CPP blasts Duterte’s ‘total disdain for human rights’

From InterAksyon (Dec 8): CPP blasts Duterte’s ‘total disdain for human rights’

Communist rebels blasted President Rodrigo Duterte’s “total disdain for human rights,” not only in the war on drugs that has claimed thousands of lives but also by using his powers 'to sow fear and demand obeisance' from state forces and politicians and 'as a tool to persecute his rivals.'

In a scathing statement Wednesday, the Communist Party of the Philippines said: “All democratic forces must stand and defend civil and political rights and demand justice for the thousands of victims of extrajudicial killings as well as military abuses in the countryside and continuing political repression and persecution.”

It also urged “the friends and loved ones of victims of extrajudicial killings, including those killed in the course of the war against drugs,” to “raise their voices and demand justice and reparation from the Duterte government.”

Although formal peace negotiations have resumed between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the rebels have lately become increasingly critical of Duterte over issues ranging from alleged military violations of the government’s unilateral ceasefire, the continued detention of some 400 political prisoners, and the mounting drug-related deaths that various counts indicate have breached the 5,000 mark, either in police operations or in street shootings and vigilante style executions.

“This orgy of drug killings has been set forth by Duterte’s display of total disdain for human rights,” the CPP said.

Duterte, it said, has “has brazenly encouraged the police to carry-out gangland-style killings of suspected criminals with impunity” and citing his order to reinstate the head of the police unit that killed Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr., which the National Bureau of Investigation has concluded was murder.

The rebels also accused him of fanning “extreme prejudice against drug users whom he has adjudged as social dregs and openly encourages their summary killing” while choosing to be “blind to the deep social and economic roots -- unemployment, low wages, poverty and hunger -- behind the problem of widespread drug addiction and insists on his killing spree.”

Duterte, the CPP said, “has arrogated judicial powers by coming-up with a so-called narco-list of supposed big drug lords and coddlers” and “practically upturned the universally accepted principle of the criminal justice system: he makes the accusations and demands those he accuse to prove their innocence.”

It called his “drug-tagging” a “virtual death sentence which only he can lift.”

On issues affecting the peace process, the CPP accused Duterte of allowing the military to “continue its war of suppression with impunity” by occupying communities suspected of being rebel bases, where “several hundred thousand people have been subjected to various forms and degrees of military harassment.”

Not only are activists still “subjected to surveillance and harassment,” with almost 20 arrested recently, “there are at least 16 cases of extrajudicial killings against activists, including peasants demanding land reform,” including that of Compostela Valley anti-mining activist Joselito Pasaporte, who police described as a “drug personality.”

The CPP also said the military has been increasingly using the war on drugs to harass dissenters, citing the case of retired NPA fighter Marcos Aggalao, 73, of Kalinga who was “arrested and accused of possession of illegal drugs” and four peasant activists in Bulacan arrested on similar charges.

Lately, another wrench has been thrown into the peace talks after Duterte demanded that the rebels agree to a bilateral ceasefire before he will order the release of political detainees, except for the sick and elderly who he promised to free by Christmas.

The NDFP has protested this and demanded that Duterte not use the political detainees as “hostages.”

http://interaksyon.com/article/135057/cpp-blasts-dutertes-total-disdain-for-human-rights