Group assails increase in human rights abuses

The number of human rights violations has been rising, as the observance of the International Human Rights Day on December 10 draws near, declared a human rights advocacy group yesterday.

Karapatan-Central Visayas chairman Dennis Abarrintos said a total of 142 members of various cause-oriented groups were already killed, and most of these killings he said have been attributed to attacks by the military.

"The killings that happen now are worse than the killings during the Martial Law years. State terrorism is also getting worse. Human rights workers, non-government organization members and even ordinary citizens are made targets," Abarrintos said.

Abarrintos feared that the killings and human rights abuses would escalate further until the observance of the International Human Rights Day and after when more human rights advocates would come out, exposing them to possible attacks.

Abarrintos said the killings and abuses against members of progressive organizations used to happen only in areas the military deemed as critical due to the presence of suspected rebels. Now, these are happening in Central Visayas, specifically in Cebu, he said.

In the recent "massacre" of nine farmers and wounding of several others in Palo, Leyte and the shooting of a female Karapatan member in Tuburan Thursday afternoon, the suspected perpetrators are members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, said Abarrintos.

He said there were witnesses in Leyte who could attest that the victims were farmers and not members of the New People's Army, as claimed by the military.

In the case of the wounding of Emmylou Cruz in the Tuburan shooting, Karapatan have so far insisted that the assailants were military men, and that a fact-finding mission has been conducted in the area to identify the plainclothes soldiers who attacked Emmylou and her husband.

"The military are targeting unarmed civilians who could not fight back at them," Abarrintos said. - Wenna A. Berondo