26 YEARS AFTER | Farmers, peasants remember Mendiola Massacre

From InterAksyon (Jan 22): 26 YEARS AFTER | Farmers, peasants remember Mendiola Massacre



Mendiola Massacre protest rally, Jan. 22, 2013. PAULO VECINA/InterAksyon.com

Farmers and workers on Tuesday marched to Don Chino Roces Bridge to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Mendiola Massacre that saw 13 farmers martyred on the historic bridge leading to Malacanang. Workers from the Kilusang Mayo Uno joined the march from Quezon City in solidarity with the farmers, mostly from Southern Tagalog.

The marchers called on President Benigno Aquino III to implement a “genuine agrarian reform” program – the same call they made to Aquino’s mother and former president Corazon Aquino, 26 years ago.

In a statement e-mailed to media outfits, KMU condemned the “snail-paced” implementation of the Supreme Court decision on Hacienda Luisita ordering its distribution to the farmers who till it.
“We mark the anniversary of the Mendiola Massacre by reiterating the demand of the 13 farmers who died 26 years ago – genuine land reform. Countless farmers have died over the years fighting for land reform yet successive governments have refused to heed their call,” said Roger Soluta, KMU secretary-general.

The labor center also slammed the government for its efforts to revive banana and coconut plantations as well as mining operations in Mindanao.  KMU said Mindanaoans need land reform for their own food security. It said plantations and big mining operations cater to the global market, not the domestic demand; they also destroy the environment.

“The land reform program implemented by the Cory Aquino government was a failure in distributing land to farmers and only resulted in the further concentration of lands in the hands of a few families. Despite its failure, the program was extended, merely 'prettified' with with so-called ‘reforms,’ as it continues to deny lands to farmers,” Soluta said.

Oplan Bayanihan

KMU also called on the government to scrap its Oplan Bayanihan, an anti-insurgency program that has violated the human rights of the country’s farmers and working people.  “Twenty-six years after the Mendiola massacre, farmers fighting for land are still being killed by state forces with impunity. Their human rights are being violated in an attempt to weaken their fight for land reform,” Soluta said.

“In the few years that it has been implemented, Oplan Bayanihan has resulted in the deaths of farmers and the violations of their rights. The Aquino government is intensifying the implementation of this Oplan in order to defend landowning families’ monopoly of land,” he added.

Crowd control

To keep enterprising protesters from penetrating the police's multi-layered perimeter security around Malacanang, the Manila Police District closed down the Don Chino Roces Bridge and all the roads leading to the Palace. MPD spokesperson Erwin Margarejo told reporters that both lanes of the bridge have already been closed to traffic since early today.

He added that MPD personnel have also been deployed to man other roads leading to the Palace.
Margarejo urged organizers of the protest march to maintain order for the duration of their demonstration, even as he vowed to observe maximum tolerance.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/53307/26-years-after--farmers-peasants-remember-mendiola-massacre