‘Duterte’s bounty offer encourages war crimes’

MANILA, Philippines — An international rights organization said yesterday President Duterte’s offer of a bounty for killing communist rebels encourages war crimes such as shooting enemy fighters who have surrendered or are wounded, or civilians protected from attack.

“This is not the first time the President has made public statements that would encourage laws-of-war violations. He also told soldiers to shoot female rebels in their vaginas, eliciting public outcry,” Carlos Conde of the Human Rights Watch Asia Division said in a statement.

Last week, the President declared that he would pay members of indigenous communities P20,000 or $380 for each rebel they killed.

Duterte said he would train the lumad – the collective name for indigenous peoples in Mindanao – to be paramilitaries.

Duterte made the statement after the reported killing that week of a lumad leader in Surigao del Sur province by the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Duterte accused the NPA of victimizing the lumad, who have long suffered extreme poverty and government neglect that make them vulnerable to rebel recruitment.

In July, Conde said Duterte threatened to bomb lumad schools that allegedly harbored rebels while in March, he ordered state forces to “go ahead, flatten the hills” during counter-insurgency operations.

The group said Duterte’s pronouncements normalize the idea that government security forces can do as they wish to defeat their enemies—including committing summary executions and sexual violence.

“Such rhetoric is especially dangerous because the Philippines has a history of lumad community members being on both sides of the country’s many internal conflicts, as both fighters and victims. This includes joining paramilitaries and militias during the nearly half-century long Maoist insurgency and equally protracted Islamic separatist movements and local conflicts in the south,” Conde said.

Conde said, “Duterte needs to stop encouraging his troops to commit war crimes and instead promote measures to ensure that those responsible for abuses – including members of rebel groups and militias – are held accountable in accordance with international law.”

Respecting rights rather than offering bounties is the best way to help the lumad, Conde said.