News
NPA attacks RPA camp
The New People's Army successfully assaulted an RPA-ABB camp in Sitio Kakha, Barangay Tamlac, Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental in the morning of December 16, seizing 11 M16s and an M79.
The team leader and one other element of the RPA-ABB "Third District" were killed. According to the NPA-Southeastern Negros Front, the operation was carried out to recover firearms of the CPP that the RPA-ABB carted off when they bolted the NPA and later merged with the reactionary army.
According to the NPA in Negros, the operation was also a punitive measure against the counterrevolutionary bandit group for having carried out a series of holdups and engaging in carabao rustling, robbery and illegal drug trafficking activities. The RPA-ABB is also used by Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco and Negros Oriental Gov. George Arnaiz to carry out projects detrimental to the peasants' livelihood.
Military kills 2 leaders of legal democratic organizations
TWO leaders of legal democratic organizations were killed by the military in separate incidents in December.
Bayan Muna leader Romy Malabanan was shot dead on December 23 in front of his house in Bay, Laguna. He was executive secretary to the incumbent mayor and Bayan Muna general secretary in Bay when he was killed. He was secretary of the KASAMA-Southern Tagalog executive committee before transferring to Bayan Muna.
He firmly opposed the AFP's attempts to set up a camp along the border of Bay and Los Ba�os and launch military operations in Bay.
Thirty-eight Bayan Muna members have been slain so far. Malabanan, meanwhile, was the 74th activist to be killed in Southern Tagalog in 2003.
Meanwhile, in Sorsogon, militant organizations and the five orphaned children of Susan Habac Aringo, a 38-year-old widow and municipal coordinator of the Gabriela Women's Party in Sorsogon, are also crying out for justice. Aringo was on her way to her farm on December 7 when she was shot in the back by military and CAFGU elements in Sitio Muladbulad, Barangay San Isidro, Castilla.
The military displayed the wounded Aringo in the town plaza because she was supposedly a New People's Army member. Two of her children brought her to the hospital where she expired because she had lost too much blood.
The criminals also stole Aringo's cellphone and money.
Military in Panay charged with human rights violations
Peasants filed charges against troops of the 47th IB and Task Force Panay in Iloilo for committing human rights violations. The complaint of widespread military abuse was formally brought before the Commission on Human Rights regional office in Iloilo City on December 22. The leaders of the Alyansa sang mga Mangunguma sa Igbaras (AMI) and officials of two barangays in Igbaras and Tubungan demanded the immediate withdrawal of military forces from southwestern Iloilo.
Meanwhile, in Negros Oriental, militant organizations and church people presented proof that the 61st IB had indeed committed human rights violations in the barrios of Siaton. They documented 36 cases of human rights violations after conducting a fact-finding mission in the area.
Cheney to be charged with bribery
A French court is poised to charge US Vice President Richard Cheney with bribery, exploitation of corporate assets and money laundering in relation to the Halliburton Corporation's establishment of a liquification factory in Nigeria in the 1990s.
French investigators estimate that Halliburton used up to $180 million to bribe the Nigerian government to allow it to immediately set up the factory. Cheney headed Halliburton at that time before being elected vice president of the US in 2001.
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