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by Grizzly » Sat Dec 24, 2016 12:49 am
by divideandconquer » Sat Dec 24, 2016 8:57 am
Judging by the spate of attacks on Duterte in the Western press and veiled criticism from some of the Manila papers, it looks like Duterte’s insufficient loyalty to the pivot vision may result in his downfall. Indeed, with the Duterte-US split deepening, his removal may become a strategic imperative for America.
by seemslikeadream » Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:13 am
, as a courtesy to others,
to tired to scroll ..poor baby...tiresome...unless that's the point...no it is not the point and your accusation is tiresome 
by Morty » Mon Dec 26, 2016 4:02 am
by Morty » Mon Dec 26, 2016 4:43 am
divideandconquer » Sat Dec 24, 2016 10:57 pm wrote:As long as we provide the link to full article, as a courtesy to others, we should only post a paragraph or two because scrolling through entire articles can be tiresome...unless that's the point.
Something like this:
Duterte in the western media crosshairs, and the truth about the Philippines' drug warJudging by the spate of attacks on Duterte in the Western press and veiled criticism from some of the Manila papers, it looks like Duterte’s insufficient loyalty to the pivot vision may result in his downfall. Indeed, with the Duterte-US split deepening, his removal may become a strategic imperative for America.
Truth and Duterte in media crosshairs
Peter Lee
By Peter Lee September 9, 2016 11:25 AM (UTC+8)
Judging by the spate of attacks on Duterte in the Western press and veiled criticism from some of the Manila papers, it looks like Duterte’s insufficient loyalty to the pivot vision may result in his downfall. Indeed, with the Duterte-US split deepening, his removal may become a strategic imperative for America.
Serial misreporting on Asian affairs is the price the media pays for loyally supporting the US pivot to Asia. It’s also a sign that, after a brief US government dalliance with feisty Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, the skids are probably getting greased for his removal.
As an appetizer, consider “Stairgate” i.e. the kerfuffle over the non-appearance of the fancy stairs that would have allowed President Obama to deplane in suitable imperial fashion from the front of Air Force One in Hangzhou for the G20 meeting.
[Cut. See at link for discussion of Obama getting off a plane in Hangzhou. Which is actually an interesting discussion, but a little off topic.]
Duterte’s salty remarks
The process repeated itself with the media firestorm roasting another guy guilty of insufficient fealty to the notion of American awesomeness, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte directed some salty remarks at the United States while holding a press conference at the airport in Manila to mark his embarkation to Vientiane for an ASEAN get-together, occasioning the cancelation of his meet there with President Obama.
Originally, President Obama was apparently prepared to shrug off the Duterte remarks, for reasons that will become clearer below. But…
Obama initially responded by calling Mr. Duterte a “colorful guy,” but then called off the meeting after the international media reported heavily on the issue.
In order to keep the suitable happy American frame around the event, the significance of Duterte’s remarks was confined to his allegedly calling President Obama the son of a …
An actual listen to the full press conference is enlightening in terms of Duterte’s issues with the United States.
At the 6:40 mark, Duterte goes off on a Reuters reporter who, in Duterte’s view, accepts the premise that he needs to answer questions President Obama and others might raise on extrajudicial killings and human rights issues in the drug war.
Duterte is infuriated because in his view the United States is devoid of the moral stature to question him on human rights, given its bloody history of “Moro pacification” in Duterte’s homeland of Mindanao.
CNN helpfully (or hopelessly) glossed the human cost of the US intervention for its readers as a matter of about 600 dead:
Duterte was referring to the US’s history as a colonial power in the Philippines, and specifically to one infamous massacre in the southern Philippines — the 1906 Battle of Bud Dajo — in which hundreds of Filipinos, including women and children, were killed.
Actually, he wasn’t, which CNN would have discovered if they had listened past Duterte’s first agitated reference to his fuller statement about “600” at the ten-minute mark. Duterte is referring to 600,000 dead, not 600. Even more shockingly, Duterte’s number is actually one of the more conservative estimates (the upper end is 1.4 million) of Moro deaths at the hand of the US military.
Yes, American friends, Duterte is referring to one of the most brutal and shameful chapters in the history of American imperialism, the brutal subjugation of the Muslim population of Philippines’ Mindanao over 30 years of formal war and informal counterinsurgency from 1898 into the 1920s.
Mindanao is where the United States first applied the savage lessons of its Indian war to counterinsurgency in Asia—including massacre of civilians, collective punishment, and torture. Waterboarding entered the US military toolkit in Mindanao, as immortalized on the May 22, 1902 front cover of Life magazine.
And the war never ended. After the Philippines shed its colonial status, the Manila Roman Catholic establishment continued the war with US help. Today, the Philippines is locked in a cycle of negotiation and counterinsurgency between the central government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) —a cycle that Duterte as president hopes to bring to its conclusion with a negotiated peace settlement.
This is not ancient history to Duterte, who emphatically stated in his press conference that the reason Mindanao is “on the boil” today is because of the historical crimes of the United States.
Duterte has additional reasons for his choler.
As I wrote previously at Asia Times, Duterte suspects US spooks of orchestrating a deadly series of bombings in his home city of Davao in 2002, with the probable motive of creating a pretext for the central government to declare martial law on Mindanao to fight the MILF. The 2002 Davao bombings form the foundation of Duterte’s alienation from the United States and his resistance to US-Philippine joint exercises on Mindanao, as he declared upon the assumption of his presidency.
And, though it hasn’t received a lot of coverage in the United States, last week, on September 2, another bomb ripped through a marketplace in Davao, killing fourteen people. It was suspected of being part of an assassination plot against Duterte, who was in town at the time, and the Communist Party of the Philippines (which is also engaged in peace talks with Duterte) accused the United States of being behind it.
The CPP characterized the group that claimed the bombing, Abu Sayyaf, as CIA assets. Not too far off the mark, apparently. Abu Sayyaf is a group of Islamic fighters/bandits formed out of the dregs of US recruitment of Philippine Muslims to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. When these fighters came home, they apparently were enrolled and armed as central government/CIA deniable assets in the war against the MILF. Duterte has vowed to destroy, indeed, consume them.
So, mindful of the human rights crimes the US has committed historically, recently, and perhaps currently in Mindanao, including a possible assassination attempt against himself, Duterte declared himself unwilling to submit to any questioning or censure by President Obama. And his “son of a …” remark at the airport appears to have been along the lines of, “If President Obama confronts me, son of a …, I’ll tell him…”
At the ASEAN gathering in Laos, Duterte apparently tried to explain the roots of his indignation but is getting the psycho crank who “veered off speech and launched a tirade” treatment via AFP:
“The Philippine president showed a picture of the killings of American soldiers in the past and the president said: ‘This is my ancestor they killed. Why now we are talking about human rights,'” an Indonesian delegate said. The Philippines was an American colony from 1898 to 1946.
The delegate described the atmosphere in the room as “quiet and shocked.”
It should be noted that in his press conference at the airport in Manila, Duterte referenced the pictures he wanted to show, so it was more of a planned event rather than a spontaneous piece of hysterics by an unstable leader, which seems to be the frame being applied here.
The messy reality of a century of no-holds-barred counterinsurgency under US coordination, drugs, corruption, and murder in the Philippines distracts from the pretty picture of sailor suits, battleships, and yo-ho-ho in the South China Sea with American and the Philippine democracies shoulder-to-shoulder against China that the US wants to present to the world.
Judging by the spate of attacks on Duterte in the Western press and veiled criticism from some of the Manila papers, it looks like Duterte’s insufficient loyalty to the pivot vision may result in his downfall. Indeed, with the Duterte-US split deepening, his removal may become a strategic imperative for America.
According to a report I read, the cynical tack of packaging the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) to evade legislative review also means that its implementation is at the discretion of the executive branch — the president of the Philippines in other words— and his willingness to allocate funds for it. If Duterte threatens to fiddle with EDCA — fiddle with the pivot! — it may be time to unleash the pro-US elements in Manila to engineer a change.
When it comes time to portray Duterte as an out-of-control thug incapable of managing the relationship with the United States and unworthy to lead the Philippines in a struggle against Chinese aggression, I’m sure the press will step up to do its part. After all, it’s already happening.
Peter Lee runs the China Matters blog. He writes on the intersection of US policy with Asian and world affairs.
(Copyright 2016 Asia Times Holdings Limited, a duly registered Hong Kong company. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
by Morty » Mon Dec 26, 2016 4:59 am
by 82_28 » Mon Dec 26, 2016 5:33 am
by Morty » Wed Dec 28, 2016 10:58 pm
Duterte threatens to throw corrupt officials out of a helicopter — and says he’s done it before
In his latest controversial statement, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, known for his bloody anti-drug war that has killed thousands, threatened to throw corrupt officials out of a helicopter, saying he has done it before, to a kidnapper, and won't hesitate to do so again.
“I will pick you up in a helicopter to Manila, and I will throw you out on the way,” Duterte said in Tagalog in front of a crowd in the Camarines Sur province Tuesday, according to GMA News. “I've done it before. Why would I not do it again?”
Continued at link
by seemslikeadream » Wed May 24, 2017 8:40 pm
Trump Revealed Nuclear Submarines Were Near North Korea While Talking to Duterte About Kim Jong Un
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-revealed- ... -un-614888
President Trump calls Filipino leader Duterte to hail his 'great job' fighting drugs
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... 102104258/
Trump sounds exactly how you'd expect in his chat with strongman Duterte
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/24/politics/ ... annotated/
Duterte says he may widen martial law from Mindanao to include all of the Philippines
Philippines declares martial law on Mindanao island
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declares martial law on the island of Mindanao after deadly clashes between militants and troops in the city of Marawi. (Reuters)
By Vincent Bevins and Emily Rauhala May 24 at 10:07 AM
MANILA — Casting himself as his nation’s savior, President Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday that he was prepared to extend martial law to all of the Philippines if necessary. “I will not allow the country to go to the dogs,” he said.
Since winning the presidency a year ago, the words “martial law” have rarely been far from Duterte’s lips. On Tuesday, as fighting broke out between the army and Islamist insurgents, he cut short a trip to Moscow and fulfilled his own prediction, declaring martial law across a vast swath of the southern Philippines. At least 21 people have been reported killed in the fighting.
On Wednesday, as insurgents rampaged through the city of Marawi, reportedly taking a Catholic priest and worshipers hostage and torching buildings, Duterte told Filipinos the law would be as “harsh” as it was under Ferdinand Marcos, the country’s longtime dictator whose martial-law-era abuses still loom large.
“I will not allow abuses. The courts will stay open. But to anyone holding a gun or confronting the government with violence, my orders are, ‘Spare no one,’ ” Duterte said in an afternoon news conference. Regarding the Islamic State, he added, “Do not f--- with me. . . . I would not hesitate to do anything and everything.”
Some Philippine militants have declared loyalty to the Islamic State, but there have been no signs so far of close links or material support in this case.
Philippine troops arrive at their barracks to reinforce fellow troops after the siege by Islamist militants in the outskirts of Marawi in the southern Philippines. (AP)
Although the government has yet to specify what, exactly, comes next, the declaration of martial law across the southern island of Mindanao looks set to reshape Duterte’s domestic agenda, broadening his focus from drugs to terrorism and renewing questions about his nostalgia for the Philippines’ authoritarian past.
Martial law could complicate an uncertain moment in U.S.-Philippine ties.
On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported new details of an April 29 call between President Trump and Duterte — details that suggest Trump is willing to work with, and even praise, Duterte despite the Philippine president’s past threats to ditch the United States as an ally.
[Think twice before casually comparing Duterte and Trump]
Relations between the United States and the Philippines were strained under the Obama administration, which criticized Duterte’s tactics on reports of extrajudicial violence in his effort to root out drug dealers. After cursing President Barack Obama and vowing to align himself with China and Russia, Duterte threatened in the fall to expel U.S. Special Forces from Mindanao.
But with terrorism his new expressed target, Duterte may be more willing to work with the United States, experts said, potentially changing the dynamic among Washington, Manila and Beijing.
Though details are still spotty, official and local reports suggest the fighting that triggered the declaration of martial law on Tuesday continued through Wednesday.
Filipinos stage a demonstration against Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Davao, Mindanao Island, in the southern Philippines. (Cerilo Ebrano/European Pressphoto Agency)
The clashes reportedly broke out when Philippine security personnel mounted an operation against Isnilon Hapilon, the Islamic State-endorsing leader of a militant group called Abu Sayyaf. Hapilon and his men sought backup from another Islamic State-aligned force known as the Maute group.
As of Wednesday night, these groups controlled parts of the city, having reportedly taken 14 hostages, including the Catholic priest. In his news conference, Duterte claimed a police officer was beheaded, but that has not been confirmed by local reports.
Ayeesha Dicali, a student from Marawi who was out of the area on Tuesday and Wednesday, said she had received text messages from family members who said they were trapped inside their home because of gunfights.
Dicali said she was scared — both of the insurgents and the prospect of martial law. “Here, the words ‘martial law’ have really negative connotations, and they remind me of what my mother told me about her life in the Marcos era,” she said.
“At the same time, we’re ambivalent, because maybe this new martial law will mean the soldiers will really respond to the crisis.”
Sidney Jones, an expert on terrorism who serves as director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict in Jakarta, Indonesia, noted that the U.S. government is offering up to $5 million for the capture of Hapilon.
“Even as Duterte was talking his anti-U.S. and pro-China shift, it was clear that the basic U.S.-Philippine relationship on counterterrorism wasn’t affected, and information and close cooperation continued,” she said.
[Why many young, liberal Filipinos support Duterte’s drug war]
Duterte is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and he pitched himself as uniquely equipped to negotiate with insurgents to end long-standing conflicts once and for all.
That hasn’t happened. Since taking power, Duterte has focused on mounting — and defending — a self-proclaimed “war” on drugs, which has been linked to thousands of extrajudicial killings, rather than striking peace deals. He is now under pressure to produce results.
On Sunday, two days before the clashes in Marawi, he predicted that martial law may come to Mindanao. “I already warned you. Please don’t force my hand to kill you,” he said. He is now pitching marital law as the only way to get results.
When Marcos declared martial law in 1972, ushering in more than a decade of violent dictatorship, the United States was fighting the Cold War, not terrorism. Marcos repeatedly used the alleged threat of communist takeover to shore up support in Washington, even as he committed widespread human rights abuses and, with his wife, Imelda, made off with much of the country’s wealth.
President Ronald Reagan, a friend of the couple, backed the Marcos government until just before a “people power” revolution ousted him in 1986.
As president, Duterte has taken a nostalgic view of the Marcos era, even giving the long-dead dictator a hero’s burial in Manila.
Martial law must be approved in the Philippine Congress, where Duterte enjoys wide support. The current constitution places limits on what he could do if it is approved. Still, many warned of possible abuses.
Jose L. Cuisia Jr., who served for five years as Philippine ambassador to the United States until June, said the declaration showed a president “obsessed about having full control of all branches of government: executive, legislative and judiciary.”
“The lawlessness of President Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ heightens grave concerns that his declaration of martial law in Mindanao will bring further rampant abuses,” Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “We urge the Philippine government to ensure that the rights of all Filipinos are respected as it addresses violence and crime in the southern Philippines.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ca ... a1cf62f014
by Sounder » Thu May 25, 2017 7:29 am
All this is too much for some, but surprisingly, he is actually admired by most of the women.
“When he makes jokes about women, in Manila they can’t take it”, laughs Luz Illagan, who is one of the leading feminists in the country:
“But we always compare his words to his deeds, to what he has done for our women. He always helped; he always protected us. His Davao got awards for being a women-sensitive city. He created the ‘integrated gender development office’, the first one in the Philippines, and other cities are now copying the concept. Every year, before the Women’s Day celebration, women evaluate the performance of the office, and they submit a new agenda. Everything is very transparent.”
In an international hotel in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, I spoke to a group of women workers from the Philippines. What do they think about their new president?
While answering (and they did not hesitate to answer for one second), I realized that two of them had tears in their eyes:
“For the first time in our lives, we feel proud to belong to our country. Duterte gave us our dignity back. He gave us hope. To say that we support him would be to say too little. We love him; we feel enormous gratitude. He is liberating us; he is liberating our country!”
by seemslikeadream » Thu May 25, 2017 8:09 am
Donald Trump longs to lock up journalists — and sooner or later he’s going to try it
As Trump told Comey, he'd love to emulate his pals Erdogan, Duterte and Putin and crack down on press freedom
http://www.salon.com/2017/05/19/donald- ... to-try-it/
On Eve Of Election, Montana GOP Candidate (Biggley trump supporter) Charged With Assault On Reporter
http://www.npr.org/2017/05/24/529862697 ... -of-voting
GOP candidate cited for assault as newspapers pull endorsements
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpos ... 9170f52a90
5 Reminders of How Dark It Is That Trump Is Cozying Up with the Murderous President of the Philippines
The strongman has boasted about killing in cold blood and even likened himself to Hitler.
By Alexandra Rosenmann / AlterNet May 24, 2017
Photo Credit: Hssszn / Flickr
On April 29, President Trump made a highly controversial phone call to Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, an authoritarian strongman whose daily executions have become a hallmark of his brutal regime. Trump praised Duterte for his "unbelievable" success in the drug war and even extended an invitation to the White House.
Here are five reasons why Trump's open admiration for Duterte speaks volumes.
1. Thousands have been killed as a result of a Duterte-endorsed anti-drug campaign.
According to an extensive Human Rights Watch report published six months into his presidency, "national police officers and unidentified 'vigilantes' have killed over 7,000 people," targeting "suspected drug dealers and users... [as part of] a campaign of extrajudicial execution in impoverished areas of Manila and other urban areas."
2. Duterte has likened himself to Hitler.
“Hitler massacred three million Jews. Now there are three million drug addicts [in the Philippines]. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” said the Philippine president to a crowd gathered in Davao last September.
3. His jobs plan is perverse.
According to the Philippine Star, Duterte promised overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) in the Middle East a job killing drug addicts should they become unemployed.
“If you lose your job, I’ll give you one: Kill all the drug addicts,” he said last month at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Manila. “Help me kill addicts... Let’s kill addicts every day.”
4. He's boasted about killing in cold blood.
“In Davao (City, as mayor,) I used to do it personally—just to show to the guys (cops) that if I can do it, why can’t you?” Duterte told business leaders at a Manila meeting mid-December.
5. Cruel rape jokes are his "style."
"She was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first," Duterte said of of a gang rape victim, as Davao City mayor and presidential candidate last April. He would later dismiss the global backlash over his remarks with this gem: “I’m sorry in general... it’s my
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politi ... hilippines
It was enormously controversial that Trump placed a friendly call to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte in April. Now, we can read what they said.
PART 1
Trump Called Rodrigo Duterte to Congratulate Him on His Murderous Drug War: “You Are Doing an Amazing Job”
PART 2
What Trump and Duterte Said Privately About the North Korean Nuclear Threat
PART 3
Read the Full Transcript of Trump’s Call With Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte
ft✉⎕
186
Photo Illustration: The Intercept/Getty Images
TRUMP CALLED RODRIGO DUTERTE TO CONGRATULATE HIM ON HIS MURDEROUS DRUG WAR: “YOU ARE DOING AN AMAZING JOB”
Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, Ryan Grim
May 23 2017, 6:17 p.m.
In partnership with
A Call With a KillerA Call With a Killer
Part 1
It was enormously controversial that Trump placed a friendly call to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte in April. Now, we can read what they said.
IN A PHONE CALL from the White House late last month, U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, one of the world’s most murderous heads of state, for doing what Trump called an “unbelievable job” in his war on drugs. Trump offered an unqualified endorsement of Duterte’s bloody extermination campaign against suspected drug dealers and users, which has included open calls for extrajudicial murders and promises of pardons and immunity for the killers.
“You are a good man,” Trump told Duterte, according to an official transcript of the April 29 call produced by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and obtained by The Intercept. “Keep up the good work,” Trump told Duterte. “You are doing an amazing job.”
Trump began the call by telling Duterte, “You don’t sleep much, you’re just like me,” before quickly pivoting to the strongman’s drug war.
“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte at the beginning of their call, according to the document. “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.”
“Thank you Mr. President,” replied Duterte. “This is the scourge of my nation now and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.”
The transcript, which contains numerous typographical errors, was authenticated by well-placed sources in the Palace and the Department of Foreign Affairs by reporters at the Manila-based news outlet Rappler, which collaborated with The Intercept on this story.
Since Duterte took office in June, Philippine national police and vigilante death squads have embarked on a campaign to slaughter drug users as well as drug dealers. “Hitler massacred three million Jews [sic], now, there’s three million drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them,” he said in September. Last month, he told a group of jobless Filipinos that they should “kill all the drug addicts.” Police have killed over 7,000 people, devastated poor areas of Manila and other cities, and used the drug war as a pretext to murder government officials and community leaders.
The new details of Trump’s call with Duterte come on the heels of the Philippine president’s announcement that he is imposing martial law on the autonomous island of Mindanao, where government forces are battling Islamist rebels. “If I had to kill thousands of people just to keep Philippines a thousand times safer, I will not have doubts doing it,” Duterte said.
On the April 29 call, Trump pointed out to Duterte that his predecessor in the White House had been critical of the rising body count under Duterte’s reign in the Philippines, but that Trump himself gets it. “I understand that, and fully understand that, and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that,” Trump said, “but I understand that and we have spoken about this before.”
When the Obama administration offered some tempered criticism of Duterte’s killing spree, Duterte called the U.S. president the “son of a whore” and an “idiot” who “can go to hell.” Speaking in Beijing in October, Duterte said, “America has lost now. I’ve realigned myself in your ideological flow. And maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there are three of us against the world: China, Philippines and Russia. It’s the only way.”
However, in the wake of Trump’s election, Duterte said, “I don’t want to quarrel anymore, because Trump has won.” On the April call, Trump addressed Duterte warmly by his first name, Rodrigo, and Duterte thanked Trump for his sentiments on Obama.
This week, Duterte was slated to be in Russia for a five-day trip, including a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, whom he has called his “favorite hero.” On Tuesday, Duterte announced from Moscow that he was cutting the trip short in light of his declaration of martial law and fighting between rebels and the government in Mindanao.
Following the call last month, the White House publicly described a “very friendly conversation” that culminated with an invitation for an Oval Office meeting. “To endorse Duterte is to endorse a man who advocates mass murder and who has admitted to killing people himself,” said John Sifton, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, reacting to the transcript. “Endorsing his methods is a celebration of the death of the poor and vulnerable.”
This picture taken on February 8, 2017 shows a member of a "Scene of the Crime Operatives (SOCO)" team investigating the crime scene where two alleged robbers were killed after a gun fight with police in Manila. Shadowy assassins have killed scores of poor victims in the Philippines after President Rodrigo Duterte officially ordered police to withdraw from his deadly drug war, a rights monitor said on February 17. / AFP / NOEL CELIS (Photo credit should read NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images) A member of a “Scene of the Crime Operatives” team investigates the scene where two alleged robbers were killed after a gun fight with police in Manila on Feb. 8, 2017. Photo: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images
Duterte’s police killings are widely recognized by the international community as an ongoing atrocity. The “war on drugs” has drawn condemnation from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, and last month a Philippine lawyer filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder and crimes against humanity. The State Department’s annual human rights report acknowledges thousands of “extrajudicial killings” with impunity and calls them the country’s “chief human rights concern.”
Killing is nothing new for Duterte. His bloody record started in 1988, when he became the mayor of Davao City, a coastal city in the southern Philippines. During his tenure, he earned the nickname “the Death Squad Mayor” — a title he embraces. According to one former hitman, Duterte formed an organization called the “Davao Death Squad” — a mafia-like organization of plainclothes assassins that would kill suspected criminals, journalists, and opposition politicians, often from the backs of motorcycles. Multiple former members of the group have come forward and said that they killed people on Duterte’s direct orders.
Duterte has even bragged that he personally killed criminals from the back of a motorcycle. “In Davao I used to do it personally,” he told a group of business leaders in Manila. “Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why can’t you.”
In 2016, Duterte campaigned on a policy of mass extermination for anyone involved in the drug trade. “I’d be happy to slaughter them. If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have me,” Duterte said after his inauguration in September.
Despite human rights concerns, the U.S. has long considered the Philippines a military ally, and under Obama the U.S. gave the country’s military tens of millions of dollars in weapons and resources per year. The U.S. government does not provide lethal weapons directly to the Philippine National Police, which has a decadeslong history of extrajudicial killings. But it does allow U.S. weapons manufacturers to sell to them directly. In 2015 the State Department authorized more than $250 million in arms sales from U.S. defense contractors to security forces in the Philippines.
After Duterte’s election, Obama’s State Department halted one sale of assault rifles to the Philippines, largely due to the objections of Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., the leading Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Philippines became a colony of the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish-American War. A long insurgency followed, and the country didn’t win full independence until 1946.
A Call With a KillerA Call With a Killer
Part 2
It was enormously controversial that Trump placed a friendly call to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte in April. Now, we can read what they said.
˅ EXPAND ALL PARTS
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP repeatedly addressed the possibility of a U.S. nuclear attack on North Korea in a private call last month with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, according to a transcript of the call obtained by The Intercept.
“We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has times 20, but we don’t want to use it,” Trump told Duterte. (In fact, the U.S. has 6,800 nuclear warheads and North Korea is thought to have about 10.) “You will be in good shape,” he added.
“We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarines — the best in the world — we have two nuclear submarines — not that we want to use them at all,” Trump said. “I’ve never seen anything like they are, but we don’t have to use this, but he could be crazy so we will see what happens.”
The call took place on April 29. The transcript, an official Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs document, contains numerous typographical errors. Multiple government sources contacted by the Philippine news outlet Rappler, which collaborated with The Intercept on this story, confirmed its authenticity.
During the call, Trump echoed his publicly stated position that he wants China to take the lead in addressing potential threats from North Korea. “I hope China solves the problem. They really have the means because a great degree of their stuff come [sic] through China,” Trump said. “But if China doesn’t do it, we will do it.”
Duterte then volunteered to call Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding, “The other option is a nuclear blast which is not good for everybody.” Both leaders expressed a preference for avoiding a nuclear confrontation, but nonetheless, Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and a leading expert on nuclear weapons, was alarmed by the exchange.
“Trump has a disturbing tendency to talk very cavalierly about nuclear weapons — as if he is an impulse away from using them,” Cirincione said. “He doesn’t seem to understand the vast destructive nature of these weapons and the line he would be crossing by using them.”
During the Obama administration, Duterte made clear his disdain for the U.S. president, who he repeatedly called the “son of a whore.” The Obama administration’s measured criticism of Duterte’s murderous war on drugs enraged the Philippine leader. At one point, Duterte threatened to “say goodbye” to a U.S.-oriented foreign policy in favor of a closer alliance with China. Beijing has offered to train Philippine anti-drug forces tasked with carrying out what human rights advocates characterize as an extrajudicial killing campaign.
Duterte welcomed Trump’s election victory. Recently, he has publicly counseled restraint and the de-escalation of tensions with North Korea, even to the point of criticizing the U.S. for its bellicosity. “There seems to be two countries playing with their toys and those toys are not really to entertain,” he said at an April news conference in Manila.
This photo taken on February 13, 2017 shows people in Pyongyang watching a public broadcast about the launch of a surface-to-surface medium long-range ballistic missile Pukguksong-2 at an undisclosed location on February 12.The UN Security Council on February 13 unanimously condemned North Korea's latest ballistic missile test as US President Donald Trump vowed to deliver a strong response to the provocation. / AFP / KIM Won-Jin (Photo credit should read KIM WON-JIN/AFP/Getty Images) People in Pyongyang watch a public broadcast about the launch of a surface-to-surface medium-long-range ballistic missile, Pukguksong-2, at an undisclosed location in February 2017. Photo: Kim Won-JinAFP/Getty Images
During the call with Trump, however, Duterte had a different message, emphasizing that the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un was a “madman.” “He is playing with his bombs, his toys and from the looks of it, his mind is not working well and he might just go crazy one moment,” he told Trump. The two leaders praised each other, and Duterte encouraged Trump to “keep the pressure on” Kim Jong-un while offering to aid Trump in pressing China to bring its influence to bear on North Korea.
Duterte’s public comments, rather than his private ones, are more in line with regional attitudes toward North Korea. North Korea has been saber-rattling for so long that its neighbors have largely decided that ignoring the provocations is the best path forward, a strategy that has been abandoned by Trump.
Earlier this month, amid escalating tensions with North Korea, South Korean voters went to the polls in their presidential election and elected Moon Jae-In — a former human rights lawyer in favor of dialogue and joint economic projects with North Korea.
In his conversation with Duterte, Trump asked for information about the region. “What do you think about China? Does China have power over him?” Trump asked. “What’s your opinion of [Kim Jong-un], Rodrigo? Are we dealing with someone who [is] stable or not stable?”
“He is not stable,” Duterte answered.
The Intercept also obtained a briefing document from the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs dated several days after the call with Trump, which contains talking points for an upcoming call between Duterte and the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. The document lists as a talking point that Duterte should “call on all parties to exercise restraint and level-headedness to avoid making the situation worse.”
The talking points do not mention Trump.
READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT OF TRUMP’S CALL WITH PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE
Jeremy Scahill, Alex Emmons, Ryan Grim
May 23 2017, 6:23 p.m.
A Call With a KillerA Call With a Killer
Part 3
It was enormously controversial that Trump placed a friendly call to Philippine strongman Rodrigo Duterte in April. Now, we can read what they said.
LAST MONTH Donald Trump spoke by phone with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and was widely criticized by members of both parties for inviting the strongman to meet with him in the White House.
The Intercept obtained a transcript of the call and is publishing it in full. On the call, Trump enthusiastically endorsed Duterte’s murderous “drug war” and repeatedly addressed the possibility of a U.S. nuclear strike on North Korea. The transcript, which contains numerous typographical errors, is an official document of the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs. Well-placed sources at the Palace and the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed its authenticity to reporters for the Philippine news outlet Rappler, which collaborated with The Intercept on this story.
The White House readout describes the call as a “very friendly conversation”:
President Donald J. Trump spoke today with President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. It was a very friendly conversation, in which the two leaders discussed the concerns of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) regarding regional security, including the threat posed by North Korea. They also discussed the fact that the Philippine government is fighting very hard to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries throughout the world. President Trump enjoyed the conversation and said that he is looking forward to visiting the Philippines in November to participate in the East Asia Summit and the U.S.-ASEAN Summit. President Trump also invited President Duterte to the White House to discuss the importance of the the United States-Philippines alliance, which is now heading in a very positive direction.
Here is the transcript:
https://theintercept.com/series/a-call-with-a-killer/
MAY 24, 2017 @ 11:49 PM 8,297
Duterte Is The Philippines' Greatest Threat: Congress Should Cancel His Martial Law
Anders Corr , CONTRIBUTOR
I cover international politics, security and political risk.
The situation on Mindanao could be dealt with in ways other than martial law.
This is not the invasion or rebellion that constitutional framers in the Philippines had in mind when they authorized martial law and limited it to 60 days.
President Duterte used the excuse of terrorism in Mindanao to declare martial law there on May 23, a martial law he is itching to expand to the rest of the country. On multiple occasions he has mooted the idea of martial law, emergency powers, or a “revolutionary government” for the Philippines to address issues as varied as traffic in Manila, impeachment, a budget impasse, and his drug war. He also suggested that he could dispense with local elections and appoint 42,000 Barangay leaders, the smallest political unit in the Philippines. This is contrary to the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines, as is his threat to extend martial law past the 60-day maximum. Congress should revoke his martial law declaration, as is its constitutional right.
Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) meets with his Philippine counterpart Rodrigo Duterte at the Kremlin in Moscow late on May 23, 2017. Credit: MAXIM SHEMETOV/AFP/Getty Images
The situation on Mindanao could be dealt with in ways other than martial law. Various Islamist groups on Mindanao, including the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups, have flown the Islamic State flag to try and look more powerful than they are, as they only number a few hundred members each. This is not the invasion or rebellion that constitutional framers in the Philippines had in mind when they authorized martial law and limited it to 60 days. Yet Duterte has said martial law could last a year.
Regular police or army work short of martial law has been used in the past on Mindanao, and could be used now. As Dr. Priscilla Tacujan has eloquently argued in Small Wars Journal, unrest on Mindanao can be resolved through a four-point program: 1) disarmament, 2) strong local governments, or federalism, 3) a diversified market economy, and 4) civic education and community relations. Dr. Tacujan’s prescription does not include martial law.
Duterte is on an authoritarian path. He reveres the past dictator of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled for 21 years and used torture and a brutal martial law to do so. As Duterte insults U.S. presidents Obama and Trump, he openly embraces China and Russia. Indeed, he declared martial law on his trip to Moscow.
Extrajudicial killings, including murders of political opponents, are at an all-time high. If Philippine voters and political representatives do not immediately revoke martial law and impeach Duterte, they may lose the ability to do so in the future, as the fear of Duterte, and a criminal omertà, spreads. The greatest threat in the Philippines today is not traffic, drugs or terrorists, but the President. The victim will be the Constitution. Use it or lose it.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/anderscorr ... 08db696085
BLOOD BROTHERS
They say they killed for Duterte: The twisted tale of the two hitmen taking on the Philippine president
Edgar Matobato, in hiding.
Edgar Matobato, in hiding. (Michele Sibiloni)
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WRITTEN BY
Ana P. Santos
May 16, 2017
Manila, Philippines
The black nylon computer bag Edgar Matobato has slept with since going on the run is nondescript. There are no markings, no tags to differentiate it. Matobato says he’s always made sure to be just as inconspicuous—it’s how, he alleges, he was able to successfully carry out assassinations ordered by the man who is now president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.
“I’m usually just dressed in shorts, loose shirt, and slippers. No one ever notices me or the gun I have under my shirt. It’s how I could get away with killing someone,” said Matobato, during an interview at a secret location surrounded by thatched huts and a running stream. “When I’m close enough to a target, I can give him one in the head, one in the heart and casually walk away.“
The 57-year-old Matobato says he was a hitman for more than 25 years, part of a shadowy vigilante group that he alleges Duterte started and funded when he was mayor of Davao City, in the southern Philippines. It came to be known as the Davao Death Squad (DDS). Some say it was a term coined by the media who covered the spate of killings in the city. By other accounts, that was the name scrawled on the warning notes left with bodies: “Addict. Don’t be like me.”
Members of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) operatives stand on guard during their anti-drug operaitons in Quezon city, metro Manila
A Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency operation near Manila. (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)
Last year, Duterte swept the country’s presidential election after a campaign in which he vowed to kill criminals. On taking office at the end of June, he immediately rolled out a national war on drugs. Since then, more than 7,000 killings by police and other assailants have taken place, mainly of poor men from urban slums, according to Human Rights Watch. Bodies of suspected users and dealers—often tightly wrapped in packing tape—have turned up under bridges, by railroad tracks and dumpsites, leading critics to draw parallels with the Davao violence.
Quartz reached out multiple times to Duterte’s spokesman and other aides for comment for this story but did not receive a response. The government has said close to 3,000 people have been killed in “presumed legitimate police operations” since Duterte took office, while the remainder of killings are homicides. Regarding the allegations about the founding of the death squad, Salvador Panelo, Duterte’s chief legal counsel, has previously described Matobato’s allegations against Duterte as not credible and “political harassment.”
During the interview, Matobato unpacked the nylon bag, which he says contains everything he needs to support his allegations, and spread its contents out on the table. There were sheets of yellow paper with names and addresses written out for him by his wife; his 52-page sworn affidavit; employee IDs that he says he were issued in relation to the government job that provided cover for his actual role; and a copy of the petition that has been filed before the Ombudsman, the Philippine government body charged with investigating the wrongdoing of government officials, accusing Duterte and more than 20 Davao police officers of murder and kidnapping.
“In case I have to run at a moment’s notice, even if I don’t get to bring any clothes, this is all I will need,” he says of the bag.
Matobato pulls out one more thing from his bag: a small statue of the Virgin Mary, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. The statue is embedded in cotton and encased in a semi-transparent plastic container.
“I found her in the garbage. I cleaned and rescued her,” he explained. “I had never seen anything like that—who would throw away a sacred object?”
The Davao Death Squad
Matobato took the statue as a sign, he said, to continue on the path he started down three years earlier to bring Duterte to justice and to ask for forgiveness for all the lives he took. As part of his efforts, he appeared as a surprise witness before the Senate last September, which was then holding televised hearings on extrajudicial killings, and riveted the nation with the macabre account of what, he alleges, had been happening in Davao.
According to Matobato, the DDS was a group of contract killers made up of civilians, former communist rebels, and Davao City police officers formed in 1988, the year Duterte was elected on a pledge to clean up “murder city.” Matobato had a difficult life before he joined the squad in his twenties. He had only attended first grade and is barely able to read or write. At 18, he witnessed his father beheaded by communist rebels, and later became an army reservist.
On Duterte’s orders, he alleges, they patrolled the streets every night, abducting reported kidnappers and drug users, and then, later, Duterte’s political rivals and critics. For this work, Matobato says he received a monthly salary of about $130, an amount that was released to him as a ghost employee of the city.
From 1988-2013 when he was part of the DDS, Matobato estimates that he took part in killing more than 300 people, killing around 50 himself. The Davao police did not respond to requests for comment.
Loved ones and mourners lift up a closed coffin of Arjay Suldao, 16, who according to the local media was a victim of unknown assailants related to the drug war, to place it inside an apartment-type tomb, during his funeral at a cemetery in Navotas city
A funeral for a teenage victim of unknown assailants in Manila in March. (Romeo Ranoco/Reuters)
A sworn statement from Matobato, based on his Senate account, is being used in support of a complaint filed before the International Criminal Court in The Hague on April 24 that accuses Duterte of crimes against humanity and mass murder through the vigilante group. The ICC reviews complaints and then makes a determination whether or not to open an investigation—it’s unclear how long determining that will take. In general, the court pursues very few cases.
Matobato gave gruesome details of his years in the DDS. Bodies were chopped and buried in a quarry or dumped at sea, political rivals and critics were gunned down in broad daylight. He dropped name after name of police officers who he says participated and benefited from the killing, as well as naming Duterte as the squad’s leader. Duterte has at times denied the DDS exists, and at other times acknowledged knowing of it. In September last year, he denied any involvement with it. A few months later, he said he personally carried out killings, a statement another government official said was “hyperbole.”
During Matobato’s Senate hearings, lawmakers spoke to him mostly in English, although he is clearly more adept at speaking Filipino. At times they appeared to mock him. One brought out different kinds of packing tape, and asked him to identify the kind he preferred to use on bodies.
“Sometimes, I would slit bellies and chests and fill them with sand before dumping them at sea. Or I would use tie wire to tie hollow blocks around them to keep from floating to the surface,” Matobato said. A foot soldier, he says he often worked alongside a Davao police officer named Arturo Lascañas, his handler.
Lascañas would eventually come forward to offer his own version of these grisly events.
Blood brothers
They started out as subordinate and supervisor.
Matobato had been with the DDS a few years when Lascañas, already a cop, was recruited to the squad. Matobato was assigned to the cop, around his own age, as his “asset.” Matobato describes those early days as being something of a bodyguard to Lascañas. He shadowed Lascañas and was sometimes included in meetings between the officer and Duterte, he says. He remembers one time when the mayor showered Lascañas with high praise, “Davao would not be like this without you.”
But after years of leading double lives as city employees and killers who shared a bond of secrecy, Lascañas became much more than his “chief” or a friend to Matobato. “We were like brothers.”
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte assists a policeman to direct street traffic in downtown Davao city
Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, left, speaking to a policeman during the early 1990s. (Renato Lumawag/Reuters)
Because they were like brothers, Matobato said, he did what Lascañas told him to do. Without question, without protest. Every night they would ride in a black van roaming the streets for their targets.
High-profile targets were usually kidnapped, strangled and then buried. Petty criminals like pickpockets and snatchers were considered “small fish” and would be shot in a crowd, usually by men riding in motorcycles without license plates.
Matobato’s main job was “finishing”: He took care of the tedious process of getting rid of the bodies. Cadavers thrown into rivers had to be weighted down so they wouldn’t float to the surface. Clothes were burned and arms and legs were cut off to fit into small graves.
“Then I would pour cooking oil or used oil from trucks over them to stop the stench of rot and decay from attracting flies,” he explained.
“I would pour cooking oil or used oil from trucks over them to stop the stench of rot and decay.”
On the run
It was June 2014, around 10pm, and Matobato said he was was asleep in his home when three policemen, whom he recognized as other members of the vigilante squad, stormed in and roused him. Outside, there were about 30 other officers waiting. They brought him to the barracks of the Davao police and every day, for a week, they beat him.
According to Matobato’s sworn account, he was made to lie on the floor as officers stepped on him and struck him with an M-14 rifle, leaving him with back, shoulder and rib injuries.
The police detained him on charges of illegally carrying a firearm—his permit had expired, he says. But Matobato adds that they told him they suspected of him of going freelance, and carrying out a hit on a prominent businessman for a fee. Matobato says he didn’t commit the killing, and believes it was Lascañas who had given the order to bring him in.
His wife, along with a relative who was a retired officer, gained his release. But once he was let go, Matobato believed he was marked for death, and he ran.
“I asked myself, ‘Why me?’ Why are my friends torturing me? We were together for 25 years, like brothers. I followed their orders. I didn’t refuse any job. I did not operate without their clearance.”
“Why me? Why are my friends torturing me?”
But he already knew the answer to his question. The year before Matobato attempted to leave the DDS, and retire to a quiet life: “We had already trained enough young officers to take over.”
He should have known that was not possible. “You don’t leave the DDS alive,” he said.
After the Davao police released him, he sailed from one island to another, seeking refuge with priests, until he finally reached his destination in Manila—the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Philippine Senator Leila de Lima
Philippine Senator Leila de Lima. (Erik de Castro/Reuters)
Senator Leila De Lima was DOJ secretary then and remembered the day vividly.
“He just walked in to the office,” said De Lima. “My staff told me someone from the DDS was there and wanted to see me. I couldn’t believe it.”
Years earlier, De Lima had been trying to verify the existence of the Davao vigilante squad in a previous role as head of the country’s Commission of Human Rights. No official inquiry ever came from that.
Now, Matobato entered the department’s witness-protection program, which began looking quietly into his story. On May 6, 2016, when it was clear that Duterte had won the presidency, he left. He says he feared for his safety.
The lawyer
Like most of the nation, lawyer Jude Sabio watched Matobato’s testimony in September with shock and horror. Many in the Philippines expressed doubts about the account but he found himself instantly believing the self-confessed killer.
Sabio wrote articles defending Matobato and one found its way to a priest who had been hiding Matobato after he left the witness program. The priest reached out to Sabio via Facebook and asked him if he would would represent Matobato.
“I’m defending not only Matobato as a person. I’m out defending the truth that he represents,” says Sabio, who also filed the complaint against Duterte at the Hague. The lawyer said elements of Matobato’s account were similar to testimony offered years ago by another self-confessed hitman at a then little-noticed court hearing.
By September, De Lima was ousted as chair of the Senate committee for justice, the role that had allowed her to call Matobato to testify, and was accused by fellow lawmakers of making the hearings an “avenue for personal vendetta” because of an increasingly bitter rivalry with Duterte. Later, she was arrested on suspicion of suspected drug trafficking, a charge she has vehemently denied.
The Senate inquiry continued and lawmakers went on to call Lascañas before the justice panel, after Matobato named the cop during his appearance. But instead of corroborating his longtime friend’s account, the cop, then a few months from retirement, contested it. He denied the existence of the DDS and while he didn’t deny knowing Matobato—but described him as no more than an acquaintance.
The Senate inquiry into the extrajudicial killings fizzled out and Matobato was discredited.
The handler
In February this year, Senator Antonio Trillanes, a former Navy officer best known for leading a mutiny almost 15 years ago, called a press conference at the Senate. After reporters arrived, Arturo Lascañas walked in with three lawyers.
Trillanes was the lawmaker who had grilled him the hardest over his assertions months earlier that he hardly knew Matobato. Now they sat at the same long table as Lascañas read from a statement in measured words: “The Davao Death Squad or DDS exists. Edgar [Matobato] is a member and I am one of the co-founders.” Then he filled in the blanks left by Matobato’s earlier testimony.
Lascañas was stoic and eerily calm as he detailed how the kill squad began pursuing suspected criminals upon the orders of Duterte and how they were paid as much as $20,000 for a kill of an especially high-value target. He broke down once when he disclosed that he had allowed his own blood, his two brothers, to be killed by the squad—instead of fighting for them to be spared and face prison for their involvement with illegal drugs.
Immediately after his public confession, Lascañas went into hiding, but surfaced long enough to give media interviews and appear before a fresh Senate inquiry in March.
Lascañas told lawmakers that the core group involved were police officers whose loyalty was bought through fat bounties for successful kills, and generous allowances for food, gas, and transportation—essentials that stretched Lascañas’s salary of about $800 a month.
In later years, planning included coordinating the shutdown of closed-circuit TV cameras that could record abductions. But some things remained the same, like the planting of drugs and a .38 caliber pistol on some victims, and wrapping other targets in tape. “So he won’t resist. It’s also quieter and cleaner that way,” explained Lascañas.
For years, the DDS was something between an open secret and an urban legend. But no longer. Like Matobato, Lascañas says the war on drugs of the past year is the DDS blueprint expanded on a national level.
Atonement
Arturo Lascañas
Arturo Lascañas, the handler (Michele Sibiloni)
In 1982, when Lascañas first joined the Davao police, Agdao, the city’s largest slum, was called “Nicarag-dao,” a reference to Nicaragua’s deadly civil war that was then underway, because of the bodies that were dumped there every day. To the young 21-year-old cop, it was all an adventure.
Lascañas was trained to kill with a gun, a knife, and his bare hands. It was a training that hardened him to the possibility of his own possibly violent death. What he was not prepared for was the slow debilitation of middle age and kidney failure. His body became bony and shriveled. His vision was impaired and on especially sunny days, he could barely see. He was in and out of hospital, hooked up to a machine doing the work that his kidneys no longer could.
“No one visited me,” he said.
His wife had kicked him out of the house after he confessed that he had a grown child with another woman. He could no longer work. Lascañas was overcome with an emotion unfamiliar to him: powerlessness.
An unexpected kidney transplant in October 2015—which he says Duterte helped him pay for—extended his life but Lascañas needed something else. He first confessed about the squad to a nun who was a personal friend, but it wasn’t enough. “She asked if I wanted to confess to a priest. I said I wanted someone higher.”
Privately, Lascañas had already put together a 70-page tell-all journal that year about the DDS, based on an old ledger where he and another cop “kept track of which killings were paid for and which weren’t yet.”
“There is no other witness bigger than Lascañas. He is an insider and proof that what they wanted was a template to implement the DDS across the country,” said Antonio Trillanes, the senator from whom Lascañas sought assistance in January and who has become Duterte’s fiercest critic.
In an interview from his safe house earlier this year, Lascañas said, “I know the consequences of my confession. I am a dead man running.” Last month, he quietly left the country. Speaking via Skype from Singapore, he says he feared for his safety.
From his safe house, Matobato had sat on the edge of his seat as he watched Lascañas own up to his role in the DDS in February. When he heard Lascañas corroborate his own account, he says he began jumping up and down and cried. “They called me a liar. Now, they know I have been telling the truth.”
Before Lascañas left the Philippines, he met his former asset face-to-face for the first time in more than four years. Matobato had already forgiven him for his betrayal.
“We saw each other before he went into hiding, just for a short while,” said Matobato. “We gave each other a hug and cried. There we were, two old men—killers—reduced to tears.”
https://qz.com/967610/they-say-they-kil ... president/
The U.S. Has Been Supporting Brutal Anti-Drug Measures for Years. Trump Just Said It Out Loud.
By Joshua Keating
Alleged drug user on the ground after an unidentified gunmen shot him dead in Manila.
Policemen investigating a body of an alleged drug user in Manila, Phililppines on January 18, 2017.
Noel Celis/Getty Images
The Washington Post has provided new details on last month’s already controversial call between Donald Trump and Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte. According to a Philippines government transcript, Trump praised Duterte for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem,” despite widespread reports that Duterte’s unbelievable job has involved thousands of extrajudicial killings. “Many countries have the problem, we have the problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that,” Trump says, adding that, “we had a previous president who did not understand that.”
This is yet another example of the Trump administration’s contempt for human rights. But the truth is that U.S. support for draconian antidrug measures around the world is not exactly new.
The U.S. has pushed countries to adopt tough anti-drug policies for decades, and often funded those efforts directly. The U.S. provided more than $2 billion to Mexico to combat drug trafficking since 2007, despite evidence of dozens of instances of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances by security forces, not to mention the widespread use of torture against detainees as part of the country’s ongoing drug war.
The U.S. devoted more than $10 billion over 15 years to Plan Colombia, an initiative that’s had mixed success at curbing drug trafficking and political violence in the country. There have been allegations of hundreds of extrajudicial killings by the military during this period and the government, with U.S. blessing, gave impunity to paramilitary groups. Earlier this year, Colombia’s former president, Cesar Gaviria, who later came to support drug law reform, wrote an op-ed urging Duterte against “repeating my mistakes.”
In 2003, an allegedly government-approved vigilante campaign against drug dealers in Thailand killed nearly 3,000 people. During that time and the years after, the United States provided Thailand with more than $3 million a year in counternarcotics aid. The U.S. has also continued to provide counternarcotics aid and praise to Indonesia, where nonviolent drug offenders can get the death penalty.
Even Duterte’s Philippines got a boost in military aid from the United States while the Obama administration was criticizing its abuses.
There were some signs of a shift in U.S. policy toward the end of the Obama years. The U.S. withheld some aid to Mexico in late 2015 because of human rights violations and deferred some aid to the Philippines last December. (It’s tempting to wonder if this would have happened if Duterte hadn’t been such a loudmouth, comparing himself to Hitler and calling Obama the “son of a whore.”) With more American states legalizing marijuana, the U.S. has also become somewhat more open to accepting progressive harm reduction strategies, including decriminalization, at the United Nations. (Russia is now emerging as the leader of countries pushing for zero tolerance.)
The Trump administration is likely to set America’s global drug policies back to the status quo. What’s different is that he’s fine with praising governments for killing and torturing people in their drug crackdowns rather than at least saying he’s not OK with it.
By Joshua Keating
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan picked quite the time to visit the White House. His highly anticipated meeting with President Trump comes just one day after the Washington Post reported that Trump had discussed classified information provided by a U.S. ally during a meeting with Russia’s foreign minister last week—a story Trump more or less confirmed on Twitter on Tuesday morning.
The revelation just further underlines what’s been obvious for some time: Trump is far from the cutthroat negotiator he promised to be on the campaign trail, he goes into these meeting with a startling lack of preparation, and his vanity makes him exceptionally easy to manipulate.
Nobody has played this game better than Chinese President Xi Jinping, who met Trump in person for the first time at Mar-a-Lago in April. Since that meeting, Trump has mentioned in nearly every interview how great he got along with Xi and what a wonderful man he is. In return for some pledges to put pressure on North Korea—which have apparently not deterred that country’s missile program—and a deal on beef imports that allowed Trump to claim a Twitter victory lap but did little to address the overall trade imbalance between the two countries, Trump has more or less abandoned the tough anti-Chinese trade rhetoric that defined his campaign. He’s even letting Beijing have its way in the South China Sea. Trump has also more or less adopted a Chinese-centric view of the Korean conflict, shocking South Koreans by saying that Xi had told him the entire peninsula used to be “part of China.”
Few leaders have as much to gain from a good relationship with Trump as Erdogan, who already has a friendly dynamic with the president and comes to Washington with a lengthy wish list. On top of his agenda will be convincing Trump to abandon a plan to arm the Syrian Kurdish militia YPG in the fight against ISIS. (Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization linked to the Turkey-based PKK, and has been launching airstrikes against them.) Erdogan would also like the U.S. to extradite the exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, currently living in Pennsylvania, whom his government blames for last year’s attempted coup. Trump doesn’t actually have the power to do that—Gulen can’t be extradited without a court order—but the administration could get the ball rolling on that process or at least put out signals that it buys the Turkish government’s case against Gulen, which the previous administration viewed with skepticism.
As I discussed in an article Monday, Erdogan may have a card to play with Trump in the form of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor jailed on dubious charges as part of Turkey’s post-coup crackdown. Trump has touted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s decision to release an imprisoned U.S. aid worker after Trump asked him to as evidence of their productive partnership. I’m sure Trump would like nothing more than to be able to say he got a similar concession out of Erdogan, though it’s hard to imagine the negotiation will be on Trump’s terms. The lesson Erdogan and other leaders are no doubt taking from Monday’s story, as well as the meetings that proceeded it, is that once you get in a room with Donald Trump, anything can happen.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/ ... downs.html
Duterte to Look Into 'Secret Cell' Detentions
Twelve people being held without charge, crammed into a tiny, dark, windowless room.
| April 28, 2017, at 3:46 a.m.
By Manolo Serapio Jr
MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Friday he will look into the illegal detention of drug suspects at a secret cell in a Manila police station that has raised new questions about police conduct in his war on drugs.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said it discovered the cell on Thursday, after a tip-off, at a police station in Manila's Tondo district, a hotbed of drug-war killings.
The group said it found 12 people being held without charge, crammed into a tiny, dark, windowless room. The entrance was hidden by a wooden cabinet.
Police on Friday sacked the station's chief and launched an investigation, the latest inquiry into the behaviour of a force which is coming under intense criticism for a litany of alleged abuses of power during Duterte's war on drugs.https://www.usnews.com/news/world/artic ... ecret-cell
.The Trump-Duterte Bromance
Trump's praise for Duterte indicates Washington's growing emphasis on strategic interests over value promotion.
To be fair, Trump's invitation to the Filipino leader makes perfect geopolitical sense, writes Heydarian [AP]To be fair, Trump's invitation to the Filipino leader makes perfect geopolitical sense, writes Heydarian [AP]
byRichard Javad Heydarian
@Richeydarian
Richard Javad Heydarian is a specialist in Asian geopolitical/economic affairs.
"There is no diplomacy like candor," the British essayist Edward Verrall Lucas once famously said.
Last weekend, US President Donald Trump came under heavy criticism, including from officials within his own administration, for extending a formal invitation to his Filipino counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte.
According to the White House, the two controversial leaders had a "very friendly conversation". To the chagrin of human rights groups, the American president went so far as to praise the Duterte administration's brutal crackdown on illegal drugs as "[a] very hard [effort] to rid its country of drugs, a scourge that affects many countries around the world".
In fact, during their first phone conversation in December, Duterte claimed that Trump "was quite sensitive also to our [concerns] about drugs", and "was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem".
According to the media and civil society groups, Duterte's "war on drugs" has reportedly claimed an average of a thousand lives every single month. The anti-crime campaign, however, is popular at home, where the majority of the population has expressed trust and approval for their unorthodox leader.
A human rights lawyer recently sought to initiate a formal complaint against the Filipino president at the International Criminal Court, accusing Duterte of committing crimes against humanity. Amid concerns over the human rights situation in the Philippines, the European Union is considering imposing sanctions on the country, while the US State Department is expected to cancel a $434m development aid package.
To be fair, Trump's invitation to the Filipino leader makes perfect geopolitical sense, given growing concerns over the Philippines' lurch into the Chinese sphere of influence in recent months. Moreover, both Trump and Duterte seem to have developed an unusual rapport, given their almost identical populist, anti-establishment bent.
It's geopolitics, stupid!
A hundred days into office, Trump has struggled to boast of any major achievement, whether at home or abroad. If anything, he still suffers from the lowest approval rating (44 percent) of any American leader at this stage in their presidency. But desperation has bred diplomatic innovation.
Reaching out to controversial heads of state was a bold strategic move which could carry political dividends down the road for the embattled American president as well as strengthen his country's leadership position in Asia.
To be fair, Trump didn't only invite Duterte, but also Prime Ministers Prayuth Chan-ocha and Lee Hsien Loong of Thailand and Singapore respectively. This was part of a broader effort to reach out to smaller Asian powers, which have felt neglected by the Trump administration in recent months.
So far, Trump has already hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while dispatching his Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Foreign Secretary Rex Tillerson to Northeast Asia and Europe. In April, Pence only briefly visited Indonesia, Southeast Asia's largest country, en route to Australia.
READ MORE: Rodrigo Duterte - The Donald Trump of the Philippines?
Establishing robust military cooperation with Southeast Asian states such as the Philippines, the former site of the largest American overseas military bases, is crucial to the success of the Trump administration's increasingly assertive defence policy in the region, particularly in the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea.
Trump needs maximum support from all major players. As the chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Duterte has huge sway over shaping the regional agenda. Moreover, inviting Duterte over to the White House made perfect sense since Trump is expected to visit Manila later this year for the East Asia Summit, a major annual event regularly attended by Asia-Pacific leaders.
Thus it was of paramount importance for Trump to invite Southeast Asian leaders over, reassure them of American commitment to the region, and develop a better understanding of their strategic dilemmas amid rising Sino-American rivalry in Asia.
New Best Friends
So far, Duterte has demurred from the invitation. While aboard Chinese warships, which recently visited Duterte's hometown of Davao, the Filipino leader said that he "cannot make any definite promise", since he is too busy with other scheduled trips, including Moscow and Beijing in the coming weeks. In reality, however, Duterte considers Trump someone he can work with, in spite of disagreements over human rights issues.
During his inauguration speech, Trump declared that America will no longer "seek to impose our way of life on anyone". As for Trump's chief diplomat, Rex Tillerson, he repeatedly refused to categorise Duterte as a human rights violator during his confirmation hearings.
OPINION: Rodrigo Duterte: A new era in the Philippines
A few months into office, Tillerson, in a dramatic break with tradition, snubbed the annual human rights report briefing at the State Department. These actions stand in stark contrast to the rhetoric, if not actual policy, of the Obama administration, which made human rights and democracy issues front and centre in America's regional diplomacy.
In response, Duterte's spokesman, Ernesto Abella, "welcome[d] President Trump's [new] foreign policy direction", and called for a more "placid and mutually beneficial relationship" between the two allies.
Trump's relentless praise and admiration for authoritarian leaders the world over, from Russia's Vladimir Putin to Egyptian general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, indicates Washington's growing emphasis on strategic interests over ideology and value promotion. And this is why a Duterte-Trump bromance could be on the horizon
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 34421.html
by Sounder » Thu May 25, 2017 5:43 pm
by American Dream » Thu May 25, 2017 5:57 pm
Jeremy Scahill on Trump's Embrace of Duterte's Deadly War on Drugs in the Philippines
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right, right, of course. I mean, this is three madmen that are in this equation: Trump, Duterte and Kim Jong-un. And I really don’t know which of these three people is the sort of greater threat to civilization. I mean, it’s probably Trump, but it’s—you know, tough call.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go to some of the clips of Duterte in his own words. Last September, the Philippines president likened himself to Hitler.
PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE: Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there is 3 million—what is it? Three million drug addicts, there are. I’d be happy to slaughter them. At least if Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me]. You know, my victims, I would like to be all criminals.
AMY GOODMAN: Last fall, Duterte called then-President Obama "son of a whore" and warned him not to ask about his so-called drug war.
PRESIDENT RODRIGO DUTERTE: I am a president of a sovereign state, and we have long ceased to be a colony. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw away questions and statements. [translated] Son of a whore, I will swear at you in that forum.
AMY GOODMAN: Before he was elected, Duterte admitted he was linked to a death squad in Davao. He spoke on a local TV show in a mix of English and Visayan.
MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE: [translated] Me. They are saying I’m part of a death squad.
HOST: So, how do you react to that?
MAYOR RODRIGO DUTERTE: [translated] True. That’s true. You know, when I become president, I warn you—I don’t covet the position, but if I become president, the 1,000 will become 50,000. [in English] I will kill all of you who make the lives of Filipinos miserable. [translated] I will really kill you. I won because of the breakdown in law and order.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Meanwhile, in December, Duterte boasted about having personally killed criminal suspects when he was mayor of Davao City. The Manila Times reported he told a group of business leaders in the Philippines capital, quote, "In Davao, I used to do it personally—just to show to the guys that if I can do it, why can’t you? And I’d go around in Davao with a motorcycle, with a big bike around, and I would just patrol the streets, looking for trouble also. I was really looking for a confrontation, so I could kill." Jeremy—
JEREMY SCAHILL: I mean—
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: These comments from a president of the Philippines.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Right. Well, I mean, you know, those, of course, are of a more serious nature than the kinds of things that come out of Donald Trump’s mouth, but they do have that in common, where, you know, they’ll just sort of say what they’re thinking. And in a way, it’s refreshing, I guess, because most world leaders try to cover up the uncouth actions that they’re taking in their countries.
What I think is really significant for people to understand is that in the Hitler quote, where Duterte is saying Germany had Hitler, and, you know, he underestimates the number of people that Hitler killed—you know, he says 3 million—but he doesn’t say, "We have 3 million narcotraffickers that I want to kill." He says, "We have 3 million addicts." And that is—that’s the point here, is that they are not going after the kind of, you know, "Chapo" of the Philippines. Many of the people that have been killed are rank-and-file victims of a drug culture. And that’s who’s paying the heaviest price for all of this.
by Iamwhomiam » Thu May 25, 2017 8:52 pm
Sounder » Thu May 25, 2017 5:43 pm wrote:
As to Mr. Duarte. As you may know, many people are distrustful, all the more given the volume and stridency, of elitist paid for 'reportage', of any given facts of these events.
But you know what? That does not even matter because the leader of the Philippines is popular in his own country, as Putin and Assad also poll well in their countries. And it is none of my business to think that I am so special to have some authority or license to foment violence and ill regard toward those leaders and the countries themselves.
by Sounder » Thu May 25, 2017 9:01 pm
I mean who could possibly have a problem with this giant amongst men? We should have more like him and bring all his policies here, right?
My cousin's wife is from a very wealthy Philippines and they are claiming democracy has been lost there.
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