An AFP civil disturbance unit confronts indigenous people from Mindanao who picketed Camp Aguinaldo to demand the pullout of troops they accuse of human rights abuses in the south. (photo by Jaime Sinapit, InterAksyon.com)
Close to a hundred leaders and members of indigenous peoples from Mindanao staged a picket Wednesday at Camp Aquinaldo, headquarters of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, to demand the pullout of troops from the southern Philippines they accuse of human rights abuses.
They had come to Metro Manila as part of the “Manilakbayan,” a 15-day journey that saw them reach the National Capital Region on November 21.
The picket was peaceful although a military civil disturbance group was deployed to confront them.
The lumad, supported by progressive groups such as Karapatan, Bagong Alysansang Makabayan and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, among others, said rights abuses remained the “name of the game” by the military, this time cloaked in the guise of "offering peace and development" through Internal Peace and Security Plan "Bayanihan."
They said the military continues to carry out extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances to silence dissent and those fighting the encroachment of large local and foreign mining and logging firms into their ancestral lands.
"Military operations are among the reasons why peasants and indigenous people from Mindanao traversed the long roads from Mindanao to Metro Manila. They call for justice for all their comrades, colleagues, friends and relatives, tribesmen who became victims of Oplan Bayanihan," said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said, who accused the military of murdering 83 persons in Mindanao.
Aside from extrajudicial murders, Palabay also said military units set up camp in lumad schools and indiscriminately bomb villages, displacing communities.
http://www.interaksyon.com/article/99942/lumad-picket-camp-aguinaldo-demand-troop-pullout-from-ancestral-lands
This is Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) front group anti-government/military propaganda activity. Karapatan, Bagong Alysansang Makabayan and the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, groups mentioned in the article, are all CPP-affiliated front organizations. One of the main missions of these groups is to carry out propaganda campaigns designed to discredit the Philippine government/military. The "Manilakbayan" is part of that effort.
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