CAYETANO TELLS UN: DO NOT ‘WEAPONIZE’ HUMAN RIGHTS

GENEVA— Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told the United Nations on Tuesday not to “weaponize” human rights and urged the world body to send an impartial investigator to probe President Duterte’s deadly war on drugs.

The Philippines’ human rights record was raised at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva this week, with Iceland Foreign Minister Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson urging Manila on Monday to accept a visit from the UN special rapporteur for extrajudicial killings, summary and arbitrary executions, Agnes Callamard.

Mr. Duterte, who was elected in 2016 largely on a pledge to kill tens of thousands of criminals, has presided over a narcotics crackdown that rights monitors describe as tantamount to crimes against humanity.

Cayetano told the council on Tuesday that Manila was ready to cooperate, but he called for fairness.

“Send anyone except

one who has already prejudged us, and who, by any measure, cannot be considered independent and objective,” he said.

“Let us in this regard take to heart our UN secretary general’s warning [on Monday] not to politicize, may I even say weaponize, human rights,” he added.

The Philippine National Police has said 4,021 drug suspects who resisted arrest have been killed by officers, while human rights groups estimate more than 12,000 deaths in all, including people murdered by shadowy vigilantes.

‘For own gain’

Cayetano said some private civil rights monitors he did not name had unjustly portrayed the Philippines and “politicized and weaponized the issue for their own gain.”

“Human rights becomes a human wrong when the ridiculous assertion is taken seriously that drugs are harmless, that their effects are benign at best and passing at worst, and that taking the most vigorous measures to stop the evil trade constitutes genocide,” he said.

“That puts drug dealers and drug pushers on the same moral level as the victims [of] holocausts,” he added.

In Manila, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque on Tuesday said the government would specifically refuse a visit by Callamard.

Callamard has been seeking permission to travel to Manila to investigate the killings, but she has rejected Mr. Duterte’s conditions attached to the visit, including debating him publicly on his drug war.

ICC probe

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague earlier this month announced a separate preliminary examination into the killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.

Mr. Duterte has at times called for drug addicts as well as traffickers to be killed, and has vowed to pardon police if they are found guilty of murder for prosecuting the drug war.

In September 2016, Mr. Duterte drew parallels between Hitler’s Holocaust and his crackdown against 3 million supposed drug addicts, telling reporters: “I’d be happy to slaughter them.”

Even so, Mr. Duterte has also repeatedly stated that he does not encourage police to break the law, and he is not doing anything illegal by calling for people to be killed.

Human rights becomes a human wrong when the ridiculous assertion is taken seriously that drugs are harmless, that their effects are benign at best and passing at worst, and that taking the most vigorous measures to stop the evil trade constitutes genocide Alan Peter Cayetano Foreign Secretary