Army forfeits $40m in US aid for abuses

From the Manila Standard Today (Dec 19): Army forfeits $40m in US aid for abuses

THE government’s failure to curb the abuses allegedly committed by its security forces has caused the Philippine Army to forfeit the $40-million assistance promised by US Secretary of State John Kerry, according to John Sifton, Asia Advocacy director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

“The $40-million military aid that US Secretary of State John Kerry pledged to the Philippines is restricted to maritime security assistance and counter-terrorism training for the police in Mindanao,” Sifton told the Manila Standard.

“We note that none of it will go to the Philippine Army, a traditional recipient of US foreign military financing, and there’s a reason for that.

“The US Congress, the Pentagon, and the State Department each agree that the Philippines Army is implicated in abuses, past and even present, and continues to enjoy impunity since the government has not established any significant record of prosecuting human rights violations. This new military aid package reflects that consensus.”

Sifton said the Obama administration agreed that the Philippine Army should not get any major assistance.

“There’s a pending draft legislation in the US Congress that would restrict all major assistance to the army,” Sifton said.

“Aside from that, there’s an existing hold on $3 million of annual financial military assistance to the Philippines as a result of the government’s failure to address these abuses.”

Sifton’s group wants the Aquino administration to stop the summary killings and enforced disappearances by prosecuting state security forces implicated in human rights violations. It also wants the prosecution of officials implicated in the “death squad” killings in Davao City and other cities, a stop to the abuses in the mining areas, the disbanding of local militias and paramilitary forces, and a recall of Executive Order 546 that allows politicians to arm private armies.

The other alleged incidents of military abuses that the group wants investigated is the alleged mistreatment of suspected Muslim rebels, including the children detained by security forces in Zamboanga following the MNLF’s siege in the city on Sept. 9, 2013.

In an earlier report, Human Rights Watch claimed that “rebel suspects have reported being beaten and otherwise mistreated by military and police personnel before being turned over to the San Ramon Prison and Penal Farm, a government prison facility on the outskirts of Zamboanga City where most suspected rebels are being held.

“Torture of alleged MNLF suspects is reported to have occurred at the Southern City Colleges, a school in downtown Zamboanga where much of the September fighting occurred.”

The group also claimed that the detainees were restricted access to lawyers, relatives and rights monitors. It highlighted the case of the enforced disappearance of farmers’ rights activist Jonas Burgos, who was allegedly abducted by “people affiliated with the Philippine armed forces.”

Abducted from a Manila shopping mall in April 2007, activist Burgos was never seen again and the military had repeatedly denied any role in his disappearance, HRW said in a separate report.

Another celebrated case is that of fugitive retired Gen. Jovito Palparan, who is accused of being involved in the alleged disappearance of student activists Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeno in 2006.

Meanwhile, the group Karapatan claims President Benigno Aquino III is “accountable for the 152 summary killings and 168 frustrated killings, 18 enforced disappearances, 358 illegal arrests and detentions on trumped up charges, tortures and other gross human rights violations in his term, affecting a great number of the peasantry, indigenous people and urban poor dwellers.

“His counterinsurgency policy, Oplan Bayanihan, and his promotion of the pervading culture of impunity sanctions all these,” said Cristina Palabay, the group’s secretary general in an earlier statement.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/12/19/army-forfeits-40m-in-us-aid-for-abuses/