Members of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas, along with a women’s group AMIHAN, on Friday flocked to the Commission on Human Rights and submitted its latest documentation of human rights violations against farmers.
“We are requesting CHR to conduct an urgent independent investigation on the escalating cases of peasant human rights violations. We also urge the CHR to probe the accountability and role played by outgoing Philippine National Police chief Major General Debold Sinas, the PNP-CIDG and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in these filing cases of violations,” chairperson Danilo Ramos said in a statement.
“We also appeal to the CHR to assist farmer victims of human rights violations in the filing of charges against perpetrators. We encourage the CHR to look into the non-stop killing of farmers who defend their land rights and assert for genuine agrarian reform,” he added.
The peasants’ group said it has documented at least 326 cases of farmers’ killings since July 2016 under the Duterte administration. Violations included extrajudicial killings, illegal arrest and detention, trumped-up charges, threats, harassment and intimidation incidents, the militarization of peasant communities, red-tagging, bombings, and militarization of peasant communities in the provinces, Ramos said.
He said there were also violations of land rights and socio-economic rights.
He said they believe that the NTF-ELCAC is also “complicit in these HRVs against farmers as cases highlight the dangers of red-tagging and the Anti-Terrorism Act.”
