BY Bulatlat.com
Posted 6:43 p.m., Aug. 16, 2008
Bayan Muna (People First) organizer Wawie Dutarot was shot to death, around 1:00 p.m. yesterday by two armed men on board a motorcycle in Monkayo, Compostella Valley.
Dutarot is the 132nd Bayan Muna member killed under the Arroyo government.
In a statement, Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo condemned the killing and called on the Arroyo government to abandon its Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL or Operation Freedom Watch) counter-insurgency program which has resulted in the killings and abductions of scores of activists.
“We directly hold the Macapagal-Arroyo government responsible for this latest atrocity attributed to troops and militias under her control as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” Ocampo said.
He said that Arroyo has not adhered to the recommendations of United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston who visited the country in February 2007.
In his final report, Alston said, “As Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, the President must take concrete steps to put an end to those aspects of counterinsurgency operations which have led to the targeting and execution of many individuals working with civil society organizations.”
Ocampo said, “The AFP’s continued implementation of OBL bodes ill for activists and poses more grave abuses of human rights,” he said.
The human rights group Karapatan has documented 910 victims of extrajudicial killings, 193 victims of enforced disappearances, and 331 cases of frustrated killings since Arroyo’s presidency in 2001. (Bulatlat.com)
