Rights groups led by Karapatan yesterday met with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Quezon City to discuss the forced evacuation of peasants and indigenous people in the country, particularly in Mindanao where the combat operations of some 55 army battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have taken a heavy toll on the civilian population.
Rights groups led by Karapatan yesterday met with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons in Quezon City to discuss the forced evacuation of peasants and indigenous people in the country, particularly in Mindanao where the combat operations of some 55 army battalions of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have taken a heavy toll on the civilian population.
Dr. Chaloka Beyani, UN SR on IDPs, is on his official visit in the Philippines from July 21 to 30, 2015 to look into the human rights situation of IDPs, their specific needs and protection concerns. The visit also aims to “examine the Government’s response to internal displacement, including law and policy frameworks and governance structures.”
Karapatan requested the meeting with the SR as a follow up to the meeting with Dr. Beyani at the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2014.
Tribal chieftain Tungig Mansimoy-at, an evacuee from Talaingod, Davao del Norte, relayed to Beyani their plight at the evacuation center and the continuing encampment of soldiers in their communities and Lumad schools. The military has tagged the Lumad learning center as “NPA schools”. The schools are initiated by the Lumad and were built through the support of advocate groups and non-government organizations.
“Aquino’s counter-insurgency program Oplan Bayanihan has targetted communities of indigenous people and peasants. Aside from forcible displacement of civilians, numerous cases of extrajudicial killing, torture, sexual abuse, and violations on the right to liberty of movement were committed against them. Former UN SR on extrajudicial killing Prof. Philip Alston, in his 2007 report, has recommended to the GPH to abandon counter-insurgency framework. But the Aquino administration carried on with the same blueprint in the past five years,” said Cristina Palabay, Karapatan secretary general.
Palabay said Karapatan has documented 60, 155 victims of forced evacuation. There are currently 650 evacuees at the compound of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines in Davao City; some of them were already there since April 2015. More than half of the 650 evacuees came from five villages in Talaingod who decided to leave their communities when soldiers started to recruit them into the Alamara, a paramilitary group attached to the 84th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army (IBPA) and the 68th IB-PA. The other evacuees who are in Davao City came from Kapalong, Davao del Norte and from the province of Bukidnon.
There were also other documented cases of forced evacuation in other communities. In May to June, some 441 individuals, mostly from the Blaan tribe in Sitio Akbual, Barangay Upper Suyan, Malapatan, Sarangani Province left their homes due to bombing, torture and interrogation, and food blockade. In January to March, almost a thousand individuals from 15 villages in Agusan del Sur also left their homes due to military operations and encampment in Lumad schools run by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines. As of June 2015, there are more than 60,000 documented victims of forced evacuation.
“Ironically, the leaders of organizations who are helping the evacuees and campaigning for the pullout of the military from the communities now face criminal charges in court. Human rights workers, religious, children’s rights advocates, peasant and indigenous leaders were charged with kidnapping, illegal detention and human trafficking,” Palabay said.
The rights groups recommended the rescinding of Oplan Bayanihan and for the Aquino government and its state agents to stop military operations in civilian communities and the subsequent attacks against schools.
The case of massive evacuation, especially in Mindanao, was also tackled at the recently concluded International People’s Tribunal held in Washington, DC last July 16-18. The tribunal found both the Aquino regime and the US government “…in concert with each other, willfully and feloniously committed gross and systematic violations of Filipino people’s basic human rights.” A copy of the Verdict was given to Beyani.
Those who joined the meeting were: Ariel Casilao of Kilusang Mayo Uno-Southern Mindanao, Save Our Schools spokesperson Kharlo Mañano, Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas Vice Chair Joseph Canlas, Atty. Jose Deinla and Grace Saguinsin, deputy secretary general of the National Union of People’s Lawyers. ###