Int’l team here to probe killings of local militants

By Luige del Puerto
Inquirer
Last updated 07:54pm (Mla time) 08/06/2006

A VISITING international team of human rights advocates has begun a three-day inquiry into the alleged killing of Filipino activists by state agents.

The visit followed calls by the academe and local groups to bring the reported assassinations to the attention of the international community, particularly the United Nations, where the Philippines holds a seat on its human rights council.

Militants said some 18 farmers, doctors and teachers from the United States, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Japan, Mexico, India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia began on Sunday their visit to Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog, where most cases of alleged extra-judicial killings had been recorded.

“They will help expose [the killings] to the international community, and to their own governments, institutions and rights groups so they would take a position on what is happening here,” said Carl Ala, spokesperson of the leftist Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, which describes itself on it website as a "nationwide federation of Philippine organizations of landless peasants, small farmers, farm workers, subsistence fisherfolk, peasant women and rural youth."

Ala said the delegates, who were expected to wrap up their investigation on Aug. 8, would submit their findings to the House, the Senate, the Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations.

Since President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed office in 2001, some 245 activists had been murdered, according to an Inquirer count. Karapatan, a human rights group, placed the number at 720.


Copyright 2006 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.