Controversial Philippine president-elect Duterte vents anger at UN

MANILA: Controversial Philippine president- elect Rodrigo Duterte has launched a profanity-laced tirade against the United Nations while criticising it for being too weak to fix problems in the Middle East and Africa.

In a seemingly unprovoked attack on the UN at a Thursday night press conference, Duterte vented his anger in response to a question about foreign media groups that were critical of him.

“That’s the trouble here, they’re always raising fears about this or that United Nations convention,” Duterte said, even though the journalists’ criticism had not been linked to UN protocols.

“You can’t even solve the Middle East carnage... couldn’t even lift a finger in Africa... shut up all of you.”

Duterte, 71, had been incensed by the criticism of foreign and local media groups to his comments earlier in the week that corrupt journalists were legitimate targets of assassination.

Explaining his stance on corrupt journalists, Duterte said on Tuesday that one murdered reporter who was a vocal critic of his who deserved to die.

Duterte refused to apologise on Thursday.

The Philippines is one of the most dangerous nations in the world for journalists, with 174 murdered since a chaotic and corruption- plagued democracy replaced the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos three decades ago.

The United Nations has made no recent criticism of Duterte, who has been mayor of the southern city of Davao for most of the past two decades and will be sworn into office on June 30.

But in 2008 the then-UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston, highlighted concerns about unsolved murders in Davao.

“A death squad operates in Davao City, with men routinely killing street children and others in broad daylight,” Alston said in a report.

Human rights groups have accused Duterte of links to the so- called Davao Death Squads, which they say have murdered more than 1,000 people. — AFP