UN to disclose initial findings over Philippines killings

[one...two...tree 2,762]

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According to local human rights group Karapatan more than 830 political activists, human rights workers, trade union officials, lawyers and judges have been murdered throughout the country since President Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001.

Rights groups claim the killings were carried out as part of state policy to silence dissent and that Arroyo had tacit knowledge of the crimes.

Alston, a lawyer who was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions in 2004, has been active in the field of human rights for much of his life.

Last year, Arroyo ordered retired Supreme Court justice Jose Melo to head a separate special commission to investigate the killings.

The commission's report has not been made public, but people familiar with the findings say it blamed certain members of the security forces, as well as communist guerrillas, for the killings.

The military had initially denied any involvement, but last week acknowledged that some of its members could have been involved.

Amnesty International decried the "climate of impunity" that pervades in the Catholic Philippines, and said witnesses were afraid to come forward for fear of reprisals.

In the 10 days Alston has been in the Philippines the killings showed no sign of letting up with the latest victim being a newspaper editor gunned down on Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070220/wl_as...ts_070220201619

[almaty 19]

sounds like a female marcos

[one...two...tree 2,762]

sounds like a female marcos

I'm still confused about her - she has a lot of political enemies, but she studied here in the states and I believe she was a classmate and friend of Bill Clinton. She also did away with capital punishment, so it just doesn't make sense if she were involved in killing off political activists...I dunno.

[almaty 19]

sounds like a female marcos

I'm still confused about her - she has a lot of political enemies, but she studied here in the states and I believe she was a classmate and friend of Bill Clinton. She also did away with capital punishment, so it just doesn't make sense if she were involved in killing off political activists...I dunno.

i thought as you do....i saw her as being progressive and an improvement over past dictators...i am at a lost

[one...two...tree 2,762]

sounds like a female marcos

I'm still confused about her - she has a lot of political enemies, but she studied here in the states and I believe she was a classmate and friend of Bill Clinton. She also did away with capital punishment, so it just doesn't make sense if she were involved in killing off political activists...I dunno.

i thought as you do....i saw her as being progressive and an improvement over past dictators...i am at a lost

Here's an online petition asking for her resignation... hmmm...interesting.

To: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo

We are poets and other writers who fully agree with National Artist Napoleon Abueva’s recent declaration calling on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to resign from her post. Her fraudulent victory in the May 2004 election – together with her record of economic and political maladministration, subservience to foreign vested interests and suppression of the most basic human freedoms – have rendered her totally unfit to stay in Malacañang a day more.

As writers, we remember that one of Macapagal-Arroyo’s first – and gravest – offenses was against the freedom of expression, a basic right enshrined in no less than the Philippine Constitution and much treasured by literary and other cultural workers. Her banning of Live Show, a well-researched film about how extreme poverty forces many of our countrymen into the darkest depths of self-degradation in exchange for food on the table – one of the President’s oft-repeated promises – was one of the very first issues against her.

In contrast, she has not even lifted a finger against the most brazen displays of obscenity by noontime show hosts and so-called “singers” and “actors” who have lent their names to her various propaganda gimmicks.

http://www.petitiononline.com/pen333/petition.html