*The cost of killing Gaddafi*        In 2009 Libya was a friend to the US so much so that Libya allowed several US corporate giants to enter & approval was given for training of Libyan security personnel & civilians. These were the civilians that eventually became “rebels” given arms by the West to overthrow Gaddafi in a movement called “liberating Libya”. Arming locals has become a new strategy to avoid deaths to coalition forces while NATO is tasked to take on the indiscriminate air strikes. So what has been the cost for killing a man who has ruled a nation for 42 years without debt to the IMF or the World Bank? It took 8 months for US-NATO to take over Libya, the pro-US Libyan Government may celebrate & rejoice but that celebration is as short-lived as the jubilations in Iraq & Egypt where the people are beginning to realize their country would have still been better off with Saddam Hussein & HosniMubarak!     The world needs to know that Gaddafi gave Libyans. Education in Libya is free to everyone from elementary school right up to university and post-graduate study, at home or abroad, Libyans enjoy free health care, ratio of one doctor per 673 citizens. Libyans are given interest free housing loans, free land for farmers. In 2010, Libya ranked 53rd on the Human Development Index (out of 170 U.N. member states),<http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/Lets-Talk-HD-HDI_2010.pdf>making it a “high human development” country, electricity is free for all its citizens. if a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidized 50% of the price. price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per litre. Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – now frozen globally A mother who gave birth to a child receives US$5,000.  40 loaves of bread in Libya costs $ 0.15.  25% of Libyans have a university degree, All newlyweds in Libya receive $60,000 Dinar (US$50,000) by the government to buy their first apartment so to help start up the family. Prior to the international sanction placed on Gaddafi & Libya in the 1980s, it was one of the richest in the world by GDP per capita – with a living standard higher than Japan. It was the richest in Africa before the revolution. Libya is the only country in North Africa where terrorists do not exist. Fundamentalists have no voice whatsoever in Libya. Not a single terror-incident has been recorded in Libya during Gaddafi’s regime. Gaddafi is no saint but the above examples show that the qualities of leadership that made Libya what it was need to be benchmarked against what the US & West have in store for Libya that has been  purposely destroyed to advance the agenda of the West.     With the death of Gaddafi the most important question is where are the 50,000 people that Gaddafi is supposed to have killed prior to US-NATO forces attacking Libya? Clearly the “genocide” claim is a lie – a little too late as the objective of killing Gaddafi has been achieved.     The number of civilian casualties as a result of US-NATO airstrikes, rebel attacks & pro-Government forces range between 1000 & 10,000. These remain only “estimates”. Mainstream media has erred in blaming deaths caused by pro-Gaddafi totally ignoring the reality that the majority of deaths would have resulted by the indiscriminate bombing by US-NATO air strikes. NATO cannot deny that it has purposely targeted civilian infrastructure – hospitals (Al-Tajura Hospital & Saladin Hospital in Ain Zara), power generating facilities, water purification systems, tv stations & other communication networks, civilian airports, schools, government buildings & residential complexes. The purpose of such bombings is obviously to destroy the country’s institutions. The UN Human Rights organization or other human rights bodies seem to care little for the realism behind the exercise of freeing Libya & at the fatalities that has been caused by NATO which has no mandate whatsoever to carry out air strikes on Libya. What these  international bodies are doing to humanity is a shame & a crime for which  all of them must be tried for holding office & remaining silent over crimes  taking place under false motives & concocted lies.     Thus the “humanitarian” bombing campaign part of the R2P agenda is part & parcel of a new military strategy carved by the West & a major component of this strategy is to destroy civilian infrastructure. This methodology was applied in Yugoslavia & Iraq where bridges, power plants, water systems, cultural & historical heritages, schools & hospitals were all identified as “legitimate military targets” validated in advance. In Yugoslavia the civilian economy was the target.     The US military intervention in Libya has cost America USD896million. While UK tax payers have to fork out £200m & likely to cost up to £1bn & rising just to kill one man! In all the operation to free Libya of Gaddafi would have cost USD2billion.        The USA is morally and financially broke, uneducated and sick but it is its arrogance that continues to think that all nations must bow down to US dictates. Gaddafi’s Libya will soon find out what it is like to live in a country without Gaddafi’s charisma in a country that is soon likely to be fleeced by the West. Where people will be broke, without money, hungry, paying for all services but reminded all the while that they are “free, liberated & enjoying the fruits of human rights”. In the meanwhile, the US will ensure friction amongst tribes in Libya so that turmoil will prevail just like they are doing in Iraq & Afghanistan while Western oil giants cease the oil, gold & all natural resources that Libya possesses which in reality was the reason for the whole exercise of humanitarian intervention.     It is not difficult to comprehend the trend that is taking place & the dangers of the West’s financial turmoil will mean further “humanitarian” operations on targeted nations & the basis for the next stop being Syria is already under way.     Let all US-NATO nations realize that the people of the world are no fools. Citizens of these nations may be fooled since mainstream media have blinded them with lies & false versions to brainwash them but nemesis for the innocent deaths will follow US-NATO & their leaders for the destruction they are doing to the people, the environment & to nations throughout the past decade.  (reposted from a friend's email)

Rights lawyers dispute Malacañang: Political Prisoners exist in the Philippines

“Three hundred sixty political prisoners still languish in Philippine jails contrary to Malacañang’s denial,” asserted   NUPL Secretary General Atty. Edre Olalia.

“It might be shocking for Malacanang to find out that there are still political prisoners, several of whom are  our clients,” Olalia sarcastically commented on behalf of the group of lawyers that handles several political prisoners, victims of extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrests as well as peasant, worker and urban poor cases.

Olalia made the assertion in reaction to the recent statement issued by Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, who reportedly boldly claimed there were no more political prisoners in the Philippines.

The NUPL, established in September 2007 amid rising cases of extrajudicial killings and forcible abductions attributed to state forces, has over 400 members nationwide comprising lawyers, law students and paralegals . It has  discovered and known all along that the alleged acts of the prisoners they  are representing or helping are, even if hypothetically admitted, actually political in nature.

Olalia noted that only a minority of political detainees were charged with rebellion. At least 85 % of suspected political offenders are improperly charged with non-bailable ordinary crimes and not with rebellion. They were accused of committing murder, arson, illegal possession of firearms or explosives, physical injuries and other common crimes. “We have assessed that most of these are actually false or fabricated charges that further persecute these detainees, degrade their stature, mock the basic rules of evidence and is a travesty of justice. These, on top of the multifarious violations of their rights including torture and harassment.”

Recently,  NUPL lawyers had an audience with Justice Secretary Leila De Lima and Undersecretary Francisco Baraan III where they pointed out two dirty tricks that gave notoriety to the past Arroyo administration: Firstly, charging political prisoners with common crimes and, secondly, the improvident use of “John/Jane Does” in criminal informations filed in court. This odious practice continues until today.

Political activists are the usual victims of the improvident use of John/Jane Does. Whenever an information involving “John/Jane Does” is hastily filed in court, spurious witnesses belatedly spring up to identify activists and members of  political  organizations supposedly as the unknown suspects, by fabricating affidavits naming certain persons to be the John/Jane Does in the charge sheet.

“After the political activists are identified in bad faith as the John/Jane Does,  arrest warrants are issued and they are arrested without any preliminary investigation in violation of their right to due process,” Olalia added.

The NUPL, which just marked its 4^th year anniversary last month, has joined growing calls  for a “ general, omnibus and unconditional amnesty for all political prisoners” as a matter of justice long overdue.

Aside from their meeting with the justice secretary, the NUPL visited the Batangas Provincial Jail to talk with seven political prisoners and coordinated with the local chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP-Batangas) to extend to them legal assistance in close collaboration with the NUPL. One of the political prisoners visited by the NUPL in Batangas was Maricon Montajes, a mass communication student of the University of the Philippines . She was charged with Illegal Possession of Explosives, Violation of the Fire Arm Ban under the Omnibus Election Code, and Illegal Possession of Fire Arms and Ammunition.

While some political detainees have already been freed, Secretary De Lima noted that the Justice Department is working to have more of them released in the near future through the Presidential Committee on Bail, Release, and Pardon (PCBREP). Secretary De Lima agreed with the legal position of NUPL and recognized its concerns,  telling them that a directive will be issued to the National Prosecution Service (NPS) to form a committee that will study these issues  and draft a department circular to address this problem. It was thus totally puzzling to the NUPL delegation that, unlike the military and Malacanang, the DOJ tacitly recognizes that there are political prisoners.

The existence of political prisoners in several parts of the country is an obvious matter of fact that Malacanang will be hard put to deny with a straight face like the dictator Marcos. #

Reference: Atty. Edre U. Olalia, NUPL Secretary General (09175113373)

FrEEdom

Not even the foreshadowing ferocity of Typhoon “Pedring” concealed the immense delight of Maricon Montajes and six other political detainees inside the Batangas Provincial Jail, as they shared their stories to our group of lawyers and paralegals who visited them last Wednesday.

The 21-year-old Montajes, a native of Davao City, was a Film and Audio Visual Communication student at the University of the Philippines-Diliman when she was “illegally arrested” together with two other youths last June 3, 2010 by elements of the Philippine Air Force while on an exposure and integration trip with farmers in Taysan, Batangas.

Accustomed to the nurturing environment of a close-knit family back in Mindanao, the diminutive Montajes, also known as “Eedom” to friends, has since learned to lean on her fellow political detainees and share her joys and tears with them. “Sa kulungan, ang pagsuko ng malayang kaisipan ang pangunahing kalaban na dapat talunin (In prison, the temptation to surrender the freedom to think independently is the No. 1 enemy one must conquer),” she said.

The howling rain almost drowned her accounts of seemingly endless, rough interrogations and “torture” that she and her friends suffered after they were arrested; and, her lament over the slow resolution of the cases filed against them.

Eedom decried the government’s “criminalization” of their status, an irony that was not lost on her. As it was before, it is still so now. “We were falsely presented as NPA rebels, but we were charged with common crimes,” she bewailed. They are facing such charges as illegal possession of firearms and explosives, election gun ban violation, and frustrated homicide.

The charges shocked her childhood friends in Davao City, where she is known as someone “who would never do anyone or any living organism on earth any harm.” Consistently a student leader, Eedom spent her elementary and high school years at the city’s Stella Maris Academy, where she was a “grand slam class president from elementary to high school, became vice president of the Student Coordinating Council and president of the Social Studies Club until she graduated with academic honors in 2007.”

“Young as she was, she already manifested a strong sense of justice and unwavering leadership among her peers, the embodiment of a Marisian leader possessing the kind of faith in God’s people,” said the academic community of Stella Maris in a statement calling for her and her companions’ release. “Maricon’s passion for what is good and just is clearly expressed in her art, in her dances, music and poetry, where she knows no bounds but freedom in relaying the kind of social consciousness expected of a true Marisian.”

Earlier that day, in a meeting, our delegation from the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) brought the cases of Montajes and her companions to the attention of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima.

Records of the rights watchdog Karapatan show that out of the country’s  360 political prisoners as of August 2011, at least 303 (84.17  percent) have been charged with common crimes. Only 15 (4.17 percent) have been charged with rebellion. Twenty others have been charged with common crimes in addition to rebellion and two are charged with “terrorism.”

“This phenomenon continues despite the fact that even the testimonial and documentary bases—spurious or otherwise—submitted to the prosecutors show that the alleged acts are obviously in furtherance of one’s political beliefs,” stated an NUPL aide mémoire submitted to De Lima during the meeting.

We also presented to De Lima the rampant and improvident use by prosecutors of the “John Doe” information in court, in violation of the justice department’s Circular No. 50, which mandates, among other things,  that other appropriate descriptions of a particular “John Doe” must be elicited from supposed witnesses, to distinguish him or set him apart from the others.

The October 1999 department circular also directed public prosecutors “to place a new name in the Information in lieu of a John Doe only when the description of this John Doe as appearing in the sworn statement of a witness substantially tallies with the description of the person in John Doe’s stead.” Yet, despite these clear directives, public interests lawyers are still  “confronted with this frustrating and unjust practice and the same continues to be violated and not strictly complied with.”

“There is from our experience on the ground, a continuing trend to indiscriminately file charges and secure warrants of arrests against our clients who are invariably leaders, members of legal mass organizations, NGO workers, party-list groups and even human rights advocates by means of ‘John Doe’ cases, which are intended to silence or neutralize them and deter others from joining their causes,” the NUPL noted.

We hope changes are forthcoming. De Lima said she “agreed” with the NUPL’s “legal posturing” and committed to immediately form a committee to draft guidelines relating to the criminalization of political offenses and the use of John Doe charges. “It is just a question then of how to operationalize (these guidelines) and make our public prosecutors understand,” De Lima said.

Indeed, it is the height of irony that Eedom and other political offenders continue to languish in various jails, while those who sponsored and promoted the culture of impunity in our country remain scot-free in this supposed era of “matuwid na daan”—shamelessly enjoying their plundered riches and flaunting their residual power and influence.

But, as political detainee and teacher Charity Dino noted during the meeting: “Mga katawan lang talaga namin ang puwedeng ikulong ng mga rehas na bakal (It’s only our bodies that they put behind a jail’s iron bars).”

Free Eedom. 

Free them all.

By: Isagani Zarate