Political killings: an intensifying pattern
Between the late 1980s and 2000-1, as the scale and intensity of the National Peoples Armys (NPA) insurgency declined gradually, the number of alleged NPA rebels killed in direct armed clashes or “encounters” similarly decreased. However over the last six years this trend appeared to alter. In addition, especially since 2003, the number of fatal attacks by unidentified armed men on members of legal leftist political organizations accused by the government of being “front” organizations of the CPP-NPA, including Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN – New Patriotic Alliance) and others, has undergone a marked increase.
Amnesty International believes that these successive killings are marked by common features. These include the political affiliations of the victims; the methodology of attacks; an apparent climate of impunity which, in practice, has shielded those responsible from prosecution; and repeated reports that military or other state agents have been directly involved in the attacks, or else have acquiesced or been complicit in them.
The organization believes that the pattern of killings, sustained over at least the past five years, amount to far more than the rise and fall of a normal crime rate cycle as suggested by some police officers.
Communist “fronts”: the resurgence of “red-labeling”
Human rights violations against suspected “sympathizers” of the CPP-NPA have long been a feature of anti-insurgency operations in the Philippines. From the 1970s to the early 1990s the practice of “red-labeling”, the public labeling of leftist critics of the government as “subversives” or members of communist “front organizations”, was seen by Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines and other human rights groups as directly linked to the high levels of extrajudicial executions, “disappearances”, arbitrary arrests and torture of members of legal political groups and non-governmental organizations. Peasants, trade unionists, church, social and human rights activists were portrayed in this manner as “legitimate” targets within the broader counter-insurgency campaign. Many were also placed, without opportunity for rebuttal, on AFP “Orders of Battle” (lists of people wanted by the security forces for alleged subversion) and, often receiving death threats from AFP and police personnel, paramilitaries or unofficial vigilante groups, were at particular risk of serious human rights violations.
Concern over a resurgence of such labeling and an apparent link to a parallel rise in the number of political killings has increased during President Arroyos administration as provincial military commanders made public statements linking legal leftist parties directly with the CPP-NPA. One of the most prominent among these commanders remains Major General Jovito Palparan. In a television interview in August 2002 then Colonel Palparan labeled Bayan Muna an “NPA front”. He also publicly accused Karapatan and the womens organization, Gabriela, of being “NPA recruiters”.
Similarly in September 2002, an army commander in Cebu denied Karapatan human rights workers permission to visit a man detained on suspicion of being an NPA rebel. The commander is reported to have said, “There is the possibility that we will shoot them (Karapatan members), depending on their action, because they are our enemies”. In a separate radio interview, he is also reported to have described Karapatan as “an enemy which hasnt done anything but support the NPA and find ways of destroying the government”.
The perception that a group of officers within the AFP recognized no distinction between the NPA and legal leftist parties, and rejected the legitimacy of leftist progressive groups participation in democratic political processes, was also reflected in the circulation in 2005 of AFP treatises on the CPP-NPA “revolutionary struggle” and what the AFP regarded as necessary resultant counter-insurgency strategies. The treatises outlined the “complementary, interrelated and interactive” nature of the armed, the legal community and parliamentary struggles, and described the targeted infiltration and the CPP-NPA “capture” of particular sectoral communities (including peasants, urban poor and indigenous people) to exploit pressing social issues such as land reform and the impact of mining and other controversial development projects. Referring also to alleged penetration of local government units by party-list groups and the manipulation of government local development programs, the treatises listed alleged “front” non-government organizations (NGOs) and called for a coordinated AFP campaign to “neutralize” CPP-NPA programs within vulnerable sectors and communities.
Major General Palparan in particular emerged as the focus of accusations by leftist groups that the military was responsible for sharply increased numbers of killings of leftist activists in regions where he was given command, including Samar and, currently, Central Luzon. In February 2006, Major General Palparan publicly reiterated that the government must confront the insurgency at all levels, reducing their support systems, including NGOs infiltrated or controlled by the CPP that provide the “materials, the shelter” for the NPA. He also described the congressional party-list members as directing or “providing the day-to-day policies of the [rebel] movement”. He warned of necessary and tolerable “collateral damage” in the anti-insurgency campaign, and, referring to vigilante killings by anti-communist elements outside the AFP, stated that the military “alone” should not be blamed. Subsequently, labeling leftist party-list leaders as “enemies of the state”, he also called for reinstitution of the Anti-Subversion Act to again make membership of the CPP a criminal offence.
Though reassured by President Arroyos public condemnation of political killings in July 2006, the absence of consistent denunciation, at all levels of government, of any form of official involvement in political killings contributed to persistent concerns that such counter-insurgency strategies would consolidate, in practice, into an implicit policy of toleration of such political killings. Such concerns had deepened as senior government officials, including prominent members of the Cabinet Oversight Committee on Internal Security (COC-IS), publicly endorsed such counter-insurgency strategies, and in addition, robustly defended the arrest or threatened arrest of party-list Congressional representatives for rebellion. In March 2006 National Security Adviser Noberto Gonzales declared that the government was beginning a crackdown on all known “communist fronts” in society, and would achieve its goal of destroying the CPP-NPA by the year 2010.
Extrajudicial Killings
