Callamard

It’s 2018 but UN Rapporteur Agnes Callamard has not gotten over her cantankerous attitude against President Rodrigo Duterte and her notion that drugs, crime and terrorism are not that bad in the Philippines and therefore an all-out war against these evils is unnecessary and, in her judgment, a crime. She went into sepulchral silence when President Donald Trump declared the menace of drugs in the US of A a national emergency which prompted him to declare an all-out war against illegal drugs.

Callamard suddenly has resurrected. This time she blabbers around with two alleged Filipino rapporteurs he identified as Victoria Corpuz and Cecilia Damary. The duo were identified by Callamard as human rights rapporteurs. Suddenly rapporteurs become dime a dozen. They emerged following the announcement of President Duterte declaring the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed elements, the New People’s Army (NPA) as terrorists. Coming close to the heels of that announcement, the President extended martial law in Mindanao.

Again Agnes Callamard should know that the US and the European Union had long declared CPP/NPA as terror organizations. She should credit her pet peeve for bending too far back to win the CPP/NPA/NDF to the folds law by giving them vital positions in the government. But there was no end to the demand. In fact what they wanted was to divide the Philippine territory like a piece of cake, a matter which Duterte outrightly rejected. This is about the Philippines and Duterte against threats of terrorists.

The US has a different language and courses of actions which are characteristic of their primal hubris. Callamard has an overdose of that. They deal with threats and perceived enemies dIfferently and classic examples of these are exemplified in the way they dealt with Iraq and Libya. They simply declared that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction while Libya which had long been under a one man rule was faulted Khadaffy with human rights violations and violence. Then the carpet bombings with no regard for the lives of the innocent. These countries never recovered from the shambles and the canards.

Yes it’s all about alleged human rights abuses as defined by the West, the mass slaughter that the West does not fall under that definition. Callamard and her ilk are forward agents of dubious and diabolical propaganda and sadly we have compatriots who succumb the lure and the machinations that she peddles.

The United Nations should have sanctioned or outrightly dismissed Agnes Callamard for acting like she is her own UNCHR institution in an institution. She rejects formal invitation from a sovereign leader to discuss issues about human rights violations but surreptitiously sneaked into the country only to listen to a cabal of anti-Duterte personalities who hated the man for making their life miserable.

When one considers this braggadocio and manic interference on how the President addresses crime syndicates and threats of terrorism a slap in the face and not just a tender rap on the knuckles could just be the right thing to do to bring a disdainful intruder to her or his senses.--

from SunStar Davao