The human rights alliance Karapatan condemns the killing of Pascual Guevarra, a 78-year old peasant leader in Laur, Nueva Ecija who was shot and killed in his house on Friday, July 9, 2010.
Guevarra is the second activist killed under President Noynoy Aquino’s presidency; we are holding the President responsible for the escalating attacks against activists and media persons.
Also in the evening of the same day, Miguel Belen, a broadcaster in Camarines Sur was ambushed by armed men and remains in critical condition in a hospital in Iriga City. It is deplorable that attacks against media persons and activists are persisting.
President Aquino’s silence on the political killings is giving the military the license to continue targetting unarmed progressive individuals with brazenness and impunity. Up to now, the President has not issued a categorical statement to stop the killings. The wang wang merited a statement in his inaugural speech, and immediately, down the line, the police and military started looking for wangwangs, apprehending violators of the President’s desire even in towns far from Manila. It is therefore, important that the Commander-in-Chief issues a categorical statement that he wants the killings and other human rights violations stopped. A simple statement will send a signal that he is bent on realizing what he say.
The human rights alliance Karapatan condemns the killing of Pascual Guevarra, a 78-year old peasant leader in Laur, Nueva Ecija who was shot and killed in his house on Friday, July 9, 2010.
Guevarra is the second activist killed under President Noynoy Aquino’s presidency; we are holding the President responsible for the escalating attacks against activists and media persons.
Also in the evening of the same day, Miguel Belen, a broadcaster in Camarines Sur was ambushed by armed men and remains in critical condition in a hospital in Iriga City. It is deplorable that attacks against media persons and activists are persisting.
President Aquino’s silence on the political killings is giving the military the license to continue targetting unarmed progressive individuals with brazenness and impunity. Up to now, the President has not issued a categorical statement to stop the killings. The wang wang merited a statement in his inaugural speech, and immediately, down the line, the police and military started looking for wangwangs, apprehending violators of the President’s desire even in towns far from Manila. It is therefore, important that the Commander-in-Chief issues a categorical statement that he wants the killings and other human rights violations stopped. A simple statement will send a signal that he is bent on realizing what he say.
Karapatan also notes that the pronouncements of the new AFP Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ricardo David of a new three-year plan to end insurgency are not reassuring but have, in fact, signaled a new wave of political killings in the country. President Aquino held a command conference with the military’s top brass to supposedly discuss the military plan of his administration. The ‘human rights-centered’ military plan now merely looks like nothing but a public relations tactic to draw away the attention from the spate of killings that the armed forces are now launching.
Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s counter-insurgency plan Oplan Bantay Laya (Operation Freedom Watch or OBL) has taken the lives of 1,205 unarmed individuals, mostly activists and members of progressive people’s organizations, in its purported campaign to end the insurgency. We call on PNoy NOT to make his own list of victims; scrap this brutal and bloody campaign and desist from embarking on a similar program even if the new plan is coated with supposed “human rights” approaches; this plan would be more alarming as this will be more deceptive.
We call on human rights advocates and defenders here and abroad to continue to demand from P-Noy to end the impunity and stop the killings. Let us continue to be vigilant because the nightmares of OBL and the impunity are still with us; and let us continue to fight for justice for all victims of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations.
END IMPUNITY! STOP THE KILLINGS NOW! ###