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Kalinga farmer killed on suspicion of being a NPA courier

BAGUIO CITY (July 8) — Another unarmed civilian from Kalinga died allegedly in the hands of elements of the 21st Infantry Battalion Bravo Company of the Philippine Army of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

According to “sympathetic” soldiers who requested anonymity, army troopers of the 21st IB Bravo Company under 2Lt. Arnold A. Aguason abducted, tortured, and killed Roberto Gonzales, 38, a farmer in Barangay Ab-abaan, Balbalan, Kalinga. Gonzales is survived by his wife and two children, aged two and three years old.

Gonzales was repoprtedly working in his upland farm at about 5:00 P.M. of June 9 when abducted by army troopers. The next day, he was brought to a command post in Barangay Apatan, Pinukpuk. Villagers wanted to see him on June 13 but 2Lt. Ryan Joseph Cayton, head of the Bravo Company, did not allow them.

Sources said Gonzales was interrogated and tortured for five days. He was allegedly tortured several times by Aguason himself from June 9 to June 13 and under duress, was forced to admit he had been an NPA courier delivering food supplies to a rebel camp.

On the night of June 13, Gonzales was reportedly brought to a hill near the army command post in Apatan where Cayton ordered him shot but soldiers defied his order. The next day, Gonzales was dead in a forest between Ab-abaan, Balbalan and Apatan, Pinukpuk.

Gonzales is the fourth victim of extra-judicial killings of civilians in Kalinga since Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo ascended to political power in 2001. The other three were Bayan Muna member Peter Dangiwan in April 2001, Victor Balais in December 2003, and renowned Kalinga tribal leader Rafael “Makoy” Bangit on June 8, 2006.

Gonzales is the 685th of unarmed civilians who have become victims of extra-judicial killings nationwide. Aside from the killings there are now more than 200 frustrated murder cases and 149 disappearances throughout the country.

The Lejo Cawilan Command (LCC)-New Peoples Army (NPA)-Kalinga condemned the worsening killings and human rights violations perpetrated by the 21st IB. The LCC also condemned 2Lt. Arnold A. Aguason, 2Lt. Ryan Joseph Cayton and Major Orlando Bugueña, the current commanding officer of the 21st IB, for being criminally liable for torturing and hanging Gonzales to death.

“The murder of Roberto Gonzales shows again that Arroyo and her fascist AFP commanders are the real human rights violators and terrorists. Oust and punish GMA for all the victims of extra-judicial killings,” the LCC statement read.

The said NPA command said all the killings and human rights violations are the result of Oplan Bantay Laya (OBL), a five-year program of the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) of the Arroyo administration allegedly run by mercenary and fascist AFP generals through massive combat operations in the countryside and by death squads in urban and town centers.  

LCC further said that amid the continuing fascist attacks of the Arroyo administration against the Filipino masses, there is now a growing number of junior officers and rank-and-file soldiers who are aware that the whole AFP-PNP structure is discredited as anti-Filipino and mercenary instruments of US imperialism and reaction.

“The LCC calls on those enlightened junior officers and ordinary soldiers to continuously respect and defend the people’s basic rights, and to defy the orders of their anti-people and fascist AFP-PNP generals and other mercenary commanding officers. We call on them to unite with the struggling Filipino masses in order to oust this brutal GMA regime. This is the best way for them to help the Filipino people in ending state terrorism in our country, and in achieving justice for all victims of political assassinations, involuntary disappearances and other forms of human rights violations” the statement ended. # via NORDIS

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