‘Great job’: Trump hails Philippine leader for drug war
Human rights groups condemn body count from crackdown
President Trump congratulated Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in a recent phone call for a “great job” in his crackdown on drugs, which human rights groups and the United Nations have condemned as a vigilantestyle campaign that has left thousands of suspected drug dealers and users dead.
The exchange is in a leaked transcript of a conversation April 29 between the two leaders published by The Washington Post.
“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump says, according to the transcript. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing, and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
Duterte, who has boasted about personally shooting and killing at least three crime suspects, replied, “Thank you, Mr. President, this is the scourge of my nation now, and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.”
“I understand that and fully understand that,” Trump responded, “and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that.”
Trump’s predecessor, President Obama, canceled a meeting with Duterte in September after the Philippine leader referred to him as a “son of a whore” for accusing Duterte of human rights abuses.
The Philippine Star reported that the American office of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs made the transcript and warned recipients not to disclose its contents. The document — marked “very urgent and confidential” — began circulating Wednesday.
Duterte took office June 30. By Jan. 20, his war on drugs had resulted in the deaths of more than 7,000 suspected drug dealers and users, according to human rights groups.
Investigations by the news media and rights groups found that many were killed by police or police agents. Human Rights Watch charged that Duterte has given his police a “license to kill.”
In December, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein condemned Duterte’s “dead or alive” policy, saying, “Children as young as 5 years old have been the innocent victims of this appalling epidemic of extra-judicial killings.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and two Democratic senators — Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Christopher Coons of Delaware — said in a letter to the U.S. State Department last year that the anti-drug push in the Philippines “appears to be a campaign of mass atrocities thinly disguised as a response to a public health emergency,” The New York Times reported.
Duterte has shrugged off such criticism, saying, “For as long as there are drug lords, this campaign will go on until the last day of my term and until all of them are killed.”
In the phone conversation, Trump sought Duterte’s opinion of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and told him the United States had two nuclear submarines “over there.”
Regarding the young North Korean leader, Trump asked Duterte, “Are we dealing with someone who’s stable or not stable?”
Duterte replied that “he is not stable” and has “a dangerous toy in his hands which could create so much agony and suffering for all mankind.”
Trump noted that “all his rockets are crashing.”
Trump said the United States has a lot of power in the area. “We have a lot of firepower over there,” he said. “We have two submarines — the best in the world. We have two nuclear submarines — not that we want to use them at all.”
“I’ve never seen anything like they are,” Trump continued, “but we don’t have to use this, but he could be crazy, so we will see what happens.”