Philippine agencies criticized by UN

MANILA -- A United Nations human rights expert criticized the Philippine military and government yesterday for not doing enough to solve a wave of political killings, many of which he said could be linked to government security forces.

"The armed forces remain in a state of almost total denial of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them," Philip Alston, the UN's special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said at a news conference at the end of a 10-day fact-finding mission in the Philippines.

The Philippine Army has been battling rebels of the Communist New People's Army for nearly four decades, in addition to a more recent struggle against Muslim separatists, and Alston said that the recent increase in extrajudicial executions can be attributed to the military's intensified counterinsurgency program.

According to one human rights group, Karapatan, more than 800 people, most of them political activists, have been killed by security forces since 2001, the year that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took office. Alston, who over the past 10 days traveled around the country and met with military and government officials, human rights advocates and relatives of the slain, said he had not been able to determine the exact number of victims, but added that "the number is high enough to be distressing."

"The impact of even a limited number of killings of the type alleged is corrosive in many ways," he said, adding that they intimidate "vast numbers of civil-society actors" and send a "message of vulnerability to all but the most well connected."

They also undermine the political discourse that he said is central to a resolution of the problems confronting this country. Reacting to Alston's statement, Arroyo's executive secretary, Eduardo Ermita, said that the government, which had invited the UN and the European Union to help investigate the killings, was serious about putting an end to them.

"There is no reason to ever doubt the sincerity of the national leadership in stopping these unexplained killings," Ermita said, adding that the murders are "not a national policy."

Alston said he would prepare his final report in three months. Last Friday, after meeting with families of victims in the northern Philippines, Alston was reported to have said, "I had a very rough time just listening to the stories."

In Davao, in the south, Alston heard horrific tales of human rights abuses, including one involving a 75-year-old man who died after being shot 43 times. The military said the man had been caught in the crossfire between soldiers and members of the New People's Army.

According to Satur Ocampo, president of the leftist political party Bayan Muna, the military's current counterinsurgency push does not distinguish between armed rebels of the New People's Army and members of legal political organizations.

The government and military have praised the counterinsurgency campaign for its "holistic approach."