KARAPATAN joins peasant rights advocates and other human rights defenders in marking the 20th anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita massacre that claimed the lives of at least seven persons and caused injuries to more than a hundred. Also arrested and detained were 133 persons, including 16 women and two minors, who were charged with physical assault, resisting persons in authority and malicious mischief.
Twenty years ago today, hundreds of members of the United Luisita Workers Union (ULWU) and the Central Azucarera de Tarlac Labor Union (CATLU) joined by thousands from their communities massed up near Gate 1 of the Central Azucarera de Tarlac sugar mill in their continuing push for a wage increase, more workers’ benefits and genuine land reform in the hacienda. It was the tenth day of their strike.
That day, police and some 200 soldiers from the AFP Northern Luzon Command who came with two armored personnel carriers attacked the strikers with tear gas, water cannons and guns.
The killings did not stop at that point. In the next several months, eight more people who either supported the strike or provided evidence on the massacre were extrajudicially killed, including Fr. Alberto Ramento, Supreme Bishop of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI) who was shot in his convent, fellow IFI priest Fr. William Tadena and CATLU president Ric Ramos. Alyansa ng Magbubukid sa Tarlac chair Marcelino Beltran was also killed just before he was scheduled to testify about the massacre.
The Hacienda Luisita massacre remains a stark symbol of the evils of the hacienda system and the extent to which the landed classes are willing to go to preserve their profits and stay in power. It also blatantly displays state collusion with the land classes and the perpetrators of the massacre. A case filed against the police and military responsible for the killings and injuries was dismissed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 2010. A motion to reopen the case filed by the families of the victims was declined by the Office of the Ombudsman in October 2014.
KARAPATAN supports the Hacienda Luisita massacre victims’ continuing quest for justice and accountability and the greater quest for social and economic justice.