An estimated 20,000 tortured & killed in Duterte’s vigilante war against the poor

Grieving Duterte death squads ([Ezra Acayan:Al Jazeera] Mar 2 2018

For the first year of Duterte’s vigilante war against the poor which began when he took office on July 1st, 2016, Filipino media published the numbers & even the names of those executed on the streets as well as photos showing the gruesome torture they were subjected to. Death squads, including vigilantes & police, were killing at the rate of 1,000 people a month. Since Duterte & his family are implicated in drug trafficking, it is unlikely drug users or peddlers were the intended targets & more likely that it is part of ongoing attempts to clear out urban slums for neoliberal development projects. Torching slums is another of the methods used. We cannot accept that the victims were drug offenders since they were denied due process & simply tortured & executed on the street.

For the past year, it has been impossible to find any estimates of the number of death squad victims. It’s not clear why that has been so but it’s possible threats by Duterte thugs are involved. In January 2018, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report estimated that 12,000 people had been killed since July 1st, 2016 but they do not explain where they get that estimate & since Filipino media, at risk of repercussions, reported 11,000 victims in January 2017, it’s unlikely that HRW estimates are reliable.

A more reliable estimate comes from opposition senator Antonio Trillanes in a speech before the Philippine Senate on February 21st. He claimed that the death toll has surpassed 20,000 since Duterte took office & he bases that staggering estimate on statistics from the Philippine National Police & Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency who admit to 3,967 executions in the first 16 months & 16,355 homicides “under investigation” in the first 15 months of the vigilante war. Senator Trillanes’ estimate accords with the death rate of 1,000 per month monitored by Filipino media. In the same report, the National Police admit to 79,193 “anti-drug operations,” 118,287 arrests, & 1,308,078 surrenders by drug offenders. They actually posted these figures on FB as achievements of the so-called war on drugs. They didn’t report any due process procedures for those arrested or for those who surrendered. Are they still stuffed like sardines on top of each other in squalid prisons? Almost certainly. Are they allowed access to legal counsel? Unlikely.

Many of those killed in the “anti-drug operations” are teenagers & young children who Duterte refers to as “collateral damage.” This is not a war against drugs. It is a war against the urban poor. Martial law in Mindanao is not against ISIS & terrorism but against Muslims & political dissidents. Duterte ordered his troops to shoot women rebels “in the vagina.” He must be condemned for criminal violations of human rights. We must stand steadfast with courageous Filipino human rights activist who dare stand publicly against these atrocities.

Photo is of those grieving their beloved executed in Duterte’s war on the poor.

(Photo by Ezra Acayan/Al Jazeera)

Media has been circulating Michael Morell, the creep who was once second in command at the CIA, to send up the alarm about a possible ISIS chemical attack in the US. How do they know that? If they know it, why can’t they thwart it? How are paramilitary forces able to get weapons & the components of chemical warfare? Who is supplying them & why can’t the US, including its CIA operatives, stop them? What is not adding up about this story?

Civilians being carpet bombed in Eastern Ghouta

Eastern Ghouta AFP Mar 2 2018

Between 500 & 600 civilians killed in Eastern Ghouta, 4,000 more injured, 2,000 homes destroyed. Most are living underground to protect themselves from Russian & Syrian bombers & artillery attacks. Assad propagandists & fellow travelers claim they are actors, terrorists, or human shields for terrorists. Of course, it they were any of those, why would it be necessary to carpet bomb cities to smithereens?

Take a principled, effective stand by demanding the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo from AFP)

Homeless in London in subzero weather

Homeless in London ( Sean Smith for the Guardian) Mar 2 2018

Homeless in London: this man on the Thames Embankment is sleeping rough in subzero temperatures of -3C (26F). The reported homeless rate in England of 4,751 has increased 73% in the last three years (up 169% since 2010) though it does not approximate the 55,000 homeless just in Los Angeles county, California. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to be enchanted by the pending wedding of Harry Windsor the mooch which will cost taxpayers more than $30 million. It wouldn’t take even a fraction of that to provide public housing for 4,751 people.

#EndMoochocracy

(Photo by Sean Smith for the Guardian)

Trump found grazing on back lawn of the White House

French cow (Gerard Julien:AFP:Getty Images) Mar 2 2018

Facing abandonment & public humiliation, finally grasping what a laughing stock he is to most of the human race, & hopefully facing incarceration, Trump was found grazing on the back lawn of the White House. Security guards at first mistook him for a deranged cow stuffing his face with manure but then realized most bovines have considerably more dignity than the president of the United States.

(Photo by Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images)

Someone who opposes the Assad dictatorship but harbors inexplicable delusions about the character of the US Pentagon, seeing in it a potential for humanitarian military interventions, has just claimed that antiwar activists who oppose US intervention in Syria “have a lot of blood on their hands.” It’s a militarist frame of mind that substitutes power politics for massive, public, relentless opposition to war, occupation, genocide. Coincidental that fascist Eva Bartlett also once accused me of that for opposing Assad & Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians?

Those sustaining war, occupation, persecution, genocide have a right to defend themselves by any means necessary, including arming themselves. But when, as in Syria, small paramilitary groups are up against nearly 70 of the most powerful & barbaric military forces in the world (or as in Kashmir & Burma, where small badly armed & poorly trained groups face overwhelming military force), it is insufficient to rely on militarism to withstand the onslaught. How does the accuser believe the US & Saudis who are bombing Yemen to smithereens or the US which dropped the Mother of All Bombs in Afghanistan & turned Mosul & Raqqa into dead zones will transubstantiate into freedom fighters? That would be the very essence of magical thinking & political idiocy.

There is no militarist end run around regrouping antiwar forces around the world to stand with the Syrian people & demand the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of civilians & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces & operatives from Syria.

Fake news alert: China reports that extreme poverty has gone from near-universal to near-extinct in China measured by the World Bank poverty standard of US$1.90 a day ($883.50 a year). A minimum wage worker in the US earns a lot more than $1.90 per day & only a fool would claim they do not live in extreme poverty. When well-paid statisticians singing for their supper measure poverty, it’s a very different metric than those who live poverty.

Facebook censors Wirathu, the rabid nationalist monk in Burma

Wirathu, Burmese ltra-nationalist (AFP) Mar 1 2018

A Facebook spokesperson announced that they have removed the page of Wirathu, the rabid nationalist Buddhist monk in Burma who leads the anti-Rohingya campaign, for “promoting hatred & violence against others” in violation of their community standards. FB did not do this because they object to his vituperations but to legitimize censorship on social media which they & Twitter engage in constantly on behalf of reactionary regimes. There is a group of anti-Assad activists dedicated to getting Assadists banned from FB by dogging & reporting their posts. Nothing could be more shortsighted whilst there is major & constant censorship of Rohingya, Kashmiri, Palestinian, & Syrian activists, not to mention FB cooperation with authorities in places like China, the US, & elsewhere.

There’s a disturbing irony about removing the wall of the demagogue Wirathu when those of Aung San Suu Kyi & General Min Aung Hlaing, the chief architects of the Rohingya genocide, are allowed to stand.

Censorship is never directed at the power elite but at freedom activists. Tossing in a creep like Wirathu once in a while is to legitimize censorship not unlike how the Nobel Peace Prize operates by every once in a while throwing in someone like Martin Luther King or Malala Yousafzai with all the war criminals. The best interests of the Rohingya, Palestinians, Kashmiris, Syrians, & others is served by opposing censorship. One could say without exaggeration, that it is politically reckless & naive to in any way facilitate censorship on social media. If it were not for social media, we would know very little about those freedom struggles since media imposes news blackouts on most of the important struggles going on in this world precisely to prevent the development of international solidarity. It might also be added that it is extremely important to know exactly what kind of rubbish these rightwing & fascist propagandists are spewing so they can be cogently refuted before they do any more damage to the freedom struggles than they already have.

Barring Wirathu from FB is not a substitute for bringing him to justice in an international tribunal for inciting genocide against the Rohingya people.

(Photo is Wirathu from AFP)