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<a href="http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=2&story_id=54589" eudora="autourl">
http://news.inq7.net/breaking/index.php?index=2&story_id=54589<br><br>
</a>Labor leader's murder latest in string of political killings<br>
First posted 05:43pm (Mla time) Oct 26, 2005 <br>
By <br>
Agence France-Presse <br><br>
THE MURDER of a prominent labor leader is the latest in a series of high
profile killings of left-wing activists which human rights advocates and
legislators charge is part of a military-backed campaign. <br><br>
Ricardo Ramos, head of the labor union at the centre of a bitter dispute
at the Hacienda Luisita sugar mill owned by the family of former
president Corazon Aquino, was shot twice by an unknown man while drinking
with friends in his backyard in Tarlac City, north of Manila on Tuesday
night.<br><br>
Meanwhile Francisco Rivera, an activist with the left-wing Bayan Muna
(Nation First) party, and two close friends were gunned down by a group
of armed men while jogging near his home in Angeles City north of Manila
early Wednesday morning.<br><br>
In September Diosdado Fortuna, the Nestle union president and chairman of
the regional branch of Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First Movement), was
murdered.<br><br>
Fortuna had been at the center of a three-year campaign against the
multi-national Swiss-based food company for better pay and
conditions.<br><br>
According to the Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights, a
Manila-based human rights group, there have been more than 116 political
murders in the Philippines this year, all of them still
unsolved.<br><br>
"Of that number 47 were political activists and 69 civilians
suspected of being supporters of the legal political left such as Bayan
Muna or the illegal left ... Communist Party or its military wing the New
People's Army," alliance spokeswoman Ruth Cervantes told Agence
France-Presse.<br><br>
"The alarming pattern of killings and disappearances in this country
is part of a policy of state repression aimed at silencing government
critics and quelling dissent. It is the sign of a paranoid
government."<br><br>
The deputy secretary general of Bayan Muna, Roberto de Castro, told
Agence France-Presse: "These killings have to stop. So far this year
14 Bayan Muna party officials have been murdered ... 61 since President
Gloria Arroyo came to power in 2001.<br><br>
"It is clear that this is a systematic attack not only on Bayan Muna
but on all progressive people's movements here in the Philippines by
right-wing elements within the government and military."<br><br>
Bayan Muna legislator Joel Virador was more direct, saying the recent
spate of killings, all in the Central Luzon region, "is unmistakably
the handiwork of Major General Jovito Palparan."<br><br>
Palparan has been reassigned twice after human rights advocates, local
officials and lawmakers accused him of grave human rights atrocities. He
was assigned to Central Luzon in September.<br><br>
He was bypassed by for promotion earlier this year after opposition from
the leftist legislators.<br><br>
Military spokesman Brigadier General Jose Honrado recently said Palparan
"unconditionally respects human rights and abhors torture and ill
treatment of suspects in custody."<br><br>
According to a recent report in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, during his
stint as commander of the army's 204th infantry brigade in Oriental
Mindoro from 2001 to 2004, "Palparan was accused of 326 cases of
human rights violations including about 80 killings."<br><br>
The newspaper said similar allegations were leveled at Palparan when he
was military commander in Samar.<br><br>
From February to May this year, human rights groups accused him of 199
cases of killing, disappearances, harassment, torture, arbitrary arrest
and detention of civilians and rights advocates before being transferred
again, the paper added.<br><br>
Virador said: "summary executions and other human rights violations
have occurred in areas where Palparan has been deployed. The trend is too
obvious to simply dismiss as coincidence."<br><br>
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