MANILA: The Philippine government has denounced 39 mostly Western nations, including the United States, Britain and France, which have urged it to end thousands of killings under President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug crackdown and allow investigations in cooperation with the international community.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said Friday that its diplomats told the countries, which issued a joint statement in Geneva expressing serious concern over human rights conditions in the Philippines, “to respect Manila’s domestic processes.”
The government, through its diplomatic mission to the United Nations in Geneva, said it takes “grave exception to the sweeping and politicized statement” delivered by Iceland on behalf of 38 other countries during a meeting of the Human Rights Council in Geneva this week, the department said.
In their statement, the countries said they “remain concerned about the thousands of killings and climate of impunity associated with the war on drugs,” and cited Philippine commitments to investigate these crimes and observe due process.
“We urge the government of the Philippines to take all necessary measures to bring these killings to an end and cooperate with the international community to pursue appropriate investigations,” the countries said, citing the need for Manila to adhere to “universal principles of democratic accountability and the rule of law.”
They said the government should work with private agencies and the UN to promote and protect human rights, including by welcoming a visit by the UN expert on extrajudicial killings, Agnes Callamard. Duterte has lashed out at Callamard’s criticisms of the drug killings and once warned she may end up in jail if she makes inaccurate statements.
The countries encouraged the Philippines to request technical assistance if necessary.
Aside from the US, a treaty ally helping the Philippines end a monthslong siege by pro-Daesh group militants in a southern city, the other countries include Australia, which provides security assistance to Manila, and Norway, which has been helping broker peace talks between Manila and communist rebels.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano, who is in Washington, lamented the criticism, which he said was based on “biased and questionable information and failed to appreciate Manila’s willingness to work with the international community on human rights issues.”
A senior Filipino diplomat in Geneva, Maria Teresa Almojuela, said, “It is ironic that many of these states joining the statement are the very same states that are the sources of arms, bombs, machines and mercenaries that maim, kill and massacre thousands of people all over the world, not only during their colonial past, but even up to today.”
She said the Philippines seriously investigates documented allegations of human rights violations and has filed criminal complaints against abusive police officials.
Duterte and police officials have denied allegations of extrajudicial killings by police enforcing his crackdown, which has left thousands of people dead since he became president last year. Duterte, however, has publicly threatened suspected drug traffickers repeatedly with death. He warned drug pushers in a speech late Tuesday that if they are caught with a ton of methamphetamine, a prohibited drug, “you are dead.”
Duterte govt slams 39 countries calling for end to killings in Philippines
Duterte govt slams 39 countries calling for end to killings in Philippines
Rubio defends US ouster of Venezuela’s Maduro to Caribbean leaders unsettled by Trump policies
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts and Nevis: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday defended the Trump administration’s military operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, telling Caribbean leaders, many of whom objected to that move, that the country and the region were better off as a result.
Speaking to leaders from the 15-member Caribbean Community bloc at a summit in the country of St. Kitts and Nevis, Rubio brushed aside concerns about the legality of Maduro’s capture last month that have been raised among Venezuela’s island-state neighbors and others.
“Irrespective of how some of you may have individually felt about our operations and our policy toward Venezuela, I will tell you this, and I will tell you this without any apology or without any apprehension: Venezuela is better off today than it was eight weeks ago,” Rubio told the leaders in a closed-door meeting, according to a transcript of his remarks later distributed by the US State Department.
Rubio said that since Maduro’s ouster and the effective takeover of Venezuela’s oil sector by the United States, the interim authorities in the South American country have made “substantial” progress in improving conditions by doing “things that eight or nine weeks ago would have been unimaginable.”
The Caribbean leaders have gathered to debate pressing issues in a region that President Donald Trump has targeted for a 21st-century incarnation of the Monroe Doctrine meant to ensure Washington’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. The Republican administration has declared a focus closer to home even as Washington increasingly has been preoccupied by the possibility of a US military attack on Iran.
Rubio downplays antagonism in US regional push
In his remarks to the group, America’s top diplomat tried to play down any antagonistic intent in what Trump has referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine.” Rubio said the administration wants to strengthen ties with the region in the wake of the Venezuela operation and ensure that issues such as crime and economic opportunities are jointly addressed.
“I am very happy to be in an administration that’s giving priority to the Western Hemisphere after largely being ignored for a very long time,” Rubio said. “We share common opportunities, and we share some common challenges. And that’s what we hope to confront.”
He said transnational criminal organizations pose the biggest threat to the Caribbean while recognizing that many are buying weapons from the United States, a problem he said authorities are tackling.
Rubio also said the US and the Caribbean can work together on economic advancement and energy issues, especially because many leaders at the four-day summit have energy resources they seek to explore. “We want to be your partner in that regard,” he said.
Rubio said the US recognizes the need for fair, democratic elections in Venezuela, which lies just miles away from Trinidad and Tobago at the closest point.
“We do believe that a prosperous, free Venezuela who’s governed by a legitimate government who has the interests of their people in mind could also be an extraordinary partner and asset to many of the countries represented here today in terms of energy needs and the like, and also one less source of instability in the region,” he said.
Rubio added: “We view our security, our prosperity, our stability to be intricately tied to yours.”
Trump plays up Maduro’s ouster
Trump, in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, called the operation that spirited Maduro out of Venezuela to face drug trafficking charges in New York “an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States.”
The US had built up the largest military presence in the Caribbean Sea in generations before the Jan. 3 raid. That has now been exceeded by the surge of American warships and aircraft to the Middle East as the administration pressures Iran to make a deal over its nuclear program.
In the Caribbean, Trump has stepped up aggressive tactics to combat alleged drug smuggling with a series of strikes on boats that have killed over 150 people and he has tightened pressure on Cuba. Regional leaders have complained about administration demands for nations to accept third-country deportees from the US and to chill relations with China.
One regional leader who has backed the US escalation is Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, whom Rubio thanked for her “public support for US military operations in the South Caribbean Sea,” the State Department said.
Persad-Bissessar told reporters that her conversation with Rubio focused on “Haiti; we talked about Cuba of course; we talked about engagements with Venezuela and the way forward.”
She was asked if she considered the latest US military strikes in Caribbean waters as extrajudicial killings: “I don’t think they are, and if they are, we will find out, but our legal advice is they are not.”
Rubio had other one-on-one meetings with heads of government, including from St. Kitts and Nevis, Haiti, Jamaica and Guyana.
Caribbean leaders point to shifting global order
Trump said during the State of the Union that his administration is “restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference.”
Terrance Drew, prime minister of St. Kitts and Nevis and chair of the Caribbean Community bloc, said the region “stands at a decisive hour” and that “the global order is shifting.”
Drew and other leaders said Cuba’s humanitarian situation must be addressed.
“It must be clear that a prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba,” Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness warned. “It will affect migration, security and economic stability across the Caribbean basin.”
The US Treasury Department on Wednesday slightly eased restrictions on the sale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, which instituted austere fuel-saving measures in the weeks after the US raid in Venezuela.
That move came hours before Cuba’s government announced that its soldiers killed four people aboard a speedboat registered in Florida that had opened fire on officers in Cuban waters.
