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Issue Number 25/26, December
2005
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 25/26, December 2005
MOROS CONSIGNED
TO MANILA’S SLUMS, RUBBISH DUMPS & PRISONS
Mary Ellen O’Connor
Myself, from Nelson, and
three other New Zealanders, Rod Prosser and Josephine
O’Connor (my daughter), both from Wellington, and
Tim Howard, from Whangarei, were fortunate enough to be
part of this much-needed show of solidarity for a country
which is very much under the boot of the police and armed
forces, the instruments of the Filipino elite and Uncle
Sam. Big thanks to the Philippines Solidarity Network of
Aotearoa (PSNA) and Christian World Service for their
financial support in this effort. Super big thanks to
PSNA’s Murray Horton for being the conduit and
jacking up the funds.
Following the events of September 11, 2001, US President
George Bush declared the Philippines to be “the
second front in the war on terror” and since then
terror has been unleashed on the Filipino people.
Military exercises have been escalated, torture and
extra-judicial killings have increased alarmingly, and
many communities have been bulldozed or burnt, as
“the second front” (which is actually a front
for the trans-national corporations’ agenda) rolls
out the tanks.
The August 14-19, 2005, International Solidarity Mission
(ISM) of 85 foreigners (half of whom were Filipino
Americans) was divided into five teams to investigate
some of the worst human rights excesses. I was part of
the Sulu team, which meant we should have gone south to
Sulu, the home of Islamic resistance. This island and the
other islands of the south are the homeland for the Moro
(or Muslim) people who have long resisted colonial rule
and have therefore been singled out as a target. Post
September 11, they provided a ready-made backdrop for the
US propaganda about a second front. However, 2005 has
seen such an escalation in violence in the south that it
was simply too dangerous for us to go there.
Life On The Garbage Mountain
Instead our team visited the various Moro communities in
Manila. These are people who have been made refugees in
their own land and end up in the worst of the worst
Manila slums in Culiat, Pyatas or Baseco. This latter is
the new name for the old Smokey Mountain, the rubbish
heap where 100,000 now live. A significant proportion of
these are Moro. August was the rainy season and the
stench of the garbage and the stagnant puddles was
overpowering. Tiny naked children and dogs clamber over
the rubbish their parents scavenge, as families cling to
the most precarious of existences. The health hazards
include leptospirosis (a deadly disease spread by the
urine and faeces of animals such as rats. Ed.) and a
variety of unsightly skin conditions. Strangely, this is
right in Manila Bay, on the water's edge, which would
usually be regarded as prime real estate. And yet the
dignity, courage, grace and humour of people in the most
reduced of circumstances, were remarkable. As I tiptoed
my way across stinking garbage to one woman’s
dwelling, cleverly constructed of others’ cast-offs,
she said: “Do you like my new path? How about my
house renovations?”. She had been living there for
20 years.
There I also met another woman from Sulu, fluent in
English and Arabic, who’d spent three years at the
University of Mindanao and worked seven years in Dubai.
On her return, she had nowhere to go but Baseco. The
situation in Sulu has deteriorated into all-out war where
the real victims are non-combatants, children and women.
Like the first front in the war on terror.
The Prison Massacre Of The Basilan 73
The story of the Basilan 73 encapsulates a lot of the
grim realities the Moro people face. In November 2001, 73
Islamic men, mostly fishermen, were rounded up on the
island of Basilan, accused of being Abu Sayyaf*. They
were then taken to Manila, to Camp Bagong Diwa jail where
they were imprisoned, without hearings, without charges,
without trial. *The Abu Sayyaf Group really are
terrorists, but not in any political sense. Born out of
the same process that gave the world Osama bin Laden
– namely the global mobilisation of Muslims by the
US Central Intelligence Agency to wage jihad on the
Russian invaders of Afghanistan in the 1980s - they
became a very small but high profile criminal gang in the
islands between Mindanao and Borneo, specialising in
spectacular mass kidnappings of Westerners, which reaped
them huge ransoms paid in $US. They have well documented
links to the Philippine military and Intelligence. Ed.
Their families, deprived of support, were then forced to
move to Moro slums in Manila. At least there they could
visit the detainees, albeit for a very short periods,
locked between the cell and an outer locked door. They
always took food since the prison food is limited, of
very poor quality and the Moros are often served pork
(against their religion) Conditions in the jail are
horrific. Political detainees are held with those on
criminal charges, minors are held with adults and there
are six to a tiny cell, 2m x 3m. There is no furniture,
no sunlight and no books. Nobody is allowed out for
exercise.
Here the Basilan 73 languished for three and a half
years. On the March 14 2005, two inmates supposedly tried
to escape. In the fracas that followed, 23 detainees were
massacred, 11 of them victims of the Basilan crackdown.
One woman we spoke to, (from Basilan) had lost her father
and her husband in this jail massacre. We also spoke to
one haunted looking survivor who insisted he had always
been a fisherman, had never been involved with Abu
Sayyaf, and nor had any of those inside. Still no day in
court for any of them.
International People’s Tribunal Verdict:
Guilty On All Charges
The ISM concluded with an International People’s
Tribunal which put the Philippine President, Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo, and George Bush on trial for war
crimes, crimes against humanity and gross violations of
human rights and international humanitarian law. For a
People’s Tribunal is, in fact, the only way these
allegations ever see the light of day in a country where
established channels of justice have never served the
ordinary people. Three distinguished international human
rights lawyers/academics acted as judges, the prosecutors
were all Filipino human rights lawyers and the jurors
were drawn from the ranks of the ISM (Mary Ellen was a
juror, see her article below. Ed.).
The prosecutors proceeded to interview the witnesses, all
of whom testified under oath. These included children who
had seen their parents murdered, picketers who had seen
their mates shot in the back as they ran, and women whose
peasant activist husbands have been disappeared. A lot of
the evidence was accompanied by graphic video footage or
photos. It was gruelling stuff. The reports from the ISM
teams were added to the mix. Predictably, the jury found
the accused guilty as charged for crimes against humanity
and the judgments meted out were simple and stark:
That the defendants be arrested and ousted from power.
That the defendants be made to serve penalties of life
imprisonment and perpetual disqualification from any
public office.
That the defendants be made to pay compensation and
indemnification to their victims.
The Tribunal was an example of the sophistication, the
analysis, the courage and the creativity that is
displayed by the young people heading up the
people’s organisations which organised the ISM. It
is their staunchness and commitment that give you hope in
what is otherwise a fairly hopeless-looking situation. As
we farewelled these activists we had got to know, we all
silently breathed a prayer that they would not end up as
statistics, like so many of their compatriots.
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