Lumad caravan leaves UP for Liwasang Bonifacio

From InterAksyon (Nov 2): Lumad caravan leaves UP for Liwasang Bonifacio



Save our Schools Network supports Lumad children, 21 October 2015 PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY ANA RELOVA

A week after pitching camp at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Lumad participants of Manilakbayan 2015 left at 6 a.m. on Tuesday after a program held at Quezon Hall for Liwasang Bonifacio.

“With fists raised high, we give our sincerest and highest salutations to the Lumad and people of Mindanao who stayed in our university. The Lumad reminded us the value of our collective actions – from building schools, developing the lands for your communities, and protecting the environment to resolutely fighting against state fascism and terrorism,” said League of Filipino Students (LFS) UP-Diliman Chapter chairman Ben Galil Te.

Te said the Lumad and people of Mindanao can expect more students, not just from UP, to join in their fight against intensified human rights violations perpetrated by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Aquino government.

The UP students joined the Manilakbayan caravan to the University of Sto. Tomas (UST), where some youth and students were waiting.

Later, they marched with the Lumad and people of Mindanao to Liwasang Bonifacio, the new camp-out grounds of Manilakbayan 2015.

Even as they marched to Liwasang Bonifacio, LFS national chairperson Charisse Banez criticized AFP spokesperson Col. Benjamin Hao’s statement on Lumad killings denying the military’s participation in the murders of the leaders of indigenous people (IP) and insisting the allegations against the military were “imaginary.”

Banez said it is the AFP that is hallucinating and fabricating cases, manufacturing evidence and promoting lies, noting that the Philippine government got a big black eye when the military “twisted the exit statement of UN special rapporteur on the rights of displaced persons when its spokesman in Eastern Mindanao claimed that Dr. Cheloka Beyani said the 700 IP evacuees at the Haran compound of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) in Davao City were ‘manipulated’ and were ‘victims of human trafficking.’”

Beyani promptly slammed the AFP before the international community for distorting his statement and said it was the military and its allies who were trying to manipulate the evacuees, prompting a regional spokesman to resign as scapegoat.

Hao claimed the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) had already organized a group to apprehend the perpetrators of the killings, all of whom are soldiers and paramilitary men organized and armed by the military and financed by logging and mining companies that financially support Liberal Party standard bearer Mar Roxas’s presidential run.

“Stop the hypocrisy! The AFP and the Aquino government cannot fool the people! The 700-member Lumad contingent that travelled from Mindanao to Manila is already a testament of the regime’s accountability,” Banez said.

She added that documents were presented to different government agencies showing the intense militarization in Mindanao.

In the photos, members of the AFP are shown occupying schools and communities in violation of UN covenants and international agreements against military occupation of schools, hospitals, and civilian homes.

“As it is in the past, the AFP is a mercenary agent of the government that violates human rights, oppresses and kills the people who are not in favor of government’s programs. In the case of the Lumad, their resistance to foreign mining, logging, and plantation corporations resulted in the intensifying attacks of the military to the schools, communities, and the people,” said Banez.

According to the youth leader, Hao is trying to rub salt into the wounds of the Lumad and other victims of its atrocities and disgustingly trying to cover up Aquino’s accountability.

“Military activities and human rights violations by the AFP are systematically executed in accordance to the regime’s National Internal Security Plan called Oplan Bayanihan (OPB), for which Aquino and his army should be held responsible,” Banez stressed.

“The Lumad are here in Manila. We challenge Aquino and Hao to listen to them. Their datus and leaders can describe the horrors and specificities of the attacks they experienced. Even the children can easily tell who are oppressing them. There are still thousands of them in evacuation centers in Mindanao, and they will also be able to narrate the same stories. Thousands of Lumad will be able to identify that the AFP and Aquino are the perpetrators of the human rights violations,” said Banez.

“AFP’s attempt to discredit the Lumad and the protesters is an old trick of the army and the regime. It has done this thousands of times to desperately escape liability,” she noted.

Banez warned Aquino that this latest Hao episode will only fuel their determination to push for their legitimate demands for the pullout of the AFP battalions out of Mindanao and the reopening of Lumad alternative schools.

 

“These tactics would not stop us from dragging Aquino out of his office and make him accountable. His tyranny must end,” she said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/119627/lumad-caravan-leaves-up-for-liwasang-bonifacio