Alston press statement and Melo Commission
report
Hold Arroyo Regime and Military Accountable for Extrajudicial
Killings
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consultant
Posted by Bulatlat
The press statement of the UN special rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary and special executions Prof. Philip Alston and the
report of the Melo commission put forward important findings and
conclusions that hold the Arroyo regime and the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) accountable for extrajudicial killings and other human
rights violations from 2001 to the present.
Alston
asks the top officials of the Philippine reactionary government to
acknowledge the reality of the extrajudicial killings and to issue a
statement from the very top, from the President, from the Secretary of
Defense, and certainly from the AFP chief of staff saying that
extrajudicial killings will not be tolerated. He avers that the
extrajudicial killings are convincingly attributed to the military by the
victims and their families.
Alston falls short of spelling out the culpability of de
facto president Gloria M. Arroyo as AFP commander-in-chief and her cabinet
oversight committee on internal security for adopting and carrying out the
policy of state terrorism and the operational plan Bantay Laya I and II,
in line with the Bush global war of terror.
However, Alston states that the all-out war policy has
driven a part of the military to commit extrajudicial killings. He
describes as unconvincing the false claim and intrigue of AFP chief of
staff General Hermogenes Esperon, Jr. that the victims of extrajudicial
killings are communists but are “purged’ by the communists on suspicion
of being spies or malversing party funds.
It is well-known that the Communist Party of the
Philippines (CPP) launched the Second Great Rectification Movement in 1992
as an educational movement to reaffirm basic revolutionary principles and
criticize, repudiate and rectify the grave errors and crimes committed by
renegades against the right to due process in so-called anti-informer
campaigns mainly in the years of 1985 to 1988.
The report of the Melo commission repetitiously and
obsequiously praises and exculpates Gloria M. Arroyo and insults the
revolutionary movement. But it establishes that there is a grave problem
of extrajudicial killings perpetrated by what it estimates as “a small
group of military rogues”. It considers as credible and convincing the
information drawn from sources other than the families of the victims and
the human rights organization Karapatan that the military is responsible
for the extrajudicial killings.
The Melo report takes to task AFP chief of staff General
Esperon for failing to prevent, investigate and punish those responsible
for extrajudicial killings in accordance with the principle of command
responsibility and the rule of law. The commission holds General Palparan
responsible for the extrajudicial killings and abductions of unarmed
activists within his previous areas of command and for making statements
condoning and encouraging these atrocities.
The Melo report exposes the self-contradictions in the
false claim and intrigue of the military that the extrajudicial killings
are the result of an “internal purge” within the ranks of the
revolutionary forces. It finds credible and convincing the testimonies of
the surviving victims and the families of the victims. Although the Melo
commission was boycotted by them, it was able to rely on the
investigations and documentation of the Human Rights Commission and other
sources.
The Alston mission is restrained by considerations of the
Philippines being a member-state of the United Nations and having
representatives in the human rights treaty bodies of the UN. The Melo
commission is even more limited by the fact that it is a creature of
Gloria M. Arroyo, lacks independence and ample resources of its own and
does not enjoy the full confidence of the families of the victims and the
human rights organizations. After trying to mothball the Melo report
because of its criticism of the military, the Arroyo regime has been
compelled to release it only because of the demands of UN agencies, the
European Commission, human right organizations, the general public and
others.
The families of the victims of extrajudicial killings and
other human rights violations and the broad masses of the people are
pleased with the positive points in the Alston press statement and the
Melo commission. They have yearned for justice for so long that they
welcome any glimmer of hope. At the same time, they are concerned that
the Arroyo regime will continue to push the military, police and
paramilitary forces to commit more human rights violations in line with
Oplan Bantay Laya, especially after she signs the Anti-Terror Act.
Gloria M. Arroyo has reacted to the Alston statement and
Melo report by pretending to accept them gracefully but insisting that
99.9 per cent of her armed minions are “good”. She lets her executive
secretary Ermita, justice secretary Raul Gonzales and General Esperon
badmouth Alston. Without any sense of honor and shame, Esperon repeats his
lies against me in a futile attempt to deflect attention from his exposure
as a liar by the Alston statement and even by the Melo report.
Esperon misrepresents as victims of the New People’s Army
those massacred by the Philippine Army in 1984 in Leyte. He claims that an
“internal purge” within revolutionary ranks started from that time and has
continued up to the present. He is caught lying by claiming that Satur
Ocampo, Luis Jalandoni and I signed the so-called purge order in Leyte in
1984. At that time, Satur was detained in Bicutan. I was in solitary
confinement in Fort Bonifacio. And Louie had been a refugee in Europe
since 1977.
Esperon also makes the false claim that I identified
certain legal mass organizations.like Bayan, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Kilusang
Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, Gabriela and League of Filipino students not as
legal “national democratic forces” but as “front organizations” of the
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF). He uses an old
doctored film clip of me delivering a lecture in Brussels, Belgium in
1987. The military psywar experts conflated a passage of my speech
enumerating the legal democratic organizations and another passage
mentioning the NDF.
Only an imbecile would dare to misrepresent me as being
ignorant of the underground organizations of the NDF and confusing them
with legal democratic forces in the Bayan multisectoral alliance. What is
the point of Esperon in making all the foregoing false claims against me?
To “prove” that I have identified legal organizations as belonging to the
NDF and to “justify” the military in threatening and murdering legal
activists?
So long as the US-directed Arroyo ruling clique is in
power, it is impossible for the victims of human rights violations to
obtain justice through the legal channels in the Philippines. Before a
single military officer can be held responsible for any of the hundreds of
extrajudicial killings, there shall have been more victims of human rights
violations. And Arroyo shall have signed the Anti-Terror Act and begun to
use it as a bludgeon to attack the broad range of opposition forces,
especially the legal progressive organizations. The Arroyo regime is
goading the people to wage all forms of resistance. Posted by Bulatlat
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