More Blood Will Be in Esperon’s and GMA’s Hands – Satur

Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Satur C. Ocampo today expressed grave concern on Gen. Hermogenes Esperon’s statement that the next four months of his extended term as Armed Forces Chief of Staff will be bloody and that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo sanctions the bloody implementation of the counter-insurgency plan Bantay Laya 2.

Ocampo warned that “with Gen. Esperon’s extension and bragging to ‘fight the NPA all the way’, there is the danger of increased extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. More blood will be in Esperon’s, and consequently in Ms Arroyo’s hands.”

“The extension of Gen. Esperon’s term is anchored to Ms Arroyo’s obsession to defeat the New People’s Army by 2010, a goal deemed unlikely to be attained by an AFP assessment report leaked in November last year, and Gen. Esperon wants to make a significant contribution within the next four months,” Ocampo said.

“There was already a bloodbath in the past and we’re in for more bloodbath in the next four months,” says Ocampo, with Esperon’s aim to dismantle 17 of 87 guerilla fronts in the first quarter of 2008.

The Bayan Muna lawmaker assailed Ms Arroyo’s decision to pursue Oplan Bantay Laya, contrary to the recommendations of United Nations special rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston. He urged Ms Arroyo to carry out Alston’s recommendations.

In his report to the UN Human Rights Council, Alston recommended that “extrajudicial executions must be eliminated from counterinsurgency operations” and that “the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, the President must take concrete steps to put an end to those aspects of counterinsurgency operations which have led to the targeting and execution of many individuals working with civil society organizations.”

Alston pointed out that “the military’s counter-insurgency against the CPP/NPA/NDF increasingly focuses on dismantling civil society organizations that are purported to be CPP front groups.”

“Instead of complying with Prof. Alston’s recommendations, Ms Arroyo sanctions more bloody implementation of counterinsurgency plan Bantay Laya,” the militant lawmaker stressed.

Ocampo, together with progressive party-list lawmakers in the House is set to file a resolution opposing the extension of Gen. Esperon. #

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