Detainees - have sounded the alarm. They have shown, with inquiries to back them up, human rights that summary executions and disappearances have again multiplied. The government and the army's general staff have denounced these humanitarian organizations as "communist fronts". Today, it is the turn of Amnesty International to present
WE ARE reproducing here some major the dossier of "extra-judicial executions" 2 In extracts from an Amnesty International report spite of President Corazon Aquino's on human rights violations in the Philippines. embarrassed criticisms of the report —
The report, "Philippines: Unlawful killings by challenging the validity of Amnesty's sources military and paramilitary forces", was — it will be very difficult now for the regime to produced after a fact-finding commission explain that all this is nothing but malevolent visited the archipelago in July 1987 and has communist propaganda!
As we have often said before in these
Amnesty's conclusions are particularly columns recently, the growth of vigilante important. Following two fact-finding visits in groups, anti-communist terrorist groups, has
May and December 1986, Amnesty had reached extremely serious proportions. The welcomed the progress made under the publication of Amnesty's report must be used
Aquino regime in the area of human rights, as an opportunity to step up solidarity with the declaring that it was reasonably optimistic.
struggle in the Philippines, particularly in the
However, the report recently published notes area of the defence of human rights.
that: "Since mid-1987, political killings carried
INCE MID-1987, political killings carried out by government an lation of the law have become the most serious human rights problem in the
Philippines. Most of the victims have been suspected supporters of the communist insurgency, many of them members of legal left-wing organizations. They have been killed by members of the regular military and police forces, the paramilitary Civilian
Home Defence Forces (CHDF) or community-based civilian groups commonly known as "vigilantes", acting with government support....
Suspected supporters of the insurgency are not the only victims of political violence in the Philippines. The New People's
Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), has claimed responsibility for many "executions" of soldiers and police and others in the name of "revolutionary justice". Secretary of Local Government Jaime Ferrer was assassinated in July 1987. During the
1988 local elections, many candidates were
• shot dead, sometimes the victims of the
16 NPA, sometimes of political rivals of ther
International Viewpoint #141 • May 16, 1988 deaths have been attributed to right-wing military rebels and locally powerful "warlords" who may or may not have the support or protection of military and civilian authorities....
Unlawful killings by government agents
Killings or other crimes by opposition groups, however, can never be used to justify unlawful retaliatory killings by agents of the government. Members of the security forces are entrusted with responsibility for protecting citizens and for upholding and defending the legal system. If members of the security forces themselves commit unlawful political killings, then others may feel that they too can act with impunity....
Amnesty International has other concerns in the Philippines in addition to extrajudicial executions. It has issued several urgent appeals on behalf of campaigners for left-wing political parties who "disappeared" after allegedly having been abducted by military personnel following the May 1987 congressional election. There
Paul Petitjean have been occasional reports of torture. Amnesty has been concerned about moves in the Philippines congress to restore the death penalty which was abolished in February 1987 when the new constitution was ratified. Extrajudicial executions constitute, however, the most prevalent human rights violations in the Philippines today.
Amnesty's mandate does not extend to many of the issues of concern to human rights groups in the Philippines, such as "militarization", forced population removals or injuries to civilians resulting from strafing or bombing during counterinsurgency operations....
The first two missions, in May and December 1986, produced strong evidence that the Aquino government's commitment to the protection of human rights and the establishment of legal safeguards had led to major improvements. There was little evi1. The report is available from: Amnesty International Publications, 1 Easton Street, London WCIX 8DJ, GB 2. Amnesty uses the term "extra-judicial executions" to describe "such unlawful and deliberate killings carried out by govemments or with their acquiescence.. [These] have gone largely unpunished in the Philippines"
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PHILIPPINES Amnesty denounces Violations been updated since then.
dence of the kind of systematic and sophisticated torture prevalent under the previous government, and prisoners were quickly brought before a judge and charged or else released. There appeared to be almost no incommunicado detention. Isolated cases of extra-judicial executions were reported, and one leading left-wing leader, Rolando Olalia, chair of the trade-union federation Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), was assassinated in November 1986, his killing linked to the military. On the whole, however, reports of human rights violations were far fewer than in previous years.
But by the time of Amnesty's third mission in July 1987 there had been a sharp escalation in political violence, and the government appeared increasingly unwilling or unable to persuade its security forces to respect the safeguards it had promoted so vigorously a year earlier, particularly when members of the military and police were targets of the NPA assassination squads....
Government encouraged
"vigilante" groups
The government encouraged the formation of "civilian volunteer self-defence organizations" , more commonly referred to as "vigilante" groups, as a means of combating the insurgency, but it exercised little supervision over the groups, and reports of serious human rights violations, including deliberate killings of suspected NPA supporters and members of left-wing organizations, increased. Members of "vigilante groups themselves became targets of the
Amnesty representatives discussed their concerns about reported political killings by both regular security forces and irregular paramilitary groups, including the "vigimilitary and authorities at both national and provincial levels. They were briefed on efforts undertaken by the departments of local government and national defence to register the groups and supervise their activities, but Amnesty's information suggests that in the months that have elapsed since the July mission, the problem of human rights abuse by these semi-official forces has only The military and the insurgency under the Aquino government
Important changes took place within the armed forces after February 1986. The role played by Chief of Staff General Ramos and Defence Minister Enrile in the revolt against President Marcos in 1986 seemed to give the military a new image overnight.... Reforms intended to improve the image of efficiency of the military appear to have been initiated by the military themselves. Other reforms intended to improve the human rights record of the military were initiated by civilians....
But despite the stated commitment of some senior officers to protecting human rights, the new government's early emphasis on human rights created tensions within the military. On the one hand, the focus on the need for "professionalism" within the armed forces entailed a determination to prevent the kind of abuses which had led to a negative image of the military among the civilian population. On the other, "professionalism" also involved a determination to many human rights violations occurred....
Many within the military, in fact, appeared to see defence of human rights and conducting counter-insurgency operations as mutually exclusive. In a BBC interview on March 2, 1987, then Colonel (now Brigadier General) Honesto Isleta, the armed forces spokesperson, said: "On the ground
PHILIPPINES war I would say that if only there would not be this hanging sword of Damocles over our heads of human rights, and perhaps if we look at these NPAs as...foreigners... in our country, not Filipinos, then we could go all out. To hell with human rights."...
Specific groups targeted for assassination
There is no question that the NPA - and other armed opposition groups such as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) - have committed acts of violence against civilian non-combatants and have targeted specific groups of people for assassination. The Operation Command of the NPA unit operating in Manila, the Alex Boncayao Brigade, took out an advertisement in the newspaper Malaya on June 15, 1987, entiA young member of an anti-Communist cult 17 displays his machete (DR) May 16, 1988 • #141 International Viewpoint
PHILIPPINES tled: "Revolutionary justice should be meted out". It listed the targets of their assassination squad ("sparrow unit") attacks as follows:
"1. Those who undertake politicallymotivated salvaging [executions], kidnapping and assassination of leaders and members of democratic organizations and ordinary civilians;
"2. Those who actively participate in the violent dispersal of demonstrations, pickets, strikes and other forms of legitimate protest by the people;
"3. Those who are responsible for and engage in the demolition and forcible relocation of urban poor communities;
"4. Those who organize, train and recruit members of armed vigilante groups or other paramilitary units;
"5. Those who directly assist the military in setting up, supervising and running intelligence and spy networks;
"6. Those who serve as ringleaders and chief protectors of big crime syndicates engaged in drug trafficking, white slavery, kidnapping and extortion.".
A Brigade spokesperson told the Manila Chronicle that the CPP network in
Manila had only embarked on regular operations in midexecutions in the last months of 1986. The number of reports it received increased after the resumption of fighting between the NA and government troops in the aftermath of the collapse of negotiations in January 1987. The alleged extra-judicial executions included both killings of noncombatants during operations against the NPA, usually in rural areas, and targeted assassinations of members of legal leftwing associations....
(In the rest of this chapter, Amnesty describes a series of assassinations committed by the army in a number of the country's provinces./ Killings by paramilitary forces: the "vigilante" groups
Many of the extra-judicial executions reported to Amnesty during its July 1987 mission represent a resurgence of the kind of killings which took place during the Marcos years by paramilitary unites acting
Makinkak these organizations coincided with a move to improve grass-roots intelligencegathering capabilities, one of the chief functions of the existing CHDF which President Aquino had pledged to dismantle.
Vigilantes aided by the military
The model promoted by the military was the Alsa Masa or "Masses Arise" - a movement that grew up in Agdao, a district of Davao City, in early 1986. Agdao had become virtually controlled by the NPA by 1984-85, and the formation of the Alsa Masa more or less coincided with the elimination of the NPA presence there....
The notion of establishing organizations along the lines of the Alsa Masa has spread throughout the country so that by early 1988, according to one estimate, there were some 200 such organizations, which have generally become known as "vigilante" groups. Many have even adopted the name Alsa Masa. In theory, as stated by the military, they are not
Philippines 1987, following the lapse of the ceasefire.
By the end of 1987, however, the level of killing had prompted a popular backlash by Manila residents and criticism by human rights acti vists. (The popular protest led in turn to a publiclyannounced change in strategy by the Manila-based Brigade, whose spokesperson said in December 1987 that paramilitary organizations, but in practice that is what they appear to have become. They are armed, either with guns or with traditional weapons such as machetes; they supply the military with intelligence; some have access to military equipment such as vehicles; and in many cases their members accompany regular military forces on patrol
AYA no more police would be killed and that targeting of
"more victims would be
NAVANANAVA ANANAY selective".)...
Increase in political violence
The increase in political violence has led some members of the military to press for stricter legal measures against suspected subversives. In September 1987 defence and military officials drafted an "Internal
Security Act", modelled on those of Malaysia and Singapore, which would permit the detention without trial of people accused of subversion, restoration of the death penalty, and a national system of identity cards. The Malaysian and Singapore laws have been used to arrest and indefinitely detain without charge people suspected of national security offences, including many people that Amnesty considers prisoners of conscience.
Amnesty International had received a
18 number of renters of anal ede racivic al
International Viewpoint #141 • May 16, 1988 under the command or with the sanction of the regular armed forces. The abuses committed by paramilitary groups including the CHDF forces were such that when the Aquino government came to power, many organizations demanded that they be dismantled....
A decline in the level of military activity against the insurgents in 1986, culminating in the 60-day ceasefire beginning on Human Rights Day (December 10) 1986, resulted in a concomitant decline in the number of reported human rights violations by military and paramilitary groups. When the ceasefire ended, however, full-scale counter-insurgency operations resumed. As one tool in their effort to stem the rebellion, the military encouraged and authorized the formation of "civilian volunteer self-defence organizations" whose members were to patrol their neighbourhoods and report any strangers or suspicious individuals to local authorities. The growth of insurgency effort may not however. As elections approached in January 1988, many observers, including the respected editor of the Manila Chronicle, expressed the fear that the "vigilante" groups were turning into private armies for political candidates. The distinction between the old CHDF, the cult groups and the new "civilian volunteers" has become increasingly blurred....
The encouragement given to civilians to take part in the anti-communist effort has given a new legitimacy to any group taking an anti-communist stance, whatever its name or reputation.... Opinions differ even among senior officials over how exactly "civilian volunteer defence organizations" are to be defined....
The confusion over the nature of such groups may be one reason why the term "vigilante" has become indiscriminately applied to all civilian groups active in the counter-insurgency effort, armed or unarmed, old cult or new group. Colonel Cali-
da told Amnesty that he disliked the term "vigilante" because it implied that civilian volunteers were "at once judge and executioner", whereas the Alsa Masa members were law-abiding citizens. There is strong evidence, however, that members of the Alsa Masa and other "vigilante" groups have committed grave human rights violations, including political killings, apparently with the knowledge or acquiescence of local military commanders....
(There follow a number of examples of assassinations carried out by the "vigilantes" J The debate over "vigilantes"
Reports of human rights violations by "vigilante" groups come at a time of intense the Philippines role....Opponents of "vigilantes" fall into three categories. Those in the first category accept that there may be a need in some cases for civilian defence organizations, but they are concerned about how these groups operate in practice. The Presidential Committee on Human Rights (now disbanded) publicly stated that it had no obvoluntary defence organizations "provided they are strictly restricted to their respective neighbourhoods, are unarmed and their recruitment is strictly voluntary".
The second category consists of those who are opposed to the concept of civilian defence organizations which they believe is in conflict with the constitutional prohibition on private armies. they believe that the concept of defence against armed attack virtually implies the use of arms in return, which should be the monopoly of the regular armed forces. They fear that civilians ostensibly armed for self-defence might easily become enticed into the service of politicians or large landowners....
### Counter-insurgency strategy
A third group believes that the "vigilante" groups were never intended to be self-defence organizations in the first place but were established as an element of military counter-insurgency strategy to provide an extra-judicial means of identifying, harassing and sometimes eliminating suspect-
One proponent of this view in Davao stated in a May 1987 paper, referring to Alsa Masa: "They have proven an invaluable asset to the military, allowing it to maintain a 'clean' image as the 'New' AFP while the 'dirty work' of intimidation can be left to the Alsa Masa. Alsa Masa members are responsible to no higher authority, and so there is no one to whom a victim can complain, safeguarding both the Alsa Masa and the military from legal prosecution".
Amnesty International recognizes that a government has a responsibility to take measures to counter threats to its security. It believes, however, that it has an equal responsibility to ensure that any groups set up for this purpose obey the law and do not violate human rights. It is disturbed by evidence from throughout the country of cooperation between such groups and the regular armed forces, and believes the government must therefore be held accountable for human rights violations committed by their members....
Amnesty has received several reports indicating that membership of civilian defence organizations in some areas is not entirely voluntary. In two areas people detained on suspicion of being NPA supporters were released on condition that they either join existing Alsa Masa organizations or form new ones in their areas....
Vigilante groups target
NPA supporters
At a meeting with Amnesty International representatives in July 1987 in Manila, Brigadier General Dionisio Tan-Gatue implicitly acknowledged that membership was not always voluntary - he said that the military had to "convince" people to join and that its methods for doing so were the same as the NPA's because they were competing for the same population. Coercive recruitment may encourage human rights violations if those who refuse to join themselves become targets of abuse.
Amnesty representatives found that in some cases not only were criminal elements not discouraged from joining civilian defence organizations, but they were even actively encouraged to do so. General Tan-Gatue told the representatives that it was up to the military commander to decide who could join such groups. In response to Amnesty's query about one case, he said that men in Leyte who had allegedly decapitated two suspected NPA "tax col-
, and who were subsequently recruited into the military-sponsored "Barangay Self-defence Force" like heroes to local residents. Amnesty believes that if individuals known to have engaged in activities outside the law, whatever their support or position within the
EWPOINT
1987
COLLECTION
PHILIPPINES community, are recruited into militarysupported "vigilante" groups, then inevitably the military will be seen to be condoning their actions and suggesting that similar acts may be committed with impunity.
Although the guidelines issued by the government and military on the civilian defence organizations stress their defensive character, many appear to have gone beyond purely defensive activity. The representatives found that in many cases, the extra-judicial killing of suspected NPA members appeared to be in retaliation for the killing by the NPA of relatives of members of the group responsible. The targets of such retaliation, however, were not the
NPA fighters themselves whose whercabouts and identity might be difficult to determine, but rather unarmed members of legal, left-wing organizations operating
If the military or civilian authorities believe there is prima facie evidence that members of such organizations are aiding or harbouring the insurgents, complaints against them should be filed in court and the suspects accorded due process. The number of unprovoked killings reported to
Amnesty International suggests that the principle of civilian defence organizations restricting their activities to non-violent intelligence gathering and nightly patrols is not being observed in practice....
There appears as yet to be no acknowledgement of the link between cult groups such as the Sagrado Corazon Senor or Tadtads and the regular military forces, and no public statement that the guidelines on civilian self-defence organizations should apply to such groups. Given the number of reported abuses by members of these cult groups and the evidence that they work with both the regular armed forces and
"vigilante" groups, it is imperative that strict control and supervision be exercised over them as well and that the military be held equally accountable for human rights violations committed by them.
(The rest of the report demonstrates the inefficacy of investigations led by the administration and concludes with a series of recommendations./*
1987 COLLECTION OF INTERNATIONAL VIEWPOINT Send cheque or postal order for 160FF/ £15/$25 made out to PEC (add 20% for airmail) to: International Viewpoint, 2 rue Richard Lenoir, 93108 Montreuil, France. 19 May 16, 1988 • #141 International Viewpoint