VICTIM CALLS ON CHR TO PROBE NPA ATROCITIES IN DAVAO

DAVAO CITY, 13 October 2009 – The Victims of Injustice, Communism and Terrorism in Mindanao (VICTIM) challenges the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) to investigate the human rights abuses committed by local communist terrorists especially the Pulang Bagani Company 1 of the CPP-NPA-NDF Southern Mindanao Region.

In a press release, VICTIM pointed out that no less than Ka Simon Santiago, political director of the NPA in Southern Mindanao, admitted to the local media that the NPA units tasked to execute the “death sentence orders” of their so-called “People’s Court,” otherwise known as “Kangaroo Court,” have committed “errors” and “excesses” even as he tried to gloss over the killings by saying that the victims were criminals.

“Ka Simon Santiago’s open admission of their men’s errors and excesses in carrying out the killings is a good cue for the CHR to come into the picture and investigate the atrocities,” said VICTIM, adding that the CHR had been quick to grab the limelight in other high profile cases such as the alleged abduction of NPA member Melissa Roxas and the Tiongson-Singson wife-beating scandal.

The CHR’s constitutional mandate is to investigate all human rights violations in the country irrespective of the offending parties.

Once and for all, the CHR under Chairman Leila de Lima should prove to the taxpayers who funded the office that it is not subservient to the CPP-NPA-NDF whose overall evil master, Jose Ma. Sison, is the husband of her cousin Juliet de Lima, said VICTIM.

According to VICTIM, “Chair De Lima must take the occasion that the CHR is investigating the so-called Davao Death Squad to also look into the excesses of the Sparrow Death Squad that made Davao City as its laboratory since early ‘80s.”

“Who knows that the alleged DDS and the NPA Special Partisan Unit (SPARU) shared some common resources and interests? There have been persistent rumors that some former SPARU members in Davao City have turned themselves into DDS members or even started the group.

Earlier, VICTIM vehemently denounced the series of atrocities committed by local communist terrorists against members and leaders of the indigenous cultural communities in Southern Mindanao Region.

VICTIM’s own probe tend to show that the CPP-NPA-NDF authorized the recent spate of killings of the “Lumad” to discourage members of the local indigenous cultural communities from supporting the government drive against all illegal armed groups in the region’s hinterlands that disrupted the indigenous people’s peaceful living.

VICTIM is a new group composed of surviving victims and families of the victims of injustice, communism and terrorism in Mindanao. Its growing membership includes those who survived persecutions, ambushes, assassinations, bombings, human right abuses and other infractions against humanity.

It was secretly founded at the eve of the 20th commemoration of the infamous Digos Massacre last June 25.