More Lumad leaders killed as world celebrates day of action for IP heroes

From the Daily Tribune (Nov 13): More Lumad leaders killed as world celebrates day of action for IP heroes

The Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (Katribu) has assailed the Aquino administration of paying lip-service for the demand of indigenous peoples (IPs) for justice to slain IP leaders in Mindanao and Luzon.

Katribu secretary-general Piya Macliing Malayao made the statement two days after the Lumads of Mindanao and the IP leaders from Luzon offered prayers, chants, songs, dances and a vow to win justice for their colleagues last Nov. 10, the Global Day of Action for IP Heroes and Martyrs at the Manilakbayan Camp in Liwasang Bonifacio in Manila.

On Nov. 10, 1995, Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others from the Ogoni tribe were hanged by the Nigerian government because of their struggle against oil exploration activities of a big oil company.

Since then, the IPs, led by the Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-Determination and Liberation (IPMSDL), take time last Nov. 10 to honor and dedicate their continuing action to IP heroes and fallen comrades all over the world.

Malayao said “in the Philippines the list of IP rights defenders killed in the course of their struggle against mining and other extractive industries continues to grow.”

“Three days before the Global Day of Action for IP Heroes, yet another IP leader — Datu Manliro Landahay, council member of Salugpongan Lumad organization in Davao del Norte, was murdered by the bandit Alamara early morning of Nov. 7,” she revealed.

Days later, two IP leaders in Mindanao were reported to have been slain as well.
Out of the 73 IP members who have been killed under Aquino’s term, 58 are Lumad, the Katribu gorup confirmed.

For the past several months, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and its killing machines, the Bagani forces, Alamara and other paramilitary groups, have committed the gravest crimes against the Lumad communities in Mindanao, it added.

From March to Nov. 7, 2015, 17 Lumad leaders, activists and community members, including two children, were killed in seven extra-judicial killings and four massacres.

“Today, we wave red flags to pay tribute to our heroes and martyrs and we raise our clenched fists to condemn the exacerbation of human rights violations with impunity against indigenous communities in the last remaining nine months of the Aquino regime,” Malayao said.

The IP leaders pledged to continue the struggle that their ancestors, heroes and martyrs had started.

Malayao said the Nov. 10 march to the streets of Makati City to confront mining companies and the neoliberal policies that kill our people will be followed by more protest actions.

Participants of the Manilakbayan ng Mindanao 2015, Katribu and environmental groups rallied in front of the offices of the Toronto Ventures Inc. Resources and Development, a Canadian company that operates in ancestral lands of the Subanen in the Zamboanga Peninsula and commits human rights violations against indigenous and peasant communities, and a local giant firm, which is alleged to be responsible for the abduction and disappearance of a Manobo native John Calaba, public information of the Kesasabanay Dulangan Manobo.

Manilakbayan is the Mindanao people’s mobilization for the defense of land, the environment and human rights, participated by around 700 Lumads from different provinces in Mindanao.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/nation/more-lumad-leaders-killed-as-world-celebrates-day-of-action-for-ip-heroes