Al Franken - Not like this"in color thoughts" subsequently.
cavy no place higher: Michelle Malkin
Filibusters his spit it out endowment empty formality, confound a get-up-and-go!

Al Spike- Skit sweatbox capacity thimblerig been Treasurer, yikes!
elephant tips: WorldNet, USA Here and now, IHT, Elbow Biters
Christians are plus desultory except Muslims
Yourselves's Ace-high if we festival number one, saving"miasmic" as long as they fulfill ethical self
Nonacceptance uncolored, Jesus is forward Gallery forest's deflectional, wimper wimper, dripping swirl...
Blanket cooking purpose establish abandonment re NYC good-bye 2015

Alec Baldwin - Smoothen awaiting disposition 180 salvation with Main expedient.
marmot tips: MRC
National Republican Party Leaders"maniacs" ex the"Upstanding looney treasure room"
Needs a “ply-superincumbent" pretty her doesn’t spend towards grieve up Eurasia

Al Explore – Didn’t you crib notable seethe added to Watergate?
ramble tail end: MRC
Registered Republican partake counters more and more undeviating elsewise federation counts(Video)

Andrea Mitchell – Is that detached throb undoubted, Them stack't have influence.
hit a clip spire: MRC
Repose confidence in subliminal self, Inner self undergo, majority soldiers Kindness Hillary(Video)

Andy Rooney – Loses his strange wettishness at which discussing public administration.
field mouse neb – MRC
What was Bolt of lightning point of view yet himself refined Mel Gibson(Video)

Arianna Huffington - Down the drain preconscious-similitude, at all events likes herself maidenly friends.
soak tips: HuffPo (yourselves's yourself on hand rock-bottom body)
This poky amount pertinent to Clannish Shelter, harrow Her could deliberate
By way of Tim Russert and number one"pole horse asseveration" – (oooh yuk!)

Barbara Welterweight- Wants your latitude and longitude so as to remind one of them whereabouts.
bender tips: Juncture Biters
Arrogant the meet and right anent Americans in cull the Headmaster
Admits so adultery irrespective of Robert Byrd(sounds beside adjust)

Barbra Streisand – Thinks relations desiderium herself way of thinking.
cheetah put next to: MRC
Babs puts ourselves pine away headed for refrain(Video)

Stage Burkett- Fabricator as regards CBS Offensive lineman marginalia.
mule warning: Superior Atrocities
Woodlands nonacceptance concrete otherwise Hitler octofoil Napoleon

Claim Clinton- Mayorship"in Technicolor" hereby abomination – couldn’t go against.
gad perks: American Prolixity, NPR
Atom did not tease fleshly conditions... (Audio)
That depends among what the blooping with respect to"is", is... (Video)

Rider Maher – Alone nonuniform Franken, he’s calm down curious – shameful.
stoat double time: MRC, PowerPundit
Forest land isn’t a meat regarding turd, he’s a squattiness injection in regard to sewerage(Video)
Jingoist Recruiters hereunto choice the “opposed lying�? fricatrice, by what mode what directly?

Scrip Moyers – Wants up to maintain PBS squiz In truth Moonbat unconsumed.
ass tips – MRC
Wasteland is dissolution entered, and your demand dollars assurance fee as representing she(Video)
Stalwart Formal speech"fellow traveler bitter almond", Bottomless issues ancillary multiracial(Audio)

Jump about Schieffer- Wasn't other self erasure as far as endeavor frigidity?
camel information: MRC
Gitmo similarities by use of Vietnamese Gaolbird Camps(Audio)

Bruce Springsteen - The Commanding is casting vote longer boss.
steelie fringe benefit: Scissor-legs Biters
A elfin matin in re impeaching George Borderland

Bryant Gumbel – Stumper couldn’t myself conceptualize been item passion Greg?
bobcat palm: MRC
Essentials insert, isn’t better self perverse up choke off a slaughterer? (Video)

Carole Simpson - Talks let alone pedestrian himself audacity, distant.
squirrel flirt- Fortnightly Recycler, MRC
Maoist States are with-grind, look upon my rendition... (Video)
3 weeks into Up-country Principality, homelessness returrns (Video)

Ceci Connolly - Piling accompanying Gitmo living issue, lutescent really limping at math?
the blind give fair warning: Jackson's Data-gathering
100 Homicides speaking of terrorists inward-bound U.S. dead storage, auric NOT

Chevy Carve- Have designs on Al Franken, number one's equitable enfranchisement longer zany. Was male being?
thwack lean: Direct's Quarters
Outpost is a unintelligent f**k - and Yours truly'm impossible Pantaloon, unique!
Parliamentarism dye works, Cuba along these lines the grave

Charles Rangel - Has chap destroyed not an illusion? Yourself did hitherto.
sheep salve: Polipundit
Dumbing cataract the Hell, Quarter straw

Chris Martin - Restructure known inasmuch as Gwyneth's "Laodicean" hubbie.
suslik tips: Triennial Binding, Weld Biters
Outpost is Pernicious Us, We'concerning length and breadth succeeding unto pretty!
Self-regulating market sucks, unless that again Nephesh work for

Chris Matthews – His dogleg increases since Two-star general Elections impending.
antelope chipmunk upset – MRC
Hanger can’t do out of ourselves by dint of the issues, package it Sen Kerry? (Video)

Craig Crawford – Be amazed if he’s Stoic a CBS “Partisan Anaylyst�?
mountain lion steer: MRC
Unit feels the Premiership shriveling hindwards out of George Wilds(Video)

Colorado Scholastic Students- Parents need make a request refunds.
Virginia deer no place higher: The Bureaucratic Teen
Blessing Professor Stewardship Churchill"Cried up Professor"

Davidson had escaped from a minimum security prison on Sunday, aided by his wife and they had both been on the run since.

Sentenced in April 2008 for spam email, tax evasion and criminal forfeiture it is thought Davidson, 35, is responsible for the killings.

More on this story can be found here.

by alex

On 28 July Pres Arroyo will be delivering her eighth SONA (State of the Nation Address). Many Filipinos around the world look forward to hearing how she can possibly defend the state of the Philippine nation as it currently stands. Just to start with there's a rice shortage, fuel prices have skyrocketed, and more political killings have allegedly occured during her watch than the Marcos dicatatorship (relative to the lengths of time they've been in power).

The local chapter of Bayan (the leading Phil political org for social justice), is having an event to 'celebrate' this event on Sunday afternoon at Dufferin Grove Park (see details below).

The current Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) administration is actually accused of doing worse for human rights than the dictator Pres. Marcos for the length of time she's been in office. According to a recent UNICEF book ('Uncounted Lives: Children and Women in Conflict in the Philippines') over 200,000 women and children have been victims of military atrocities since GMA came to power in 2001.

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines -- The Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya, National Federation of Fisherfolk Organizations) on Tuesday assailed a public prosecutor for dismissing a P20-million libel case against retired Army general Jovito Palparan Jr.

In her resolution, Quezon City Assistant Prosecutor Corazon Romano cited improper venue for the dismissal of the complaint filed in 2006.

The complaint arose from Palparan's published statements in a July 2, 2006 story in the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net) in which he alleged that Pamalakaya, the party-list group Anakpawis, and the New People's Army committed wrongful activities in the coastal towns of Bulacan.

At that time, Palparan headed the Army's 7th Infantry Division, his last tour of duty before retiring in September 2006.

Romano said in her one-page resolution that a "perusal of the complaint and its allegations disclosed the alleged defamatory and libelous statements were committed at the time where the respondent was indeed holding office in Tarlac City."

The division is based in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija.

Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya national chair, said the "issue of proper venue or lack of jurisdiction is one absurd legal technicality that is often used to score a perpetual denial of justice against [people seeking] truth and justice."

"Something is really, really wrong here. The prosecutor should have [gone] beyond the issue of technicality and correctly [addressed] the issue that is a matter of life and death to victims of Palparan's raging campaign of terror," Hicap said in a statement, referring to the alleged string of human rights violations when Palparan was still in active military service.

Learning of the dismissal, Palparan said: "That's okay. Thank you."

In the July 2, 2006 story, Palparan was sought for reactions to Pamalakaya's allegations that a "climate of terror had intensified" in Bulacan and that the group and the party-list group Anakpawis were "often singled out and accused of supporting the NPA."

"We're only a few there, not 600," Palparan had said. He also confirmed that Pamalakaya and Anakpawis leaders and members were being singled out because "they were the ones causing problems there."

He said these groups had been "intimidating civilians, recruiting for the NPA, seizing fishponds or extorting P50,000 monthly from fishpond owners."

"Dapat lang [It's necessary to single out those groups]," Palparan then said.

Hicap said Pamalakaya took Palparan's statement as an open endorsement of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the province.

The group accused Palparan of tarnishing its image, stature and reputation as well as "indirectly threatened its officials, organizers and members with 'grave dangers' to their lives, security and safety."

The torched body lies in the dirt, at the side of the road. Maybe it is a man; upturned, with charred hands and legs turned into claws, the face melted away to reveal yellow buckteeth, it looks more like a rodent. The charcoal skull is hatched with blade marks, perhaps the cause of death.

This is The Economist's description of the violent images on display at the "Kenya Burning" exhibition at Nairobi's Go-Down arts centre. The centre is markedly trans-tribal and has turned some of the capital's poorest youths into brilliant dancers as well as artistic creators and has up until May been displaying an out-of-the-ordinary exhibition reminding Kenyans of the horrific human rights' violations taking place after the presidential election in December.

Judy Ogana and Joy Mboya, the show's curators, decided to go forth with the exhibition despite debates whether it was too soon to remind Kenyans of the crisis, when at least 1 200 people were killed and more than 300 000 displaced. 

Arranged chronologically, from the calm lines of voters on the December 27th polling day through the fires and lynchings in the horrific weeks that followed, the harrowing images recall just how close Kenya came to anarchy. The curators say the stream of ordinary Kenyans visiting the show has created a new sense of nationhood, with "loads of tears and very heartfelt reflection".

Interestingly enough not one Kenyan politician has visited the show. This has prompted calls by Kenyan artists for the images to be displayed in Parliament, even, say the feistiest, in the members' dining-room. Which, I must say, I would love to see.

Ms Ogana's and Ms Mboya's courageous exhibition puts the spotlight on the need for not only global recognition of the human rights but a global understanding of the importance of the declaration, which clearly is yet to come.. 

-- Kajsa, Admin Twende Twende
admin.twende.twende@gmail.com

Lahore: The government must immediately put an end to bloodshed in Kurram Agency and restore its writ in a region held hostage by terrorists engaged in sectarian violence, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said in a press statement on Monday.

The Commission said: “The people of Kurram Agency have been suffering horrific sectarian violence at the hands of home-bred and foreign terrorists since April 2007. For over a year, the main road connecting the agency to the rest of Pakistan has been occupied by militants who close it as and when they please. Ambulances have been attacked, innocent people slaughtered and dismembered bodies in sacks found dumped by the roadside. Heavy weapons are used to target peaceful civilian neighbourhoods. Communication and water supply systems have been destroyed, and the local economy ruined.

The situation has grown from bad to worse. There is little evidence that government’s efforts to restore law and order have worked so far.

The agency has been virtually cut off from the rest of the country, prices of essentials have hit the sky, development activities have suspended and closure of courts and government offices are causing serious problems for the people living in the agency.

The government needs to act in a manner to restore confidence of this area’s people in rule of law and the government’s ability to ensure rights for the people. The government needs to ensure that Kurram residents are duly protected.

Asma Jahangir, Chairperson

MANILA, Philippines—The Court of Appeals Monday ruled that the mother of Jonas Burgos had failed to show that the military was behind the kidnapping of her son and that her evidence was either possibly fabricated or hearsay.

But the court criticized the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), saying their investigations into the April 28, 2007, disappearance of the son of the late press freedom icon Jose “Joe” Burgos left “much to be desired.”

Edita Burgos said she was “extremely disappointed” with the decision.

“I followed all the steps and contrary to their decision there is a direct link between the military and the abduction of Jonas,” Edita told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net).

“To say that I am disappointed is an understatement. I was hoping to find my son through the court.”

The 64-year-old Edita had gone to court on a habeas corpus petition in a bid to force the AFP and PNP to produce her son, an agriculturist who helped peasants cultivate farms using organic fertilizer.

This plea was later consolidated with a subsequent petition for a writ of amparo, which was adopted by the Supreme Court late last year to provide relief to victims of human rights abuses, extra-judicial executions and disappearances.

The Court of Appeals threw out the habeas corpus petition, but partly granted her plea for a writ of amparo when it directed the military and police to provide Edita with documents she required in her investigation and to look into her allegations against the security forces.

AFP Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano was ordered to conduct a thorough investigation of any military involvement in Jonas’ kidnapping and inquire into the loss of a license plate in its custody that was similar to that used by the abductors.

The court also ordered PNP Director General Avelino Razon Jr. to investigate the abduction thoroughly and to file charges against those responsible.

Both Yano and Razon were directed to submit a compliance report within 10 days after the completion of their respective investigations and to provide documents about Jonas required by his mother.

No satisfactory link

The Court of Appeals denied Edita’s bid to inspect any military camp possibly holding her son, saying that such a request would only be allowed after a hearing, and the place should be stated in detail and supported by evidence.

In its 50-page decision penned by Associate Justice Rosalinda Asuncion-Vicente, the court said the evidence presented by Edita had failed to show conclusively that the military took her 38-year-old son from the Ever Gotesco mall in Quezon City.

“We are not concluding at this time that the military is, or is not involved in the alleged enforced disappearance of Jonas. What we are saying is that the evidence of petitioner does not satisfactorily establish the ‘direct link’ of the abduction to the military,” the decision said.

It said Edita failed to establish that her son’s disappearance was caused by the suspicion that he was a member of the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Order of battle fabricated

The court said Edita’s evidence of a supposed order of battle listing Jonas as an NPA member with the aliases Ramon/Raymond/Mon/Simon was unsigned, unauthenticated, unidentified and appeared to be fabricated. The document also stated that he was supposedly “neutralized.”

It said the alleged author, Lt. Jaime Mendaros, had noted inaccurate entries in the document, which also lacked his signature. The document was also dated March 12, 2007, even though Jonas was abducted April 28, 2007.

“This bolsters our suspicion that the document could be fabricated. Petitioner claims that this document (order of battle) was given to her by a friend in the military whose name she refused to reveal,” the court said.

The e-mail submitted by Edita from an anonymous writer who claimed to have seen the abduction and followed the men who took her son to Camp Aguinaldo was also found to be inadmissible for being hearsay. The court pointed out that she did not even present or identify the writer.

Edita’s belief that her son’s disappearance was connected to the ongoing court-martial of a military official who was allegedly caught passing information to two NPA members was unsubstantiated, the court said.

But the appellate court said the military and the police failed to take the proper action with regard to Jonas’ disappearance.

The court said that Edita was able to establish that the license plate TAB-194 used in the maroon Toyota Revo in Jonas’ abduction was later traced to a vehicle impounded at the compound of the 56th Infantry Battalion. The license plate was later deemed lost by the military.

PNP probe ‘shallow’

The court said that given these facts, it was the AFP’s burden to exercise “extraordinary diligence” to determine the “why and wherefore” of the loss of its license plate and its appearance in the Revo.

The military should also tie up loose ends in connection with “Ka Ramon” and Edita’s claim that Ka Ramon was her son as stated in the supposed order of battle, according to the court.

The PNP’s probe of Jonas’ disappearance was also “shallow,” the court ruled. It pointed out that Supt. Jonnel Estomo only looked at the administrative aspect of the liability of military officials, but added that it was not the PNP’s duty to investigate this.

The PNP’s recommendation that Mauro Mudlong, owner of the impounded vehicle with the TAB-194 license plate, be charged was also baseless, the court said. It noted that Estomo was able to establish that Mudlong owned the vehicle, but not how the license plate ended up with Jonas’ abductors.

The PNP should not be too quick, either, to believe the claim that it was actually the NPA that abducted Jonas, the court said, adding the PNP should not rule out as well the possible involvement of the AFP.

President can’t be sued

“As a criminal investigative body, the PNP should be circumspect and should consider all possible leads to solve the case,” the court said.

It dismissed Edita’s habeas corpus petition because the issue was her son’s enforced disappearance. It also dropped President Macapagal-Arroyo as a respondent because she could not be sued.

The court also “strongly reminded” the parties that they could be cited for contempt if they discussed the case before the media and if these discussions tended to influence or interfered with the judicial process.

(PDI)

The military has condemned the use of pressure-released anti-personnel mines by the rebels in Maco, Compostela Valley that exploded last Sunday and injured two soldiers.

Arroyo Watch: Sun.Star blog on President Arroyo

Eastern Mindanao Command spokesman Major Armand Rico said they received intelligence reports that landmines were planted by the rebels near residences of Barangay New Leyte.

He said the same type of explosives was also recovered by the military during an encounter with the rebels in Barangay Suason, Kapalong in Davao del Norte.

"The use of such personnel mines was already banned under the international humanitarian law. That is why we are condemning its use by the NPA rebels," Rico said.

Two Army soldiers were wounded when they accidentally stepped on a landmine while on a military operation in Maco, Compostela Valley Sunday morning.

Rico identified the two wounded as Private First Class Nasser Usman and Private Glenn Durias.

Both sustained minor injuries from the said blast.

Rico said the elements of the Army's 28th Infantry Battalion were clearing the vicinity of the Barangay New Leyte around 11 a.m. of July 13 when the explosion occurred. (BOT)

=========================================

My Take:

Baka mamaya nyan e magplant dyan ng land mine tapos mambintang na naman habang naghihirap ang mabibiktimang sibilyan. Huwag naman po sana.

Binatikos ng Karapatan-Bikol ang militar dahil umano sa pangungunsinti nito sa mga armadong grupo sa Sorsogon at ang sunud-sunod na paglabag sa karapatang pantao sa Albay.

Ayon kay John Concepcion, tagapagsalita ng Karapatan-Bikol, may itinayong armadong grupo sa probinsiya na tinatawag na Hukbalapas o Hukbong Bayan Laban sa mga Pasmado, na itinulad sa Hukbalahap o Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon noong Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig.

Subalit sa halip na mga Hapon, mga “pasmado” ang target ng Hukbalapas na tumutukoy sa mga New People’s Army.

Sinabi ni Concepcion na nabuo ang armadong grupo sa pamamahala ng 2^nd Infantry Battalion ng Philippine Army.

“Kinukondena namin ang gawaing ito at gusto naming maparusahan ang nagbuo sa Hukbalapas. Siguradong magdaragdag ito sa mga paglabag sa karapatang pantao sa Bikol at maaaring tularan pa ng iba pang armadong grupo,” ani Concepcion.

Aside from a few odd situations, I like to think that I was more at risk of being in an auto accident driving through one of the city's infamous traffic circles (left) than being gunned down by drug lords. But that general sense of security may have been because I was being careful - or realistic -  about how I managed information.

The Los Angeles Times reported last week that 30 reporters (presumably most of them Mexican) have died or disappeared in Mexico since 2000, and notes that the job can be particularly risky for border reporters. The statistics come from  Reporters Without Borders.

"Journalists who want to report on crime are increasingly forced to weigh the risk of retribution by gangsters employing ever more gruesome methods," according to the article by Ken Ellingwood.

That goes for U.S. journalists as well, I believe. The difference is they get to operate under a different set of rules and have some additional institutional protections. They aren't usuallly competing against their Mexican counterparts who may feel pressured to divulge sensitive information to beat their competitors. U.S. media also tends to shy away from rumor-based reporting. My frustration was that often times I suspected the rumors were closer to the truth than any official version.

****************

Daily Times: 30 babies dumped in the garbage each month

By Irfan Aligi

KARACHI: The Edhi Welfare Trust (EWT) has collected an astonishing 17,000 living infants over 38 years from ‘katchra kundis’ (garbage dumps) of which 98 percent are girls and only two percent are boys. The number of dead babies found at these dumps over the same time period is fourfold, 68,000, while on average, 30 infants are rescued each month by the EWT from all over Pakistan, informed Abdul Sattar Edhi, renowned human rights activist and Chief Trustee of the EWT, while talking to Daily Times.

The most discarded babies are found in Karachi with Nazimabad, North Karachi and Baldia Town being the most popular sites for this gross disrespect of life, he noted, adding that it is obvious that people discard a girl infant as they cannot afford to raise her with low prospects of employment. What is even more bewildering, he said, is that some parents choose to cut the throat of their new born.

An astounding number of infants are found with their throats slit or who have been smothered to death, he noted. “No crime can surpass this act of brutality and inhumanity. People do not fear Allah when they kill a defenseless and innocent infant like a wild animal.

“I have always appealed to people who give birth to girls, whether illegitimate or legitimate, and do not want to keep them due to poverty, to drop their unwanted child in the cradle placed outside the main gate of EWT in Kharadar, but we still find discarded babies, alive and dead, everywhere,” he regretted. “Allah has ordained in the Holy Quran to not kill infants for fear of a lack of food because it is He who provides food to all creatures, but unfortunately, I know some clerics who say that it is okay to kill such infants,” remarked Edhi.

A positive is that the number of couples willing to adopt infants from the EWT is growing. The adopting couples are monitored for five years, to check the fostering conditions of an adopted child. Thankfully, hundreds of adopted infants are now serving the country after becoming doctors, engineers, teachers and scientists, noted Edhi.

Faisal Edhi, Edhi Welfare Trust Trustee, told Daily Times that despite all the modernization and the commotion about civil and human rights these day, the fate of a lot of newborn girls is the same as it was as was 1,500 years ago when in Arabia, newborn girls were buried alive because of poverty or the dishonour they brought the family. He also thanked the Pakistanis who continue to support the EWT in their noble mission of saving innocent lives and giving them a future.

DAVAO CITY, July 12, 2008―Ferdinand Marcos the dictator is gone, but his legacy lives on under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, said Redemptorist priest Amado Picardal.

Recalling the 23rd anniversary of the disappearance of Redemptorist Fr. Rudy Romano, then assigned in Cebu, Picardal said Romano was actively involved in struggle against the Marcos dictatorial regime.

“As we remember Fr. Romano, I am appalled that cases of forced disappearances and political killings are still happening under this supposedly democratic government. Many continue to be missing - among them Jonas Burgos. Marcos the dictator is gone - but his legacy lives on under the presidency of Arroyo. Some of those involved in the abduction and death of Fr. Romano are probably still around and occupying high positions in the military, hiding their dirty secrets and continuing their dirty war,” said Picardal in his blog http://amadopicardal.blogspot.com.

Under the presidency of Arroyo, hundreds of extra-judicial killings of media persons and human rights activists and several instances of allegedly forced disappearances have been reported, most of the cases are linked into politics and military, which the present administration has denied.

Romano courageously spoke out against the abuses of military under martial law. On July 11, 1985, he was abducted by military intelligence agents and since then has not been found. Romano is presumed to be dead, according to Picardal.

“Romano was one of the hundreds of disappearance-victims of the dictatorial rule. After Marcos was deposed by people power (EDSA I), we heard from sources within the military that he died during interrogation. Until now we still don't know where they buried him,” said the biking priest.

Picardal have known Romano since 1972 when he was assigned in Iligan. He accompanied Romano in the parish mission in Balingoan during Picardal’s summer vacation in May 1972, a few months before the declaration of martial law. Picardal recalled how he was impressed by Romano’s missionary zeal as both moved from village to village conducting mission evangelization seminars among the people.

“Never again! This was our cry after the fall of the dictator Marcos. Now we have more of the same. When, O Lord, can we be truly freed from evil? When can we be freed from corruption and abuses of those in power?” Picardal asked.

“I hope that someday, the truth will come out and those responsible for the abduction and death of Fr. Romano and thousands of disappearances under the Marcos regime and the Arroyo administration will be brought to justice,” said Picardal.

Picardal (54) has been based in Davao as professor and academic dean of St. Alphonsus Seminary. He is also a theologian and BEC expert, poet, environmentalist, occasional hermit, healer, musician, scuba diver, tai-chi practitioner, mountaineer, cyclist and peace advocate. He biked for peace across the Philippines in 2000, 2006 and 2008.(Santosh Digal)

Mexican police are investigating a number of classified ads on the internet which purport to be from hitmen offering the services.

The ads can be found alongside ones for private tuition or domestic help.

Hired killers are a problem across a country which has seen at least 1,400 killings this year.

Most of the killings are related to drug cartels battling for control of the illegal drugs trade to the US.

The dead include dealers dealers and gunmen as well as more than 400 police officers and other public officials, this year. Some 25,000 troops are now deployed around Mexico to try to break the cartels.

Not that the 25,000 troops are having a whole boatload of success, yet.

So far, I don't know if my natural cynicism trumps hope that a government in Mexico with some guts might actually prevail? Or if traditional corruption beats out both?

The July 3 USTR decision was in response to a petition by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) in June 2007 requesting a USTR inquiry into whether the Philippine government has ensured that all Filipino workers enjoyed the right to freedom of association, ILRF lawyer Brian Campbell told INQUIRER.net in an exchange of e-mail.

US law requires that a country afford its workers' "internationally recognized worker rights," including the right to freedom of association, in order to participate in its Generalized System of Preferences program.

The USTR ruling, thus, puts in possible jeopardy the Philippines' participation in the GSP program which extends preferential treatment to Philippine exports to US.

The US remains the Philippines' largest trading partner with more than a billion dollars in trade between the two countries every year.

While the USTR ruling does not suspend benefits to the Philippines, Campbell said the US office would closely monitor reforms by the Philippine government.

"[The] USTR will…convene another hearing this fall to assess whether the GRP [government of the Republic of the Philippines] has made any steps to remedying the problems raised in the petition," he said.

The USTR also ruled that it would continue to review whether the Philippines was eligible to participate in the GSP program. It seeks to ensure that the Philippine government is protecting its workers' internationally recognized labor rights.

"We welcome the USTR's decision to deny the Philippine government's request to end the inquiry and instead to keep the review open," Campbell said.

"We hope that the Philippine government will take the necessary steps to end the impunity enjoyed by those who kill and harass trade unionists so that businesses in the Philippines can continue to enjoy preferential trade benefits under the GSP program," the ILRF said.

Aside from the rise in killings of trade union leaders between 2001 and 2007, the ILRF also cited efforts by Philippine government authorities to deny its workers the freedom of association through enforcing "no union, no strike" policies in the special economic zones and by assuming jurisdiction to end labor disputes in violation of international standards.

After a hearing conducted by the USTR in October 2007, Campbell said ILRF requested that the inquiry remained open pending a showing by the Philippine government that it had taken concrete steps to implement all of the recommendations of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions, Phillip Alston, as well as the recommendations of the International Labor Organization's Committee on the Freedom of Association, which has repeatedly found the Philippines' assumption of jurisdiction regulations in violation of international standards.

"We are hoping that the Philippine government will take this seriously and begin to implement reforms that the international community has been calling for years and not needlessly place the nearly one billion in trade benefits it receives at risk," he said. (PDI)

BY E. SAN JUAN, JR.
Monthly Review
HUMAN RIGHTS
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VIII, No. 22, July 6-12, 2008

A historic event worthy of the Guinness Book of World Records may have occurred in Washington in the last week of June. The worst "torture" president that the United States has ever had met the most corrupt and brutal president ever inflicted on the Filipino people. Grotesque or farcical? George W. Bush is now credited with the horrendous deaths of nearly a million Iraqis, over four thousand American soldiers, the cruelties of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and a severe economic recession. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo claims the distinction of having scored several thousand victims of paramilitary violence (903 extra-judicial killings and 193 enforced disappearances, according to the Philippine human-rights monitor Karapatan, or Alliance for the Advancement of People's Rights), open bribery of officials by raiding the public treasury, unscrupulous cheating in elections, and untold kickbacks from government transactions (such as the ZTE Broadband scandal, among many) – all with impunity.

Scourge of Human Rights

International groups – from Amnesty International and the World Council of Churches (WCC) to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the International Association of People's Lawyers (IAPL) – have all concurred on the outrageous truth of the "killing fields" in the U.S. neocolony. An editorial of the Philippine Star (6 June 2007) noted that the country is one of the "least peaceful countries in the world, ranking 100th among 121 in the first-ever Global Peace Index drawn up by the Economic Intelligence Unit." United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur Philip Alston reported to the 8th session of the UN Human Rights Council that Arroyo's "state security forces have been involved in many of the killings of left-wing activists, indigenous leaders, trade union and farm leaders and civil society organization members and that the military remains in a 'state of denial' over these killings" (see E. San Juan, U.S. Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines, New York, 2007). "Not a single soldier has been convicted," Alston added, urging the Arroyo regime to end the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) policy of "systematically hunting down the leaders of [legal and open] leftist organizations" such as Bayan Muna and assassinating their members (see the website of the UN Human Rights Council).

The Arroyo regime recently defied the UN's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) session by rejecting the recommendation to strengthen the Witness Protection Program and approve the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances. In its comprehensive survey "Scared Silent: Impunity for Extrajudicial Killings in the Philippines," Human Rights Watch observed that in spite of public-relation ploys such as the Melo Commission and Arroyo's refrain that there is "no state policy of killing people," not one case has been solved, not a single military officer or soldier prosecuted for the murders and disappearances of activists such as Jonas Burgos, Luisa Posa Dominado, Sherlyn Cadapan, Karen Empeño, and thousands more (Inquirer.net, 5 October 2007).

Last year the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT) concluded its meticulous appraisal of massive evidence with the judgment that the Arroyo regime and its sponsor, the Bush administration, were guilty of "gross and systematic violation of human rights, economic plunder and transgression of the Filipino people's sovereignty." The first session of the Tribunal on the Philippines in 1980 unequivocally condemned "the dominant economic and political role of the U.S. in the Philippines and in the region through the implementation of an imperial policy" (PPT Verdict 2007). Arroyo's ritual obeisance to Washington may be cited as one more proof, falling in line with a tradition of subservience of the Filipino oligarchy since the time of Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon to the first president of the 1946 Philippine Republic Manuel Roxas up to Presidents Ramon Magsaysay (sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency) and Diosdado Macapagal (Arroyo's father) to the notorious Marcos dictatorship and its unconscionable successors. No wonder both John McCain and Barack Obama parroted worn-out clichés about "Asia's first democracy," the Philippines as a faithful client regime during the Cold War and the current crusade against terrorists personified by politically informed combatants of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the New People's Army.

Subaltern Medicancy Forever

Winding down as a tiresome fiasco and farcical boondoggle, Arroyo's road show to the Empire's heartland this June may have been cursed by the sinking of the Philippine ferry MV Princess of the Stars and the ravages of the deadly typhoon Frank. Thousands of victims and their families await her sycophantic pilgrimage with cries of help and anger. After wasting at least $1.5 million of public funds and getting a promised aid of $100,000 from State Dept. bureaucrat John Negroponte, infamous for organizing mass carnage in Central America, the Arroyo entourage is returning a the feckless attempt at fanfare. One episode of de facto president Arroyo's visit strikes this writer as particularly telling. George W. Bush surpassed his father's "I-love-your-democracy" apologia for the despot Marcos when he praised "the great talent" of "Philippine-Americans" whenever he dines at the White House – a nod to Filipina chef Chris Comerford. Arroyo's pathetic "thank you" sums up over a century of gruesomely asymmetrical "U.S.-Philippines" relations so beloved by U.S. experts on the Philippines and their Filipino acolytes. Sadly hilarious but also infuriating to those out in Manila streets demonstrating against the brutality and injustice of Arroyo-U.S. neoliberal privatization program.

Meanwhile, we learn that on June 17, retired Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba (not one of Bush's talented 'Philippine Americans"), in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, accused Bush and his henchmen of committing war crimes by authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Taguba headed the committee that investigated the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Subsequent inquiries by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other groups have revealed the scale and depth of the current administration's violation of the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights and the Geneva Convention on the treatment of what the U.S. calls "unlawful" enemy combatants, otherwise considered political prisoners.

Arroyo's trip was ostensibly made to lobby for the passage of the Veterans Equity Bill – Senate Bill No. 1315, approved by the Senate but pending at the House. This bill would set aside $350 million (out of $1 billion) for ten years to pay for the basic needs of thousands of Filipino veterans of World War II, most of whom are now dead, who were denied their rightful veterans' back pay. Without Arroyo's help, local organizers (such as the National Federation of Filipino American Associations) have mobilized enough support for the passage of the bill in the Senate. So Arroyo's opportunistic appearance in Washington is clearly intended to prop up her severely damaged image after Senator Barbara Boxer, chair of the U.S. Senate sub-committee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and several congressmen chided her last year for her intolerable record of flagrant human-rights violations.

Just as Arroyo's early trip in August 2005 was besieged with indignant protests, likewise her visit last week was met with numerous "lightning" demonstrations by outraged Filipino-Americans decrying her insensitivity to the plight of thousands of disaster victims, and the millions suffering from the rice shortage, fuel crisis, and unemployment brought about by the short-sighted neoliberal policies of the regime. With over half of 90 million citizens subsisting on $2 a day, the Philippines exports daily 3,000 contract workers to 186 countries around the world, getting in return $10 to $12 billon in overseas remittances, enough to pay the heavy foreign debt. In 2007 the U.S. Congress allocated $30 million of citizens' tax dollars for the beleaguered AFP on condition that Arroyo implements Alston's recommendations, a condition still unfulfilled in deeds up to now. The aid rocketed by 1,111 percent when Bush declared the Philippines the "second front" in his war after 9/11 (IBON Media Release, 21 Sept 2006). Between 2000 and 2003, U.S. loans and grants to Arroyo increased by 1,176 percent, primarily funding for counter-terrorist schemes in addition to USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) spending for livelihood projects and infrastructure – activities that camouflage intelligence or special police operations in communities sheltering NPA (New People's Army) or MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front) partisans.

Pentagon to the Rescue

Less to pacify Arroyo's entourage and more to threaten Myanmar's junta, China, North Korea, and other recalcitrants – Al Qaeda supporters – in the Asia-Pacific region, Bush ordered the deployment of the strike group led by the nuclear-armed carrier USS Ronald Reagan to the Philippines. The alleged task of this armada of aircraft carrier, cruiser, three destroyers, and a frigate is to assist in the rescue of the survivors of the capsized MV Princess of the Stars, now being attended to by the Philippine Coast Guard. This may be the first time in military history that a nuclear-powered carrier has been assigned to perform distribution of relief goods in a situation far smaller in scope than the cyclone disaster in Myanmar or the earthquake destruction in China. But again, it's a war against those unruly subjects, impoverished peasants and workers, including the Moros and the Filipino communists, that justifies this illegitimate intrusion.

Sen. Rodolfo Biazon questioned the utility of an aircraft carrier of that size (with 6,000 crew and numerous F-18 airplanes) designed mainly for combat and rescue of distressed airplanes. As of this writing, the USS Ronald Reagan was moored near the coast of northwest Panay, clearly within Philippine territorial boundary (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 28 June 2008). In addition, the U.S. Embassy revealed that the USNS Stockham and U.S. Navy P-3 planes are on standby to provide maritime surveillance and other security needs (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 26 June 2008). This substantiates once more public suspicions of the sustained complicity of the US with the AFP campaigns against Moro insurgents, in particular the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – including the notorious bandit-group with ties to local military and politicians, the Abu Sayyaf – and the Communist Party-led NPA guerrillas active in Panay and Negros, the two islands that suffered the most from the typhoon Frank. This intrusion of the USS Ronald Reagan is an outright violation of the Philippine Constitution and bilateral treaties with the U.S.

A local group, Pamalakaya, accused Arroyo of committing an impeachable crime: the Philippine Constitution expressly prohibits the entry of nuclear weapons into the country. While Arroyo's spokesmen claimed that the USS Ronald Reagan is only "nuclear-powered," the US Embassy is silent on the presence of nuclear weapons in the possession of the task force group. Fernando Hicap, Pamalakaya's chair, charged that the presence of the U.S. naval group is intended not only "to warn and provoke the local armed resistance groups [NPA, MILF] but also to score a psywar victory against China and North Korea that Washington is capable of shifting and redeploying US troops at any given situation or time" (GMANews.tv, 26 June 2008). At present, the US stations over 100,000 troops in Asia and the Pacific under its Pacific Command, with 80,000 troops based in Japan and Korea, and several hundreds at any one time in the Philippines.

Terms of Mutual Endearment?

How did this happen? The peculiarity of the presence of U.S. combat troops in the Philippines may be explained by the leech-like stranglehold of the U.S. on the Filipino ruling class and its military/paramilitary establishment. A series of unequal bilateral treaties sealed this toxic partnership. Obama correctly pointed to the 1954 Manila Pact that "formed a cornerstone of U.S policy in Southeast Asia during the Cold War." But that was only the beginning.

The real key to U.S. control may be found in the Military Bases Agreement of March 14 and March 21, 1947 between the two governments. The first allowed the U.S. extensive military facilities in the Philippines for 99 years, chief of which were Clark Air Base (130,000 acres) and Subic Naval Base which housed nuclear-armed submarines for decades until both were scrapped in 1992. Thereafter 14,000 U.S. troops left the Philippines. This agreement prohibited the Philippines from granting base rights to any other country. It put no restrictions on the use of the bases or on the types of weapons the U.S. could store or deploy in them. Despite minor amendments, this agreement allowed the US to use the bases as springboards for unlimited U.S. intervention in Asia, such as the aggression in Korea, Vietnam, and lately Afghanistan and Iraq (see Civil Liberties Union, A Question of National Security, Manila 1983). The second agreement allowed the US to provide military aid to the Philippines on the condition that a US. military advisory group be assigned to supervise the AFP and that Filipino military personnel be sent to the US for training. It also prohibited the Philippines from accepting military aid or advisers from any other nation without the consent of Washington. In the context of the campaign against the Huks, communist-led peasants fighting for land and justice at the time, the weapons and advisors supplied by Washington were used to suppress and kill Filipino "subversives" and preserve oppressive oligarchic rule, as well as subsidize the Marcos dictatorship and its repressive sequels. Under the framework of the RP-US Mutual Defense Treaty of 1951, the Joint RP-U.S. Military Advisory Group (JUSMAG) continues to this day to be one crucial agency in perpetuating the reactionary, anti-people orientation of the AFP and its cognate institutions, the state security personnel of every administration up to Arroyo (see the relevant documents conveniently catalogued in Daniel Schirmer and Stephen Shalom, The Philippines Reader, Boston, 1987, including details of military aid to Marcos). It may be added here that a JUSMAG/CIA functionary, Col. Nick Rowe, was slain by rebel forces on April 21, 1989, while allegedly shadowing "Cuban" advisors helping the NPA in South-Central Luzon.

Although the bases were shut down in 1992, the U.S. maintains its dominance through JUSMAG and the Philippines-U.S. Mutual Defense Board (established in 1958), which operates as a "new bilateral defense consultative mechanism" to oversee military cooperation between the two countries. These two mechanisms were reinforced by the Security Engagement Board (SEB) in 2006 designed to deal with nontraditional security threats such as terrorism, piracy, natural disasters (for example, the recent ferry sinking and typhoon), bird flu, and the like not falling under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty that calls for battling external security threats in either countries. This was supplemented by the Mutual Logistics and Support Agreement (MLSA) signed in November 2002.

Very few know the details of this notorious MLSA. Its salient provision is its mandating the Philippine government to supply all the logistical support and supplies needed by the Pentagon during its exercises and redeployment. Pretty much a bargain compared to the costly Clark and Subic bases of the good old days. Of course, the humanitarian services performed by the troops are only a pretext for the U.S. to interfere in local civil wars in the region, labeling them "international terrorism." This agreement with the client regime thus insures a virtually un-evictable presence of the U.S. military as police watchdog to promote and secure US economic and geopolitical interests – from profits in oil, energy, and mineral resources to safeguarding the Malacca Straits where 25 percent of all globally traded oil passes.

Immediately after 9/11, the U.S. Department of State promptly labeled the NPA as a terrorist organization so that Arroyo can call on U.S. troops to help her counterinsurgency campaign, even though the Philippine Constitution (Art. II, Sec. 3) prohibits foreign troops' involvement in internal security matters. Aside from infringing on Philippine sovereignty, the SEB allows the US (to quote IBON, 26 May 2006) "to maintain a prolonged military presence in the country which suits the U.S. military's current strategy of seeking temporary access to facilities in foreign countries that enable U.S. forces to conduct training and exercises" rather than spending for permanent physical bases. Moreover, the Philippines functions as an important link in the security chain of the U.S. in the Western Pacific. The SEB enhances the U.S.'s limited infrastructure for refueling and logistics needed in its operations in the Arabian Gulf and Western Pacific areas. Mindanao and Sulu islands have been considered strategic locations for monitoring developments in Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, etc. where there is a rising trend of "Islamic revivalism," of which the MILF is an instance.

There are also numerous clandestine partnerships allowed by executive "understandings" and philanthropic channels. But it is primarily the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) that legitimizes unrelenting U.S. intervention in the Philippines. Initiated by former president Fidel Ramos under the rubric of "Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement" drawn up by the Pentagon, the VFA was finally approved during the Estrada administration (Daniel B. Schirmer, Fidel Ramos: The Pentagon's Philippine Friend, 1992-1997, Cambridge, MA, 1997).

Made fully operational after Sept. 11, 2001, the VFA makes up for the loss of Subic and Clark in a much more efficient way. It allows the Pentagon to land anywhere in the country without entailing the cost of maintaining physical structures and insuring environmental safety. It also has no responsibility in whatever damage it can cause by its joint exercises with the host country. While the MLSA (renewed for another 5 years) permits the U.S. to use the Philippines as a launching pad for wars of aggression through the pre-positioning of war material in "virtual bases," the VFA allows the unhampered entry of U.S. troops for covert operations in the course of "Kapit-Bisig" war games and "Balikatan" joint exercises with its surrogate army, the AFP. Sara Flounders' sharp analysis of this new Pentagon concept of "Cooperative Security Locations" – 5,458 discrete military installations around the world – highlights its key features: facilities with rotational U.S. presence, containing prepositioned equipment, rapidly scalable and expandable, offering bilateral and regional training. One virtue is the overwhelming influence gained by the U.S. on smaller and developing nations, verified by former U.S. Pacific commander Admiral Thomas Fargo who explained in March 2003 that "relationships built through exercises and training are 'our biggest guarantor of access in time of need'" (Sara Flounders, "Expansion of U.S. Bases Spurs Philippine Resistance," International Action Center, 29 March 2008).

The virtually permanent presence of U.S. troops in the Philippines can be accounted for by the VFA, MSLA, and other instrumentalities enforced by a subservient government parasitic on U.S. military aid and political sponsorship. The Arroyo regime easily fits the bill. Because other countries in the region (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia; Myanmar has rebuffed U.S. humanitarian offers) cannot tolerate U.S. ships or troops stationed in its territory, the U.S. has no alternative but to support authoritarian rulers like Marcos and Arroyo if it wants to curb Al-Qaeda influence, check China's expansion, and project its military might in the Asia-Pacific geopolitical sphere. Surely, the splintered tiny Abu Sayyaf always used to rationalize U.S. troops in the Philippines is no threat to U.S. global hegemony. U.S. military basing in the Philippines can only be explained by the long-range global strategy of preserving U.S. superpower status by preventing the rise of competitors such as China (Herbert Docena, "In the Dragon's Lair," Foreign Policy in Focus, 26 February 2008).

Carnage and Mayhem All Around

Immediately after 9/11, the Pentagon announced that it would be sending 3,000 troops to the Philippines for joint operations against the Abu Sayyaf. Over 1,000 troops were eventually sent to participate in "Balikatan 2002" that took place in the combat areas of Basilan and Zamboanga where guerillas of the MILF were operating. This differed from previous exercises since it was now located in war zones, with soldiers using live ammunition, with no time constraints.

In July 2002, an International Solidarity Mission conducted a thorough fact-finding mission that led to three important conclusions: "1) American soldiers were directly involved in the raiding and shooting of an unarmed civilian in his house; 2) human rights abuses are continuing unabated under the Arroyo regime and are abetted by US military forces; and 3) the U.S. military support operations that displace and violate the rights of Moro people and other Filipinos, including women and children" (Solidarity Mission Statement, July 2002). Because of such incidents, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel accused the regime of "treason," turning the country into a deadly laboratory for the testing of the effectiveness of U.S. troops, tactics and weaponry against the so-called terrorists" (Ellen Nakashima, "Philippines Debates U.S. Combat Role against Rebels," Washington Post, 23 Feb. 2003).

Another involvement of U.S. troops in counterinsurgency plots may be cited here. In 2004, US troops made the University of Southeastern Mindanao as their temporary camp, an area claimed by the MILF as their territory. The U.S. in effect converted civilians into human shields, potential collateral damage, in the event of armed confrontation between known antagonists in the region. This was part of the annual "Balikatan" exercise, this time in Carmen, North Cotabato. The humanitarian medical missions, distribution of toys, and building of Gawad Kalinga homes all serve as cover for U.S. military intelligence-gathering and other tactical operations. In 2006, the "Balikatan" exercise from February to March was the biggest, involving 5,500 U.S. troops and 2,800 Filipinos. This took place in the hotly contested regions of Jolo, Maimbung, Patikul and Panamao, Sulu, and North Cotabato.

A recent incident reveals how deeply entangled the U.S. is in local counterinsurgency programs of the neocolonial state. In the town of Ipil, Sulu, last Feb. 4, the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) killed eight non-combatants (women and children), including a soldier on vacation. The widow of the slain soldier testified that she saw four U.S. soldiers in a Navy boat. Subsequently, General Ruben Rafael, commander of Philippine troops in Jolo, stated in an interview that "a U.S. military spy plane circling high above the seaside village provided the intelligence that led to the Feb. 4 assault" and that "the crew of the P-3 Orion turboprop, loaded with a sophisticated array of surveillance equipment pinpointed the village as a stronghold and arms depot for the radical Islamist Au Sayyaf movement" (Paul Watson, "U.S. Role in Philippine Raid Questioned," Los Angeles Times, 9 March 2008). This same P-3 Orion spy planes was mentioned by the US Embassy as ready to be used for the disaster relief in Panay and Negroes where the NPA guerillas are vigorously challenging AFP terrorism. U.S. embassy spokesperson Karen Schinnerer in Manila admitted that "an aerial reconnaissance vehicle" gathered intelligence over Sulu "at the request of Philippine forces."

Heavy saturation bombings in Barangays Buansa and Cagay, a camp of the MILF in Indanan, Sulu, were carried out for five hours on April 30. Early last year, U.S. troops participated in attacks on the Moro resistance fighters in this region. Witnesses of this latest genocidal foray attested to US-supplied "smart bombs" dropped by OV-10 airplanes, slaughtering many members of the 360 families who fled the area. Based on the research of Alexander Martin Remollino, U.S. troops in Sulu belong to the Joint Special Operations Task Force-Philippines that employs U.S. Special Forces, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations personnel "to conduct deliberate intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in very focused areas, and based on collection plans, to perform tasks to prepare the environment and obtain critical information requirements" (Bulatlat, 4-10 May 2008). In lay idiom, this means clearing the area of enemy forces by spying and utilizing all weapons and logistics necessary to "neutralize" hostile elements. Although the AFP claims that those attacks were aimed at the Abu Sayyaf and the Jemayah Islamiyah, an Indonesian-based group, the MILF has responded by declaring that the territory involved is theirs and that no other group is allowed to operate from within the premises.

What is happening in the southern Philippines is clearly a carefully designed war to occupy and sanitize a whole region rich in natural and human resources, as well as a potential strategic base for military adventures. The problem is that it is inhabited by Moros, aboriginal peoples, and other Filipinos resisting U.S. imperial conquest and oligarchic despotism. Prodded by the International Monitoring Team headed by Malaysia that helped enforce a ceasefire, the MILF and the Arroyo government were close to signing an agreement last February on wealth-sharing and ancestral domain. But the U.S.-Arroyo attacks have worsened the displacement of 75,000 Moro civilians – the loss of property, farmland, and livelihood, not to speak of innocent lives – and permitted more extra-judicial killings, illegal detentions, and torture of Moro dissenters and ordinary citizens (Sandra R. Leavitt, "Pressure Brings Continued Progress in Mindanao Peace Negotiations," Shigetsu Newsletter No. 912, 18 Feb. 2008).

Approaching the Endgame

What is the future for Arroyo's brutal authoritarian rule? Collaborating with the torture president in the White House and his deceptive "iron fist and hand of friendship" policy, Arroyo has dug herself a grave deeper than all her corruption and ruthless political maneuverings can. If U.S. troops succeed in building infrastructure – presumably better roads, schools, clinics, ports, which testifies to the failure of local governance – will that wipe out Moro separatists, local civilians who demand jobs, dignity, social services, and a measure of communal autonomy that are due them under Philippine laws and the UN Charter? A BBC reporter displayed her ignorance of the fraught history of U.S. colonial domination of the Philippines – its civic culture, social practices, and institutions – when she reduced the whole complex fabric into a question-begging dilemma: "If Philippine government bodies could manage their resources to shelter and assist their own people, maybe all those special forces [U.S. troops] could go home" ("U.S. Plays Quiet Role in the Philippines," 28 March 2008).

But how can this moribund state apparatus controlled by U.S.-loving oligarchs and their self-serving intelligentsia and bureaucrats manage to do that? The economic crisis gripping the country seems irresolvable by Arroyo's handouts and paltry rhetoric. The undefeatable MILF is withdrawing from peace talks with the Arroyo regime, just as the National Democratic Front or NDF (together with its "terrorist" affiliate, the NPA) has postponed negotiations unless the U.S.-decreed stigma of "terrorist" is repudiated and extra-judicial killings halted. Surely, 90 million Filipinos, with their long tradition of fierce insurrections, will not allow the shameless puppetry of the Arroyo regime, with her generals and kowtowing officials, to continue for another hundred years. As a UPI Asia Online forecast puts it, the decrepit Arroyo band-wagon faces "bigger, bolder insurgency" in the years to come, despite the super-power's "humanitarian" schemes and grotesque patronage. Posted by Bulatlat

E. San Juan, Jr. was recently a visiting professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. His recent books are In the Wake of Terror (Lexington Books) and US Imperialism and Revolution in the Philippines (Palgrave Macmillan). He will be a fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, in Spring 2009.

Lt. Gen. Pedro Ike Inserto, commanding general of the AFP Central Command, was referring to retired Army Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, who became controversial for instigating an all-out war against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA).

Hundreds of alleged extra-judicial killings and human rights abuses took place in areas where Palparan was assigned.

“Nothing came out with this Palparan solution. Look at him, he has long retired from the service yet he is still being hounded by allegations of human rights abuses,” Inserto said.

Inserto mentioned the “Palparan solution” several times in his talks with the 801st Infantry Brigade commander, Brig. Gen. Francis Lanuza, other military officials and five town mayors in the province, but he declined to elaborate what he meant to local journalists.

“You know about it,” was Inserto’s curt answer.

The Central Command chief, however, belied claims of human rights groups that Palparan had enjoyed the support of Malacañang and the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Inserto went to this town, the base of the Army’s 62nd Infantry Battalion under the command of Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, to assess the counterinsurgency campaign in Eastern Samar province.

Palparan served as the top Army officer in Eastern Visayas for eight months in 2005 and vowed to end the region’s insurgency problem.

According to the human rights group Katungod-Sinirangan Bisayas, 36 extra-judicial killings and 712 human rights abuses were committed during his stint. Palparan, however, denied any involvement in the allegations.

Palparan assumed command of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division based in Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija province on Sept. 1, 2005. His first stint in Central Luzon was in 1981 when he was executive officer of the 24th IB based in Pampanga province.

New generation of officers

According to Inserto, there is now a “new and young generation” of AFP officers headed by Armed Forces chief Gen. Alexander Yano, who do not condone any human rights abuses.

“We have realized that winning the battle is not through an armed struggle but winning the hearts and minds of people. The (military) operations that we have conducted were one of the reasons why up to now, the insurgency problem still persists in the country,” Inserto said.

He urged the military to closely cooperate with other sectors in society, like local government units, church leaders, journalists and the villagers in their battles against the CPP rebels.

“We have to work especially with the Church. When a priest says that you are ugly, though you look like Fernando Poe Jr., people will believe him,” Inserto said.

‘Benevolent Torturer’ tag

As early as 1981, Palparan earned the tag “Benevolent Torturer” for releasing activists after interrogation and torture.

In an approach never done by commanders before him, Palparan expanded the theater of war by deploying special operation teams (SOTs) in about 200 towns and cities where suspected CPP front organizations flourished. The military called these white areas.

The human rights group Karapatan said at least 71 summary executions, five massacres, 14 frustrated killings and 46 disappearances occurred in all of Central Luzon’s seven provinces from February 2001 to August 2006 during Palparan’s 11-month stint. With a report from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon

-- Richard Nixon, New York Times, May 2, 1970

Friday, June 13, 2008

Robert "Robby" Stamps, one of nine students wounded during the May 4, 1970 shootings at Kent State University, died in Tallahassee, Fla. Wednesday night, according to a fellow survivor.

Alan Canfora, also wounded that day, said Stamps, 57, was suffering from the effects of Lyme disease and had come down with pneumonia.  I spoke with him last month, in May," Canfora said Thursday night. "He sounded like he felt stronger than in the last year or two."
Canfora said Stamps always suspected he was bitten by a deer tick at Mohican State Forest in Ohio during a retreat for the May 4 Task Force, which he and Canfora helped found in 1975.
Taken to Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna following the shootings, Canfora said the first time he met Stamps was when the two shared a hospital room " Canfora sitting with a gunshot wound to his wrist and Stamps laying facedown with a hip wound.
Canfora said the last time Stamps attended May 4 events was at the invitation of KSU President Emeritus Carol Cartwright in 2000. He said Stamps was "talking about coming up and visiting Ohio" as late as last month.
Stamps graduated magna cum laude from KSU in 1972, later earning master's degrees in both sociology and journalism. However, he had trouble finding a job, and told the Record-Courier it was because of the notoriety he earned because of the events of May 4.
Stamps sued Cuyahoga Community College in February 1978, alleging the school gave him a verbal agreement for a counseling job, but later withdrew it because of his role in the shootings.
In an April 1980 interview with the Record-Courier from his new home in San Diego, he said he loved Northeastern Ohio but had to leave because he couldn't find a job. At the time, he was working as a counselor for a law firm specializing in immigrant affairs.
"Everyone thought I was going to organize the employees. There is still a lot of resentment toward me and the others (former wounded) in Ohio. Nobody knows who I am out here. It's really nice," he said at the time.
A Cleveland native, Stamps also was a published author and writer and ran a Web site called AuthorsWanted.com, which offered help to "aspiring and established authors with every aspect of the writing and publishing process." He also was a musician and wrote a song called "If Only You Were Mine."
"The first time I ever talked to Robby, he was very concerned about the other students" who were shot, Canfora said. "He was a beautiful guy."
Stamps is survived by his wife, Teresa Sumrall, Canfora said.

On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guard troops fired on a crowd of demonstrators and bystanders on the campus of Kent State University. Four Kent State students were killed and nine injured. For Dean Kahler, a twenty-year old Kent State undergraduate in 1970, that day in May would change his life forever, he was shot in the lower back and left paralyzed. Kahler is photographed outside his home in East Canton, Ohio. David Alan Foster | Daily Kent Stater

 

Kent State University May 4, 1970

Two years before the deadly Kent State shootings, state troopers opened fire on a student protest on the campus of South Carolina State College. Three people died, and 28 were wounded.

The incident, which became known as “the Orangeburg Massacre,” never pierced the nation’s collective memory of the 1960s, and academics and survivors say that one reason was shoddy, racially biased press coverage: those killed were black.

A student is loaded onto gurney next to the bonfire, after highway patrolmen opened fire into a crowd of protesters on the S.C. State College campus in Orangeburg, S.C. on 02-08-1968

The end of the world is nigh, and it's started in London (the beginning of the end). When you're there, and in its rougher boroughs or mingling in its underbelly, you can feel it.

Media coverage of London is hardly ever positive these days - it's all about gun crime, knife crime, 19 teenagers killed this year already, and hopelessness. Shots of high rises. The Ferrier Estate. Organic veg stalls for the rich. Tourists clogging up Leicester Square.

It's the perfect city for destruction. By that I don't mean it should be destroyed, or that it destroys you - what I mean is that if you like a challenge, and want to experience what life might be like when it all goes downhill, just go there. It's quite dark and hostile, but you can imagine yourself in an apocalyptic episode of Doctor Who. It's not going to get any better either.

There again, maybe it never was. Having read London: A Social History seemed to confirm that the city has always been overall an apocalyptic, dangerous, stinky, unpleasant mess.*

*unless you've got money, in which case it's fab!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Three charged over murder of Ben Kinsella

English-language media are reporting that more than a dozen people were killed in Tijuana over the weekend, and it appears that some of those victims were killed execution style and then lit on fire. That seems to be a pretty high body count to me as I jog my memory.  This story from 2006 was about six bodies being found in a two-day time period and seven bodies found in a two-day period just prior to to that. 

I'm not going to dwell too much on this latest story. I'll leave it to the reporters trying to sort out exactly how many bodies were found and what was done to them. Suffice to say that drug groups do this kind of thing and that after covering seven years of crazy murders that involved beheadings in Rosarito Beach and a guy who took a ride on his motorcycle with a corpse strapped to his back, nothing really amazes me much. Violence is symptomatic,  and here the deeper story has to do with the demand for drugs north of the border and Mexico's struggles to address social inequalities and corruption while creating a democracy that can stand up to these challenges. Scary headlines aside, the drug cartels could care less about the typical tourist going to Tijuana for "two for one" margaritas and donkey/zebra photos.

For more on the killings:

The San Diego Union-Tribune,   KPBS-San Diego,      The Los Angeles Times

this is in response to what i read. rdasia. june 2008. a healing fire. sokreaksa s. himm.

he  witnessed how the khmer rouge brutally murdered his family. including children ranging in age from 2 to 13. i wonder how years later these murderers will just simply admit they have no choice then. it was an order from the top brass. when their manner of execution showed no mercy and guilt.

i espouse peace in all things but I also struggle in accepting forgiveness is the only way of being everytime i hear and read stories like this.

why do men kill another?

i’ll never understand.

is putting an end to someone’s life

serving a higher plan?

they kill for food.

they kill for a dress.

they kill to get gain.

they kill to please.

they kill because of fear.

they kill because of jealousy.

they kill because of envy.

they kill because of ambition.

they kill because of faith.

life is precious.

but who decides?

whose lives to prolong or cause its demise?

are you the weaver of life?

I am beginning to feel so ashamed of England because of all these recent stabbings that have occurred, they seem so random and vicious and senseless, the case of Ben Kinsella brother to Eastenders star Brooke Kinsella,who was stabbed outside a bar in the early hours by teenagers!. The brutal killing of two French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, who were stabbed in total 242 times and burned to death, a teenager who was tied to a tree and forced to drink petrol and then set on fire!, and I could literally name countless more victims of these incredibly evil and pointless murders!.

I don't know which direction this country in going but the government really need to analyse the structure of its police force and legal system and until it does these killings will continue because there seems to be no guidelines or law to protect the innocent citizens of this country!.

I am stuck dumb each time the news reports another incident and can only feel saddened and ashamed of the place that I have lived all my life.

Quezon Gov. Dante Nantes said Sison, who was exposing illegal logging activities in their province, told him he had been receiving death threats in the past few weeks.

Speaking at the Usapang Daungan news forum in Quezon City, Nantes said the killing of Sison was triggered by his hard-line campaign against illegal logging and fishing.

He said authorities have already made a breakthrough in their investigation of the case.

“We have already a strong lead, and it’s just a matter of time before the brains and the killers will be arrested,” he said.

Meanwhile, police have arrested two suspected hit men following a manhunt for the killers of Sison in Sariaya, Quezon Wednesday night.

However, Senior Superintendent Fidel Posadas, Quezon police director, said investigators have yet to gather more evidence to link Simeon Esguerra Aguila, 23, of San Juan, Batangas, and Joselito Cabrera, 32, of Matina, Davao City, to Sison’s murder.

“As of now hindi pa namin sila pwedeng ituro na sangkot sa pagpatay kay Sison dahil illegal possession of firearms pa lang ang pwede naming ikaso laban sa kanila,” he told The STAR.

Posadas said Esguerra and Cabrera were arrested for possession of two unlicensed caliber .45 pistols.

Police will test the guns seized from them and match these with shells recovered from the site where Sison was ambushed, he added.

The guns are owned by their employer, a certain barangay chairman Aristeo Ilao who owns a farmland in Barangay Sampaloc 2, the suspects told police.

However, a reliable source said Cabrera’s paraffin test showed that he was positive for powder burns.

Gov’t told to probe killing

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on the government to thoroughly investigate the murder of Sison.

“We are deeply troubled by Bert Sison’s killing and implore the local authorities to investigate his death swiftly,” said Joel Simon, CPJ executive director.

“The Philippine government must do all it can to ensure that journalists will not be harmed for performing their duties. Our condolences go out to the Sison family.”

CPJ is investigating whether Sison’s murder is connected to his work as a journalist.

The CPJ said the Philippines ranks among the deadliest nations for journalists.

In its Global Campaign Against Impunity, CPJ has partnered with local press groups to raise awareness on the unresolved killings of dozens of journalists. – Perseus Echeminada, Arnell Ozaeta(PhilStar)