The United Church of Canada (UCC) called on the United Nations to investigate the unabated political killings in the Philippines. Outraged by the assassination of five members and staff of its Philippine partners in a six-week period, the UCC called on the Canadian government and the United Nations “to take strong steps to end the violence.”
BY SIKLAB-Ontario
Bulatlat.com
UCC’s partners in the Philippines come from the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP), the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA) and the Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR).
The UCC called on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour and UN Human Rights Council Chair Luis Alonso de Alba to mandate the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions to conduct an investigation into the political killings in the Philippines.
This developed after Canadian members of an International Solidarity fact-finding mission and members of the UCC visited the Philippines recently and met with families of the victims. In their victim-impact statements, witnesses disclosed that they recognized the assassins as members of the Philippine military and paramilitary death squads.
President Arroyo mentioned the high incidence of extra-judicial killings in her July 24 state of the nation address (SONA). Critics, however, quickly assailed her for praising Gen. Jovito Palparan who is known as the country’s “butcher” for his bloody campaigns of terror against unarmed civilians suspected as communists or New People’s Army supporters.
Protests in Canada
On the same day President Arroyo delivered her SONA as Filipino-Canadians held protest actions in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and other major Canadian cities.
In Toronto, migrant workers, youth, women and other Filipino Canadians held a picket-rally in front of the Philippine consulate last July 24. This was part of the internationally-coordinated action in solidarity with the thousands of people who took to the streets in the Philippines to call for her ouster. Arroyo has not only admitted to participating in electoral fraud, her regime is marked by anti-people, anti-national, and outright fascist policies and measures.
