KMP spokesman killed in Davao

DAVAO CITY – Two motorcycle-riding men gunned down the Southern Mindanao spokesman of the left-leaning Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) here yesterday morning.

Chief Superintendent Andres Caro II, regional police director, said the victim, Celso Pojas, 45, was buying something from a store across the KMP office on Ma-a Road in Sitio Bugac, Barangay Ma-a at around 6 a.m. yesterday when he was shot.

Caro said Pojas reportedly managed to run back to the KMP office where the gunmen pursued him and finished him off.

Pojas resided in Barangay Fatima Mandug, but at times stayed at the KMP office in Ma-a.

Caro said Task Force Pojas was immediately formed to speed up investigation into the killing.

Senior Superintendent Jaime Morente, city police chief, said investigators “are now out in the field to look into the case.”

Director Jefferson Soriano, chief of Task Force Usig, said they would take the case. “We consider this as our first case this year,” he said, referring to their probe of the killings of militants and journalists.

Former Bayan Muna Rep. Joel Virador told The STAR that Pojas’ killing was an “attack” on local militant groups, which have been actively helping the oppressed and those suffering from military atrocities in the region.

“It was a politically motivated incident and that is where the investigators should start in their probe,” he said.

Pojas, according to Virador, had been helping lumads, farmers and other residents in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental, who have been displaced by skirmishes between the military and New People’s Army rebels.

He said Pojas, as a KMP leader, was also one of those who had been helping the family of Bagobo-K’lata tribal chieftain Datu Dominador Diarog who was slain the other week when armed men fired at their house in Sitio Kahusayan, Barangay Manuel Guianga this city.

“We have been warned several times not to help the Diarog family and we still helped them and other displaced lumads fight for their rights,” Virador said.

He said Pojas was also among those who exposed big business interests in Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental, particularly in the local mining industry.

Karapatan-Southern Mindanao secretary-general Kelly Delgado blamed government forces for Pojas’ killing.

“The killing of Pojas is still part of the policy of the national government to silence legal organizations like the KMP,” Delgado said.

Delgado alleged that military officials have lately been targeting legal organizations such as the KMP, Karapatan and Bayan Muna accused of being legal fronts of the communist movement.

Virador said what happened to Pojas would not deter them from helping the poor and the oppressed.

“We are not afraid at all with what happened to Pojas. It will not weaken nor deter us from helping the victims of human rights abuses,” he said.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, local rights groups and Philip Alston, a United Nations envoy on extrajudicial killings, have all accused the military of targeting left-wing activists as part of a supposed campaign to wipe out communist rebels, who have been fighting a low-level insurgency for the past 40 years.

The military in the past has said some soldiers might have been involved but most of the killings were the result of internal fighting within the underground communist movement.

Earlier this year, President Arroyo said the number of unexplained killings was down 83 percent in 2007, with seven activists and journalists killed, compared to 41 in 2006.

Karapatan, a left-wing human rights group, said fewer activists were killed or abducted because of pressure from the international community. It said 68 activists were killed and 26 went missing last year. – With Cecille Suerte Felipe, AP