HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

4 Negros Farmer Activists Killed in 3 Months

Mass organizations have become victims of political repression because they are the most outspoken and consistent in exposing human rights violations and defending people’s rights. The killings can no longer be viewed as isolated, however. These could be part of a planned and systematic campaign of terror against members and leaders of mass organizations in Negros.

BY KARL G. OMBION AND RANIE AZUE
Bulatlat

BACOLOD CITY – Can a person be killed because of his or her organizational affiliation? The answer is yes in Negros.

From April to June this year, four activist-organizers belonging to the National Federation of Sugar Workers (NFSW) and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP, Peasant Movement in the Philippines) became victims of summary execution.

First to fall was NFSW leader Edwin Bargamento who on April 10 was killed allegedly by members of the paramilitary Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPA). The RPA members, rights watchdogs and cause-oriented groups said, were backed by the Philippine National Police’s Regional Mobile Group (PNP-RMG) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Seven days later, Renante Alesna, a local organizer of KMP-Negros, was shot dead also allegedly by members of the RPA in Barangay (village) Lalong, Calatrava town, 120 kms north of this city.

Last June 10, Mario Fernandez, 22, an organizer of NFSW covering hacienda (vast tracts of land) communities in Silay City, 20 kms north of Negros, was mowed down by unidentified armed elements while on his way to Silay City.

On June 13 at around 7 p.m., Manuel Batolina, 50, was resting inside his hut at Hacienda Sangay, Barangay Purisima, Manapla town, 40 kms north of Negros, when unidentified armed elements barged into his hut and open fired at him. He died on the spot.

According to Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Peoples’ Rights), Fernandez who was with a companion at around 9 a.m. was on his way to Hacienda Salanap to follow up organizational assignments related to the NFSW’s preparations for the June 12 Day of Mourning rally in Bacolod. About eight unidentified armed elements hiding in a nearby sugarcane field suddenly opened fire at them.

Fernandez died on the spot while his companion managed to flee.

Karapatan noted that a day before the shooting of Fernandez, a composite team of PNP-Silay and RMG from Aidsisa and Bagtic detachments started a three-day operation in the area. Residents said that they were on a hot pursuit mission against “a group of bandits” who ransacked a house in the area last June 8.

However, sources told Bulatlat that this group of bandits is a death squad composed of rebel returnees and RPA elements coddled reportedly by the RMG and police officers. This group is said to engage in crimes like hold-up and robbery for their uniformed bosses. Its objective is also to sow terror among organized masses in the area.

“If plain bandits killed Fernandez, why were his belongings and money still intact and why were they still within the area considering that the composite team of RMG and PNP has been in hot pursuit since Thursday afternoon?” the source said.

Meanwhile, an initial autopsy report showed that Batolina sustained multiple gunshots wounds with varying points of entry indicating that more than one person fired at him. A police blotter report from PNP-Manapla showed that eight empty shells and two slugs of caliber .45 pistol were recovered from the crime scene.

Batolina was an active mass organizer and federation president of the NFSW in the haciendas of  Begonia, Candelaria and Navidad in the municipality of Manapla.

Perpetrators

As of presstime, PNP investigators have yet to present any findings on the case and have only promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.

However, NFSW, KMP and Karapatan pinned the blame on the RPA, PNP-RMG and units of the AFP. John Lozande, secretary-general of NFSW-Negros, said that they have witnesses to pin the RPA rebels and the government troopers. In addition, Lozande said, circumstances prior to the killings showed attempts from the RPA to silence the militant organizers.

Bargamento was nabbed and detained by RPA elements in Talisay in the middle of 2004. While detained, Lozande said, Bargamento was interrogated and harassed, with a threat that he would be killed if he continued organizing for the NFSW. Bargamento’s cousin, Eduardo, a local president of NFSW, was visited by the RPA a week after Edwin’s killing and was threatened to stop organizing in the haciendas.

The same was experienced by Batolina and Fernandez. In February 2004, they were nabbed by RPA elements in Hacienda Salone 2, Barangay 10, Victorias City. They were forced to walk blindfolded for hours through the sugarcane fields up to upland Barangay Concepcion, Talisay City.

At the RPA’s bivouac, they were interrogated about their areas of organizing, their alleged links with the New People’s Army (NPA), and who their companions are. Before they were released, they were warned to bolt the NFSW and instead join the Democratic Alliance of Labor Organizations (DALO), an organization believed to be backed by RPA, or else they will be executed.

Stephen Paduano (who is also widely known as Lualhati Carapali, national commander of the RPA), denied the RPA’s responsibility in the killings. He insinuated instead that the killings of NFSW organizers stemmed from internal conflicts within NFSW.

Lozande however lambasted Carapali saying “his denial of the RPA’s crimes is nothing but part of diversionary and psychological operations. How can he deny these when they, together with the PNP and AFP, have been engaging in a campaign of threats, intimidations, arrest and detentions of our leaders and members?”

Killing fields

In the past, northern Negros Occidental was tagged as “the killing fields of Negros” not only for the many killings that took place, but also for the brutality in which they were carried out.

Local political analysts said that the land ownership in northern Negros is more concentrated than in other parts of the region. In addition, there is the presence of relatively developed and bigger sugar mills like the Victorias Milling Company. These are said to make the landlords more consolidated in their economic and political interests and more brutal in dealing with the labor movement and insurgency.

Northern Negros has also been known for the presence of death squads, vigilante groups, paramilitary units and criminal syndicates that are known to have been organized, trained and operated by the military and police units, and financed by the big sugar planters.

Most brutal killings and assaults on militant activists in recent years reportedly took place in northern Negros.

Planned and systematic terror campaign

Fred Cana of Karapatan-Negros said that the killings which have reached alarming proportions can no longer be viewed as isolated, but a planned and systematic campaign of terror against members and leaders of the militant organization in the region.

Cana stressed that the militant mass organizations like NFSW and KMP which are among the most outspoken in exposing human rights violations and defending the people’s rights are natural targets of harassment and repression by the hired goons and armed elements of the big landlords.

The fact that there have been no victims from moderate and pro-administration organizations and that the militant organizations have been the government and RPA’s subject of nationwide terror campaign to vilify, demonize and decapitate, are enough proofs that only the RPAs and the military are the chief perpetrators of this terror, Cana added.

The reason why the military and the police appear helpless in getting the perpetrators is that they are part of the entire killing machine, Cana said.

Cana also hit the Macapagal-Arroyo administration for its lack of seriousness in honoring the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

CHR alarmed

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in Negros expressed alarm over the trend of political killings against the progressive movement, and called on the culprits to “immediately stop the killings.”

“This should be stopped because this only worsens the already highly volatile economic and political situation in the region,” said Romeo Baldevarona, officer-in-charge of CHR-Bacolod.

He also doubted the government’s capability to end political killings since even the government protection program does not appear to give enough assurance to the witnesses in the killings to come out and help solve the killings.

Baldevarona cited the case of an alleged witness to the killing of Bargamento who hesitated to come out in the open because of distrust in the protection of the government and of the CHR. Bulatlat

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