Over 1,700 civilians killed or wounded in terror attacks in Philippines since 2000: Human Rights Watch

Clarita Gragasin, 61, traveled to the Koronadal market on May 10, 2003. She was sitting in a rickshaw tricycle when a bomb detonated about five meters from her. Shrapnel from the bomb killed her instantly. © 2006 John Sifton/Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch: Since January 2000, radical armed Islamist groups in the Philippines have carried out over 40 major bombings against civilians and civilian property, mostly in the south of the country. Attacks on Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo, and other southern islands have killed nearly 400 civilians and injured well over a thousand more. Bombs have been set off in urban centers, markets and stores, airports, on ferry boats and wharfs, and on rural roads and highways. They have killed Philippine civilians indiscriminately — Christians and Muslims, men and women, parents and children — and left behind orphans, widows, and widowers. Hundreds of other victims have suffered severe wounds, burns, and lost limbs.

In all, bombings and other attacks against civilians in the Philippines have caused over 1,700 casualties in the last seven years, more than the number of people killed and injured in bombing attacks during the same period in neighboring Indonesia (including the 2002 Bali bombings), and considerably more than the number of those killed and injured in bombings in Morocco, Spain, Turkey, or Britain. Read the Human Rights Report

Philippines: Extremist Groups Target Civilians

More Than 1,700 Killed and Injured in Bombings and Kidnappings

(New York, July 30, 2007) – Violent Islamist groups in the Philippines have killed or injured more than 1,700 people in bombings and other attacks since 2000, Human Rights Watch said in a new report and photo essay released today. The attacks, mostly in Mindanao, Basilan, Jolo, and other southern islands, have also included kidnappings, executions, and shootings.

The 28-page report, “Lives Destroyed: Attacks on Civilians in the Philippines,” contains personal accounts and photographs of bombing sites and of victims of attacks and their relatives. It describes how attacks have killed children, parents, husbands, and wives, and caused terrible suffering among wounded survivors and relatives. The Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) and the Rajah Solaiman Movement (RSM), based in the southern Philippines, are implicated in or have claimed responsibility for many of the attacks.

“Extremist armed groups have spread terror among civilians in the Philippines,” said John Sifton, senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch. “They have bombed buses carrying workers, food markets where people were shopping, airports where relatives were waiting for loved ones, and ferry boats carrying families.”

The casualties since 2000 amount to more than the number of people killed and injured in bombing attacks during the same period in neighboring Indonesia (including the 2002 Bali bombings), and considerably more than the number of those killed and injured in bombings in Morocco, Spain, Turkey, or the United Kingdom. The scale of the violence, however, has not received widespread attention outside the region.

Human Rights Watch faulted the Philippines government for not prosecuting those responsible for attacks. Although numerous suspects in bombing attacks have been arrested since 2000, Human Rights Watch said that very few have been successfully brought to trial, and prosecutions in some cases have been delayed for more than four years.

Human Rights Watch has criticized the recent passage of a new counterterrorism law, “The Human Security Act,” (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/07/16/philip16404.htm) which contains dangerous overbroad provisions that violate human rights standards and broaden the scope of government power to hold terrorism suspects indefinitely. Human Rights Watch said that existing criminal statutes were more than sufficient to prosecute acts of terrorism.

“The Philippines doesn’t need a new abusive counterterrorism law,” said Sifton. “The government isn’t using the laws it already has, so why does it need new provisions that violate human rights?”

The Human Rights Watch report provides compelling new information about many of the attacks that have occurred in recent years. For instance, it contains interviews with survivors of the February 27, 2004 bombing of the Superferry 14, a ferry traveling from Manila to Mindanao. The bomb, which detonated just outside of Manila harbor, killed at least 116 people. The dead included 15 children, six of whom were under five years old. At least 12 families lost multiple members, and at least 10 married couples died together. Six of the children killed in the blast were students on a championship team sent by schools in northern Mindanao to compete in a journalism contest in Manila.

The report also details the February 14, 2005 “Valentine’s Day” bombings of Manila and two cities in Mindanao. Human Rights Watch interviewed Mark Gil Bigbig, a 31-year-old student, who was eating at a fast-food restaurant in General Santos City when a bomb went off outside: “We were surprised . . . people were shouting, ‘It’s a bomb!’ I looked down, and already I could see my blood splashing below me, and I dropped to the ground.” Bigbig suffered major trauma to his legs from shrapnel and broken glass, and today, more than two years after the attack, cannot walk without braces and crutches.

The report explains how survivors with minimal physical injuries have suffered. For instance, Aurelia Espera, a victim of a 2003 attack, tearfully told Human Rights Watch about seeing the bodies of her two children, one of them decapitated, and her mother-in-law: “I can never forget, I saw my children lying there in the street.”