UN winds up probe on killings

A United Nations official ended his 10-day fact finding mission on extrajudicial killings in a dialogue with top officials of the Commission on Human Rights yesterday.

Philip Alston, special rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights, told reporters after the close-door meeting that he has compiled a comprehensive report from different parts of the country.

Alston has postponed a briefing on his initial findings scheduled for today until tomorrow, the UN’s Manila office said yesterday.

Alston confirmed that he already received a report of a fact-finding body tasked by President Arroyo to investigate the killings of journalists and militant leaders.

“I need to have to deepen my understanding of the issues surrounding the report,” he said.

Although he will submit his findings to the UNCHR, it will remain an independent report based on his assessment as a human rights expert, he added.

The military has labeled as “unfair” the report of the commission headed by retired Supreme Court justice Jose Melo on grounds that it failed to get both sides of the story on the extrajudicial killings.

Armed Forces Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. wrote Melo a seven-page letter to inform him that he disagreed with the Commission’s findings that most victims of extrajudicial killings were from the Left.

“How can it already be an undisputed fact at that point that the victims were almost entirely members of activist groups or were media personnel?” read the letter.

Esperon said activist groups refused to participate in the investigation because they don’t want to be caught flat-footed in their accusations.

The commission apparently failed to give credence to the official military report over the spate of killings, he added.

Esperon said official military records show that since 2000 up to the present, the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army has ordered more than 1,000 killings.

The commission was wrong in saying that the AFP has the capability to commit the extrajudicial killings, he added.

In its report – a copy of which was obtained by the AFP –the Melo Commission said that there is an undisputed fact that there have been extrajudicial killings and that the victims were most entirely members of activists groups or were media personnel, and that the AFP has the capability to commit such acts.

CHR Chairman Purificacion Quisumbing, who was also at the press briefing, said the commission has submitted its own report and assessment of the extrajudicial killing.

Among the issues raised is the limited resources and personnel of the CHR in investigating human rights-related cases, she added. – Perseus Echeminada, Jaime Laude, Edu Punay, Edith Regalado