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Bangsamoro people ask "fake president (Arroyo)," to resign amid alleged human rights abuses.
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By
Rexcel Sorza, IOL Correspondent
ILOILO
CITY, Philippines, September 21, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Thousands
of Filipinos rallied Wednesday, September 21, to commemorate the 33rd
anniversary of the declaration of martial law declared by
then-president Ferdinand Marcos, citing similarities between the
Marcos regime and current one of Gloria Arroyo.
While
not being an exception, Filipino Muslims had even more reason to
protest martial law.
Filipino
Muslims in Mindanao carried banners reading, "Never Again to
Martial Law!" and "Gloria Arroyo: Fake President,
Resign!" in Cotabato City's plaza Wednesday, as crowds of
Bangsamoro activists and martial law and human rights victims
commemorated what is popularly known as the "darkest years"
of post-Hispanic Philippines.
The
rally in Cotabato City, the seat of the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao, paralleled protest actions held in other key cities around
the country including Manila.
Stifling
Rights
"The
continuing and intensifying attacks in Moro communities that hide
under the pretext of pursuing terrorists in Moro communities"
show that the Arroyo administration "is no different" with
Marcos's iron-fisted dictatorial regime, said Amirah Ali Lidasan,
spokesperson of Suara Bangsamoro.
Lidasan
told IOL Wednesday that since Arroyo assumed the presidency in 2001,
she had "a direct hand in stifling the rights of the Moro people
by issuing memorandum legalizing warrant-less and indiscriminate
arrests against Moro men in Mindanao and Metro Manila as a consequence
of the terror tag against Moro people in general."
According
to IOL correspondent, Suara Bangsamoro (literally, Moro people's
voice) is a progressive organization that fights for the rights and
welfare of the Moro people.
Lidasan
said, "President Arroyo is brazenly stifling the rights of the
Moro people" and that Mindanao remains to be under martial rule.
"We
have a two-faced president, who, in her left hand offers a peace deal
to the Moro people and in her right hand orders her military to
intensify attacks
against the Moro people," she told IOL.
She
further scored the intervention of the United States in domestic
issues. She particularly "condemns the (Filipino) government
policy in allowing US troops and US war material to enter in Moro
communities and conduct military operations hiding under the
humanitarian missions in Sulu and Maguindanao [provinces]."
"Military
Peace"
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"Never again to martial law," Lidasan said.
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Lidasan
further asked, "What kind of peace has the government in store
for us, when day and night we hear helicopter hovering around our
homes in Cotabato City and that everyday, our Moro brethren in the
countryside are not secured in their homes because of the incessant
military operations in their area?"
She
added that the Bangsamoro community is "disappointed" with
the government's handling of the peace negotiation with the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front, pointing to the violations of the Armed
Forces of the Philippines of the cease-fire agreements, which in past
instances led to stalled talks and renewed fighting.
"While
the government boasts of opening formal talks with the MILF, it is
ordering the AFP to continue its military operations in MILF areas in
Maguindanao under
the pretext of pursuing Abu Sayyaf and Jeemayat Islamiya,"
said Lidasan, adding that as a result of the military operations in
Talayan, Maguindanao more than a thousand families have evacuated.
HR
Violations
Other
human rights groups think the same of Arroyo's regime.
"Although
unpronounced and undeclared – the terror and injustice reigning all
over the country is palpable," said migrants' group Migrante in a
statement sent to IOL Wednesday.
According
to rights group Karapatan, abuses under Arroyo resemble that of
Marcos's.
It
has documented 4,207 cases of human rights violations---murders,
frustrated murders, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests, unlawful
detention, indiscriminate firing and forcible evacuation---from
January 21, 2001 to June 30, 2005. Affected in these cases were
232,796 individuals, 24,299 families and 237 communities.
For
these and other abuses and on top of the alleged rigging of the 2004
elections where Arroyo won the presidential contest, Suara Bangsamoro,
Migrante and various organizations belonging to "Unite – Gloria
Step Down Movement" want Arroyo to resign.
An
International People's Tribunal, set up by progressive Filipino and
international organizations, has found Arroyo guilty of
"widespread" and "systematic" human rights
violations.
The
tribunal's judgment, handed out Friday, August 22, was reached after
jurors came up with a guilty verdict "on the charges of human
rights violations which also constitute as crimes against humanity, as
proven by ample testimonial and documentary evidence adduced during
the trial."
Estimates
by various human rights groups say that when Marcos put this Southeast
Asian state under martial rule, at least 60,000 had been killed,
100,000 injured in military operations, 11,000 tortured, over six
million displaced, 2.5 million permanently lost their homes, 70,000
arbitrarily detained for at least a year and almost 3,000 disappeared.
Marcos
was ousted in February 1986 after thousands of Filipinos massed up in
Manila's Edsa Avenue for four days, shielding a group of soldiers
which rebelled
against Marcos led by his defense secretary, now Senator Juan Ponce
Enrile, and the military's vice chief of staff, former president Fidel
Ramos.
