Mass Grave in South Philippines Said Linked to 2010 Elections
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Related subjects: Asia / Pacific, Global, Philippines, Rights & Freedoms, Security & Surveillance, Severino Villalonso, The Global Intercept, The Vote Comments Off
With election contests heating up in the troubled southern region of the Philippines, Mindanao, a mass-grave has been unearthed that is said to contain the bodies of at least 46 people kidnapped and murdered yesterday in connection with the local campaign. At least 20 are reported to be journalists who were traveling with one of the candidates when his convoy was attacked and everyone in it kidnapped, and now, according to reports emerging from the region, summarily executed and thrown into a shallow mass grave.
According to the Christian Science Monitor:
Many Filipinos are pointing to the massacre of 46 unarmed people in the southern Philippines province of Maguindanao Monday as evidence of the deadly influence of a dynastic clan that has been nurtured by the central government for almost 20 years. Nothing is yet proven, but survivors of the attack, national politicians, and police officials all say the likely perpetrators were loyalists of Andal Ampatuan, a former provincial governor who has used his private army to control politics in the province for a decade. Mr. Ampatuan was term-limited out of the governorship this year. In his three election campaigns, no local politician dared to run against him.
There are allegations the attack was orchestrated either by or on behalf of Andal Ampatuan, Jr., who had been expected by his family to run unopposed, to hold onto his family’s grip on provincial power. The discovery of the grave has raised concerns that corruption is so rampant and the levers of power so heavily under the control of a mafia-like dynastic system, that the entire structure of local power may be a criminal enterprise.
There are fears now that before the elections in may, such severe violence could precipitate a campaign of retribution and intimidation, which could flare into outright sectarian conflict. The horror of the killings is made perhaps still more worrying by the reports that it may have involved complicity from corrupt police officials. According to Bloomberg News:
The Philippine National Police detained a provincial chief and three officers on suspicion they may have been involved in the abduction and killing of dozens of supporters of a politician and the reporters covering him.
The Maguindanao province police chief, Abusana Maguid, and the officers were relieved of their duties pending an investigation, National Police spokesman Leonardo Espina said in a mobile phone text message late yesterday. Maguid may bear “command responsibility” for his officers’ actions, Espina said. The officers were seen by witnesses at the location of the Nov. 23 violence on Mindanao island, he said.
That level of corruption, with police acting as conduits for the brutal violence of rogue politicians against unarmed civilians, is another sign there may be serious risk of an escalation in tensions across the region. The semi-autonomous region of Mindanao is already the scene of a bloody sectarian conflict, pitting multiple Islamist militia groups against the Manila government, and the region is constantly threatened by the possibility of further splintering among radical and establishment factions.
With four police officials suspended and under investigation for involvement in the killings, the central government has declared emergency rule in two provinces in Mindanao, in order to ensure the safety of the civilian population and elected officials or their rivals, while the process of investigation is underway. It is as yet unclear whether any members of the Ampatuan family will face formal criminal charges in connection with the murders.
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