Karapatan reports 25 new alleged EJK cases to UN special rapporteurs

Militant human rights group Karapatan submitted on Saturday a letter of allegation concerning 25 cases extrajudicial killings (EJK) to United Nations special rapporteurs Agnes Callamard and Michael Forst.

Karapatan said it had initially informed Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution and Forst, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders, of 47 alleged EJKs last April.

The group alleged that the EJKs were perpetrated by security forces "in line with [President Rodrigo] Duterte's counter-insurgency program."

“From one counter-insurgency program to another, cases of extrjaudicial killings against peasants, indigenous peoples, Moro, workers, women and youth continue to be committed with impunity under the murderous Duterte regime. Also, most, if not all, of the perpetrators of human rights violations under the administrations of former Presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III have not been brought to justice,” said Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay said in the group's letter to Callamard and Forst.

Karapatan said that among the victims of the new alleged EJKs was 18-year-old Obello Bay-ao, a member of the Manobo tribe and a students’ organization.

It said Bay-ao was walking home one afternoon last September from a day of harvesting corn in Davao del Norte when two gunmen fired at him.

Karapatan said the gunmen were allegedly members of an auxiliary group of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

The group said all alleged EJK victims were peasants, indigenous peoples, Moro, workers, women and youth.

The group said they asked Callamard and Forst to "consider, investigate, make recommendation/s or take any appropriate action/s" on the allegations.

A part of the letter reads: “We allege that state security forces are primarily responsible for these killings that are all in the context of a government program that makes no distinction between armed and unarmed civilians, thus providing a pretext for the arbitrary tagging of individuals, groups and movements as ‘enemies of the state.”

Karapatan sent its second letter of allegation to the UN special rapporteurs after Duterte terminated the government's peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP).

Duterte also announced that the government will launch a crackdown on supposed legal fronts of the communist group.

The government decried supposed “hostilities” and a “lack of sincerity” from the communists, who in turn blamed Duterte for allegedly botching the two parties’ latest attempt at a decades-long quest for reconciliation.

The NPA’s countryside revolution is said to be the world’s longest-running communist insurgency.

Duterte has also said he would declare the NPA as a terror group.

The President’s termination of peace talks earned a nod from the military, which has long accused communist rebels of economic sabotage through alleged destruction of agricultural and mining equipment.

The left, on the other hand, has slammed the military for alleged attacks against farmers, human rights workers, and community and Lumad leaders, among others.

Karapatan said it has documented 104 victims of extrajudicial killings under Duterte’s counterinsurgency program from July 2016 to October 2017. —Nicole-Anne C. Lagrimas/ALG, GMA News