Drug war under fire at UN
GENEVA: Countries across the world put the Philippines on notice over its deadly drug war yesterday, demanding an end to extrajudicial killings by President Rodrigo Duterte’s security services.
Diplomats from all continents condemned the reported surge of deaths during so-called anti-drug operations, which have claimed thousands of lives since Mr Duterte took office last year. The Philippines was facing its regular review at the Geneva-based UN human rights council, where each country’s record is scrutinised every four years.
Yesterday’s session was especially “critical because of the sheer magnitude of the human rights calamity” since Mr Duterte’s inauguration, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
The meeting began with Filipino Senator Alan Cayetano, a Duterte ally, denouncing what he called a campaign by rights advocates and the media to distort perceptions of the government’s anti-drug effort. “There is no new wave of killings in the Philippines,” Sen Cayetano told the council. He said the government’s enemies were using “a political tactic” of manipulating figures on extrajudicial killings to undermine the fight against a scourge that has poisoned Filipino society.
Sen Cayetano also showed a video clip of Mr Duterte vowing to put “drug lords ... below [the] ground”, an unusual move at the UN council where governments do not typically publicise death threats by their heads of state.
Canada called on Manila to “end extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests and detention, torture and harassment”. Delegations from Australia, Brazil, France, Germany and Ghana, among others, made identical calls. China however offered support to the Filipino firebrand, declaring drugs “the public enemy of mankind”.
A group of roughly 50 pro-Duterte supporters braved a light rain outside the UN yesterday, hoisting placards proclaiming “Duterte is not a mass murderer”. Foreign governments and UN officials are free to criticise the president, protest organiser, Dexi Jimenez said, but added they need to understand “the war on drugs has gained [him] excellent ratings” in public opinion polls.
Mr Duterte’s election campaign promised to eradicate illegal drugs by killing tens of thousands of people. Since then, police have reported killing 2,692 people in antidrug operations. They say unspecified parties have murdered another 1,847 people in drug-related incidents, while 5,691 other violent deaths are under investigation.