Condemn Lumad killings, American law expert tells Obama

From ABS-CBN (Nov 14): Condemn Lumad killings, American law expert tells Obama



Gill Boehringer. Photo courtesy of Inday Espina-Varona

MANILA - An American and former law dean of an Australian university has asked US President Barack Obama to speak out about human rights violations carried out by the Philippine military and their militia against the Lumad, indigenous peoples in mineral-rich southern provinces.

"Mr. President, I am asking that you convey in the strongest possible terms the view of the United States government that violations of human rights of the Lumad peoples by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and armed paramilitary gangs are absolutely unacceptable," Gill Boehringer wrote in an open letter to Obama, who is attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit hosted by Manila.

"I also ask that you make it clear that until the paramilitaries are disarmed and disbanded, no further aid nor cooperation between the US military and the Philippine armed force will be forthcoming,” wrote Boehringer, who carries the US passport No. 53083593 and former dean of the Macquarie University law school in Sydney, Australia.

He also asked Obama to stress "that the long standing impunity for such violations must cease, and the perpetrators brought to justice."

Boehringer joined the recent international fact-finding mission to Lianga, Surigao del Sur, where paramilitary forces allegedly killed two Lumad leaders and the head teacher of an award-winning school in the early hours of September 1.

The AFP complained the mission was "illegal" though civilian authorities in the province welcomed them, gave them access to displaced Lumad and facilitated visits to besieged IP communities. The military has threatened to move for the deportation of foreigners in the fact-finding mission.

Witnesses told probers that government soldiers, from 200 meters away, did not take action as the militia executed the Dionel Campos and Datu Juvello Sinzo, both Lumad, in front of hundreds of residents, including teachers, students and toddlers. Their murders followed that of Emerito Samarca, head teacher of Alcadev, who was held back as militia ordered a hundred students and more than a dozen teachers out of the school compound.

In his letter to Obama, Boehringer said proceedings of the probe show that Lumad "are being killed and forcibly evicted from their ancestral lands" by militia that the Armed Forces allow to operate with impunity.

"Even as I write, news has come from Agusan Sur that military elements have burned another school building of the award winning Alternative Learning and Livelihood Development system of education for indigent Lumad children. Lost was a supply of rice for the young students and staff, generator, school supplies, a sewing machine. What kind of allies are these for the US to be supporting?," he said.

The lawyer quoted Surigao del Sur governor Johhny Pimentel telling the fact-finding mission:

"There is a clear link. The army created them, a monster they cannot control. Someone had to create them. Where would they get their camouflage uniforms and combat boots? Their arms? Even the ordinary person here knows the military is behind this. The army is coddling these people. They probably know that if they took action against them they would say things that would be bad for the army such as 'they trained us.'"

He also noted that the UN sanctioned Protection Cluster in the Philippines has said blaming the killings on the New People's Army (NPA) on internal conflict in the indigenous communities was "an inaccurate depiction of the violence and killings in the indigenous communities."

Boehringer pointed out that Manila Archbishop Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle has asked the military "to leave the persecuted Lumad communities" so they could live in peace.

The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), he added, issued a call for "an honest, thorough, impartial and speedy investigation so that the guilty may be held to account for their wrong doing" and warned against "refusing to hold accountable those to whom the administration so eagerly extends the mantle of protection."

Sixty Lumad, including minors have been killed under President Benigno Aquino III's government. Ten, including two children, have been killed this year.

The chair of the Commission on Human Rights has tagged as "extra-judicial killings" the Lianga incident and a supposed "encounter" in Bukidnon province where the alleged rebels killed included a blind, 70-year-old man, two minors and two sugarcane farm workers, all kin and living in one home.

The spokesman of the AFP, Brig. Gen. Jose Kakilala, told a congressional hearing last week that critics of the military, including several popular celebrities, are "misled."

He claimed the unrest in Mindanao Lumad areas on the successful recruitment of indigenous peoples by communist rebels. One alleged militia leader, who was identified as the boss of the Lianga killers, told lawmakers the Alcadev teacher was killed for "poisoning the minds" of youth.



In response to the military deportation threat, the rights group Karapatan, which organized the mission, said the government is "scared to reveal the skeletons in the closet."

From October 26 to October 30, the IFFM teams went to different villages in Lianga and San Miguel, Surigao del Sur to investigate the extent of human rights violations perpetrated by both the Magahat-Bagani paramilitary group and the 75th and 36th Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.

Initial results of the mission indicated that rights violations were committed even after Lumad evacuated as a result of the massacre of school executive Emerito Samarca and Lumad leaders Dionel Campos and Juvello Sinzo.

"In at least two communities, houses and farm equipment were burned down. The majority of the houses were ransacked and defaced, including the schools. The pigs and chickens raised by individual households, as well as those in Alcadev demo farms, were stolen. Farm tools, personal belongings and household utensils were stolen," Karapatan said in a statement.

"By showing its claws to the international observers, the Philippine Army is preempting the full disclosure of the abuses and violations they committed against the Lumad. The AFP is again trying to divert the issue," Palabay said.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/regions/11/14/15/condemn-lumad-killings-american-law-expert-tells-obama