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| Southeast Asia |
| Big reform vital after massacre |
| 2009-12-04 |
| [Straits Times] INVESTIGATIONS into the death of 57 people in an election-related massacre in the Philippines must be the start of a major reform process in the country, two United Nations human rights experts said on Wednesday. The authorities must also put in place immediate measures to prevent similar murders in the run-up to elections next May, said the experts who report to the UN Human Rights Council on extrajudicial killings and on freedom of expression. 'The pre-meditated killing of political opponents, combined with a massive assault on the media, must be tackled at various levels that go well beyond standard murder investigations,' declared the two, Philip Alston and Frank La Rue. The massacre took place in the southern province of Maguindinao on Nov 23, in the country's deadliest-ever election-related crime. One thousand police officers were being pulled out of the area on Wednesday to pave the way for an impartial investigation, a spokesman said. Mr Alston and Mr La Rue said the inquiry 'must be followed by effective prosecutions of all those responsible for the killings.' But the massacre should also spark extensive reflection 'on the elite family-dominated manipulation of the political processes and the need to eliminate such practices in order to assure the future of democracy in the Philippines,' they added. Leading members of a local family, whom President Gloria Arroyo has in the past called valuable political allies, have had their movements restricted as state prosecutors rushed to file murder charges against them. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 "reform"??? How about, "find the killers and annihilate them"? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2009-12-04 19:28 |