces in counter-insurgency activities, is fuctioning as a paramilitary forces used in many instances to serve the interests of political personalities and private societies.

The politics of impunity

The absence of any serious attempt to assure an investigation on the killings, has been confirmed by all the witnesses.

No photos, no fingerprints are taken, no other investigative measures applied. No prosecution is started because of lack of evidence. Even the most brutal atrocities hardly elicit any decisive action or even oral condemnation of the government. The history of the Melo Commission reflects well this attitude of denial: the government has been politically forced to install the commission with the mandate to investigate the killings: despite the qualification of the facts as ‘incidents’, with no responsibilities of the army nor of the police, the government tried everything to delay the publication, ultimately without success. Another report, by UN special rapporteur Philip Alston, much more critical, has been totally denied and even derided by the government.

Most serious is the mechanism of threatening, torturing and killing of witnesses of killings and other human rights violations. The tribunal refers in this respect to the impressive testimony before the tribunal by Ruel Marcial, severely tortured just because he was the only witness of the killing of pastor Andy Pawican (referred to before).

The jury has also been informed that at least one witness who has given evidence to the UN special rapporteur Alston has been killed shortly afterwards.