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Posted: May 21, 2006 |
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UPDATES
ON THE SURVEILLANCE AND THREATS TO CORDILLERA POLITICAL ACTIVISTS |
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| ACTION ALERT & UPDATES: Continuing harrassment and surveillance of CPA staff Justice for Rafael Markus Bangit! Justice to all victims of state terrorism APRIL 2006 Updates on the surveillance and threats to Cordillera political activists |
May 18, 2006 Updates
on the surveillance and threats to Cordillera political activists In recent weeks, APIT TAKO (Alyansa dagiti Pesante iti Taeng Kordilera or Peasant Alliance in the Cordillera Homeland) leader Virgilio Aniceto has been tailed by three men, one boarding the jeepney with him everytime he heads home, and two following the jeepney on a motorcycle, also of the racer type which Doton’s killers rode. In Aniceto’s home barrio, Ucab, at least two other men have been asking residents about the pastor’s movements, as if trying to establish his routine. But there is no real pattern to Aniceto’s movements, and his neighbors have, anyway, refused to answer all questions regarding his comings and goings. On 10 May, two of the aforementioned men accosted and tried to forcibly restrain a seven-year old girl in Ucab Proper, in order to interrogate her about Aniceto and her father. But the child bit the hand that was tightly gripping her forearm, broke free, and ran to report the incident to her elders. She said the men had shown her a picture of her father and “Uncle Vergel”, and that the word “WANTED” had been written under the picture, in marker ink. She also said that this was the third time the men had accosted and unsuccessfully tried to question her on the whereabouts of her father and her uncle. But it was the first time they had tried to restrain her. The little girl is the daughter of Fernando Mangili, Secretary-General of APIT TAKO, who is also the First Vice-Chair of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance. It can be recalled that his name, along with that of APIT TAKO Chair Julian Gayumba, appeared on a death squad hitlist that the CPA got hold of in February and exposed to the public. The others identified in the said hitlist are Joan Carling, CPA chairperson; Windel Bolinget, CPA secretary general; Manuel Loste, Bayan Muna-Cordillera Coordinator; Jose Cawiding, Bayan Muna-Cordillera member, and Xavier Akien, secretary general of the Mankayan-Quirino-Tadian-Cervantes Danggayan a Gunglo (MAQUITACDG). Immediately upon learning of the hitlist, the APIT TAKO secretariat made arrangements for Mangili and Gayumba to continue their work in other provinces in the Cordillera, not knowing that the safety of another APIT TAKO leader, Aniceto, also needed to be secured. Since that time, suspicious-looking characters have been seen prowling around Ucab Proper, a tightly-knit neighborhood where almost all the residents are related to one another either by consanguinity or affinity, and thus a place where strangers and strange doings easily stand out. With Mangili’s disappearance from the neighborhood, the strangers seem to have focused on Aniceto. Aniceto and Mangili both figured prominently in the struggle that the people of Ucab and several other, surrounding communities successfully waged in the early 1990s to defend their ancestral villages against the expansion of open-pit mining within the municipality of Itogon. Both were also among the leaders of the Itogon people’s more recent and less successful effort to save their communities’ ancestral domains from the impact of the San Roque Dam. Both are now playing key educational roles in the ongoing CPA campaign to prevent the implementation of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s plan to have transnational giants in the mining industry seize control of gold-rich lands throughout the Northern Luzon Cordillera. Local peasant and labor leaders, and UCCP pastors identified with Bayan Muna, have been the preferred targets of political assassination squads implementing the Arroyo regime’s Oplan Bantay Laya (Operational Plan for Guarding Freedom). And these targets’ homes and neighborhoods have been their preferred assassination sites. We know that the killings are aimed at depriving us of leaders – and particularly of spokespeople – valuable to the campaigns we have been waging in advancement of the national and democratic interests of the Filipino people. We know that the strategy of targeting local leaders and situating the killings in or near these leaders’ homes is meant to drive fear into the hearts of the communities that are our national democratic movement’s mass base. We are exerting our efforts to deny the assassins their targets. But at the same time, we must persist in our campaigns as we urge you to assist in both. We then call on our friends, partners, associates and peace-loving citizens to denounce the continued surveillance, harassment and threats on the lives of Cordillera activists. Let us resist the worsening political repression in the Philippines. We appeal for support in exerting pressure on the Philippine military and the Arroyo regime to stop political killings and respect human rights. In this light, we ask you to include your signatures in the SIGN ON LETTER in our main page and send out to addresses indicated.
apittako@mozcom.com Write Letters of Concern and Protest to the following and kindly CC a copy of your letter to the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (cpa@cpaphils.org, pic@cpaphils.org) Her Excellency Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Tel: +632-564-1451 to 80; +632-736-1010 Hon. Avelino J Cruz, Jr Tel: +632-911-0488; +632-911-1746 Hon. Purificacion C. Valera
Quisumbing +632-928-5655; +632- 926-6188/
+632-929-0102 Hon. Jannette Cansing Serrano Tel: +632-373-96-33; +632-373-9787 |