Philippine army under fire oYer alleJed war crime after killinJ
3H,L,33,N(S - 0embers of the 3hilippine army have been accused of committing a war crime, after posing for a photo with the body of a suspected communist rebel fighter, who is also the daughter of a member of Congress.
Human Rights Watch HRW said in a statement yesterdday that posing with a person’s body for photographs was ³an outrage against the dignity of the individual´ and was prohibited under the laws of war. ³Committing outrages upon personal dignity is a war crime under the Rome Statute as it applies to dead persons under the µ(lements of Crimes’ of the ,nternational Criminal Court,´ said 3hil Robertson, HRW’s deputy Asia director.
³(vidently posed photographs of the body « are a cruel and unnecessary affront to that individual’s dignity and violate the laws of war.´
Robertson pointed out that there are similar provisions on the humane handling of dead bodies in the agreement on human rights signed between the 3hilippines and the National Democratic Front, the political-wing of the communist rebels.
The 3hilippine Army said that -evilyn Campos Cullamat was killed in a ³shootout´ in a village in Surigao del Sur, a province in the southern island of 0indanao.
The Cullamat family belongs to the 0anobo ethnic minority group, which has also been fighting for land rights in 0indanao.
The military identified the
-year-old – daughter of House of Representative member, (ufemia Cullamat – as a fighter of the New 3eople’s Army N3A , the armed wing of the Communist 3arty of the 3hilippines – now a designated ³terrorist group´ following the collapse of talks with the administration of 3resident Rodrigo Duterte.
Her mother earlier the military the killing.
³She is not a thing, she is not a trophy to be paraded for military propaganda. The photo was later deleted, condemned over but not before members of the press made copies and took screenshots of the image. Facebook pages belonging to the 3hilippine army and media personalities allied with the Duterte administration also published photographs showing the young woman’s body, drawing thousands of mostly supportive comments. On Wednesday, Delfin Loren]ana, the 3hilippine defence secretary, admitted in a television interview that what the soldiers had done ³was wrong´. ³, don’t approve of that action. They soldiers shouldn’t have done that,´ Loren]ana told the CNN Philippines TV network. (Al Jazeera)