WCC condemns killings

9/05/2006 01:40:00 AM

The World Council of Churches released a statement condemning the extra-judicial killings in the Philippines, and called on the "Philippine Government to hold accountable any members of the military found to be involved in extrajudicial killings, instruct the military to cease listing churches and church workers as "enemies of the state", and reverse the national security policy of making no distinction between combatants and non-combatants within the current counter-insurgency campaign."

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    Democracy, according to the late Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, is "a question of human dignity, [a]nd human dignity is political freedom, the right to freely express opinion and the right to be allowed to criticise and form opinions."

    But exercising political freedom in the Philippines, which purports itself to be a democracy, can lead to death. Since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo assumed the presidency of the country in 2001, more than 800 Filipinos murdered in politically-motivated, extra-judicial, targeted killings. Since the 4th quarter of July 2005, one person has been killed every two days. The victims of these brazen acts of violence were all unarmed citizens: lawyers, judges, journalists, medical practitioners, members of cause-oriented groups, priests, church-workers, human rights advocates, laborers and farmers.

    It is widely believed—and the United Nations support this belief—that state security forces are complicit in these crimes.