Negros farm workers’ leader slain as rights violations complaints traded at Rome talks

From InterAksyon (Jan 21): Negros farm workers’ leader slain as rights violations complaints traded at Rome talks



Murdered NFSW leader Alexander Ceballos eating at a picket. (contributed photo)

A leader of a sugar farm workers’ organization was killed in Negros Occidental Friday night as complaints of human rights violations were traded during the third round of formal talks between the Duterte administration and communist rebels in Rome.

The murder of Alexander Ceballos, a leader of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, came two days before the 30th anniversary of the Mendiola Massacre, when government forces fired on thousands of protesting farmers near Malacanang on January 22, 1987, killing 13 and wounding more than 50 others. The incident led to the collapse of peace negotiations between the communists and the government of then President Corazon Aquino.

Christian Tuayon, secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-Negros, said Ceballos had just arrived with his wife and son at their home in Barangay Pandan Silos, Murcia town when a gunman wearing a bonnet walked up to his jeep and shot him between the eyes before fleeing on a motorcycle driven by an accomplice around 8 p.m.

Tuayon said Ceballos’ life had been in danger since he led some 50 NFSW members cultivate land in Barangay Igmaya-an in Don Salvador Benedicto being contested by former mayor Nehemias dela Cruz.

In 2015, Ceballos’ brother-in-law Ronel Bariga was wounded when gunmen ambushed a jeepney on its way to collect firewood at the Igmaya-an property. The NFSW leader’s son Ariel, who was driving the vehicle, was unharmed although a bullet grazed his shirt.

The NFSW believed Ceballos was likely the intended target of the attack.

A month before this, according to NFSW records, Jigger Costan, described as a bodyguard of Dela Cruz, had threatened to kill Ceballos and 11 other members of the federation.

Meanwhile, in Rome, the human rights organization Karapatan submitted a complaint to the government negotiating panel its report on human rights violations committed by state forces from late August, when both the government and rebels declared separate unilateral ceasefires, to the end of December last year.

The Karapatan report was submitted at the plenary meeting to discuss the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

The report said the abuses victimized 28,890 persons throughout the country.

The cases documented by Karapatan included the killing of 24 peasants and indigenous peoples; the enforced disappearance of two lumad activists; at least 14,659 incidents of threats, harassment and intimidation; and 4,170 incidents of indiscriminate firing and bombings by troops who have occupied communities in the countryside despite the ongoing ceasefire.

KARAPATAN'S RECORD OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS UNDER DUTERTE:



“We urge the GRP peace panel to look into the violations and heed the calls of affected communities, the victims and their families to stop these violations, to pull out the AFP and paramilitary forces in civilian communities and to respect and implement the CARHRIHL,” Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said.

Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, the chief government negotiator, said they accepted the 50-page Karapatan report and promised their counterparts in the National Democratic Front of the Philippines that they would look closely into the complaints.

“We accepted the report by Karapatan as a signatory of the CARHRIHL and we will study it closely,” Bello said.

In turn, he said, the government panel submitted to the NDFP a list of human rights violations allegedly committed by rebel forces even as he acknowledged, “I also have yet to look at the report we gave the NDFP.”

Luis Jalandoni, former chair and now senior consultant of the NDFP negotiating panel, said they would “have to see if their (government's) reports are indeed human rights violations.”

http://interaksyon.com/article/136401/negros-farm-workers-leader-slain-as-rights-violations-complaints-traded-at-rome-talks