Revolutionary justice for Ka Benjie
Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Spokesperson
Merardo Arce Command
Southern Mindanao Regional Operational Command
New People's Army
November 24, 2004
The Merardo Arce Command Southern Mindanao Regional Operations Command of the New People's Army conveys its strongest condemnation of the cold-blooded murder of Renante "Ka Benjie" Ediza by the mercenary troops of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
Not content with wounding Ka Benjie, the intelligence and raiding soldiers of the 39th Infantry Battalion finished off the young Red fighter of the Magtanggol Roque Command of the NPA. This criminal and cowardly act is a violation of the basic tenets of international humanitarian law and the rules of war, specifically the provisions protecting hors de combat and prisoners of war.
On that morning of Nov. 21, the 39th IB stormed the house where Ka Benjie and other civilians were occupying. Ka Benjie tried to protect his companions, warning them to duck for cover as soon as he saw the number of military agents out to overpower them. He raised his arms to signal that he was ready to surrender but to no avail. The fascist troops wounded Ka Benjie with a knife and, not content, later shot him in the head so many times that his brains were splattered on the floor.
Ka Benjie had been neutralized and should have been considered an hors de combat and later as a prisoner of war by the troops, yet he was butchered by the 39th IB. His murder violates Article 41 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which first defined the hors de combat as a person who is in power of an adverse party, as one who clearly expressed his intention to surrender, or had been rendered unconscious or is otherwise incapacitated by wounds and thus unable to defend him/herself. This law, along with the additional protocols to Geneva Conventions and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) entered into by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, clearly provides that all hors de combat shall not be harmed.
In an attempt to cover up the Army's criminal and dastardly act, Col. Arnold Quiapo, chief of the 39th IB, had the temerity to declare with glee that the killing of Ka Benjie was "good news." To further justify the murder, the Philippine National Police resurrected the old lie linking Ka Benjie to the abduction, torture and killing of a military asset in Davao del Sur. Agents of the reactionary troops would go to such lengths to conceal their crime.
Ka Benjie's martyrdom is a testament to the naked fascism and declaration of war by the US-Arroyo regime against the revolutionary movement. His death comes in the wake of the rapid isolation of the Arroyo regime from the people brought about by the worsening economic crisis, the fascist measures executed both in the cities and the countryside, and by its willing participation in the global war of aggression against peoples.
Comrades and Red fighters shall persist in the people's protracted war to see that victims and martyrs like Ka Benjie shall be accorded revolutionary justice. The revolutionary masses, Ka Benjie's family and loved ones, and the Red fighters under the Magtanggol Roque Command and the New People's Army in Southern Mindanao salute with highest honors and grieve the passing of a well-respected and genuine servant of the masses and the revolution.
(SGD) Rigoberto F. Sanchez
Spokesperson
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