Satur Slams Arroyo for Killing of Davao Peasant Leader
House Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Satur C. Ocampo today condemned the killing of an official of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas on Thursday in Davao City and blamed it on President Macapagal-Arroyo’s order to carry on counter-insurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya 2 that includes extra-judicial killings.
The KMP identified the victim as Celso Pojas, 40, spokesman of the KMP-Davao Chapter, who was shot dead at around 6:30 a.m. Initial investigation showed two men aboard a motorcycle shot Pojas while he was buying cigarettes at a store near the KMP office.
Pojas sustained three gunshot wounds to his body and forearm. Police said that a 45-cal. pistol was used to gun down Pojas.
“This is the first case of the killing of a militant leader under the watch of new Armed Forces chief of staff Lt. Gen. Alexander Yano,” Ocampo said.
“Is the killing of Pojas what Gen. Yano meant in his inaugural speech ‘to carry on the sustained momentum’ by his predecessor to put an end to the insurgency? Gen. Yano is only continuing the implementation of internal security plan Bantay Laya 2 that includes extrajudicial killings of activists,” Ocampo said.
In his report last December, United Nations Special Rapporteur Prof. Philip Alston recommended that “extrajudicial executions must be eliminated in the government’s counter-insurgency program.”
Ocampo said that “this latest attack against leaders of the progressive movement evidently shows the continuing impunity for extrajudicial killings and human rights violations in the country.”
He said “the climate of impunity remains and bolstered by a top level cover up by the Arroyo government and the military.”
The Bayan Muna lawmaker said they will include the killing of Pojas in the current investigations by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Civil, Political, and Human Rights on cases of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and other human rights violations. (pinoypress.net)
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