On orders by the tyrant Duterte’s anti-insurgency task force, the 11th IB has stepped up its crackdown on peasant organizations in the 3rd District of Negros Oriental starting last month and continuing at present.

Leaders and members of legal peasant organizations were targeted in the systematic campaign of red tagging, villification, harassment, threat, coercion, mauling, attempted EJK, enforced recruitment as intel assets and other gross violations of human rights.

The editorial staff of Pulang Sidlakan, documented the following notable cases.

1. Four military intel officers of 11th IB harried and threatened the elderly spokesperson of District Farmers’ Alliance (DFA) Estrelita Elpidal in Sitio Balaskan, Barangay Napacao, Siaton on the 3rd week of September.They accused Elpidad of “assisting” the successful NPA punitive action against a notorious criminal element and two local military intel assets October last year. They subsequently warned Elpidad that if a similar incident happens again, she will be killed.
2. Few days before the 48th anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, the house of the chairman of the Negros Oriental chapter of KMP (KAUGMAON) Nene Sollano in Sitio Igang, Barangay Nagbinlod, Sta. Catalina was raided by soldiers from the Bravo Coy of 11th IB under Sgt. Lacsamana. Fortunately, he was not home at that time as he was attending his farm and grazing his carabao.According to witnessess, it’s clear from the demeanor of raiding soldiers that they have no intention of legally arresting Sollano, but want him executed tokhang style. They didn’t even bother to show the papers or explaining the legal grounds of doing the raid. They were acting as if Sollano is an armed target and his house a defensive trench that needed to be militarily assaulted.The in-law of Sollano, Eman Cadilena, was injured from the beatings he received from warfreak soldiers. Sollano’s entire family is now hiding fearing for their lives.
3. Afterwards, the house of Nagbinlod Farmers’ Association (NUFA) chairman Mateo Pahayahay situated in adjacent sitio of same barangay was also raided. But the raiding team came empty handed. Pahayahay was tipped-off by concerned residents after witnessing the gestapo-llike acts of 11th IB in earlier.He has been for some time receiving numerous threatening text messages and calls from the military elements based in Cogon detachment. They wanted him to resign from his post and cease all political activities. If not, he will face trumped-up charges or tokhang.
4. In mid-September the Alpha coy of 11th launched an operation in contested lands in three of Siaton’s Barangays cultivated by the farmers for food production to terrorize them into submission in favor of the politicians and other personalities claiming ownership of said farm lands.
5. At the pretext of conducting “community meetings”, the 11th IB Bravo Coy rounded up the officers and members of Tamlang United Farmers Association (TAUFA) and Talalac United Farmers Association (TUFA) last October 15 in Sitio Kakha, Barangay Talalac, Sta. Catalina. The event turned out to be a recruitment drive for their intelligence network called Barangay Defence System (BDS). The two aforementioned organizations are among the largest peasant organizations in Sta. Catalina with a combined membership of more than 1,000. They have been red-tagged by 11th IB as “legal fronts” of CPP-NPA and its members constantly surveiled and harassed.

These are only some of the cases. Many remain undocumented or in the process of being collared. But what is clearly unraveled by these incidents of grave human rights abuses is the brutal character of AFP’s Retooled Community Support Program (RCSP) that since its inception pretended, but time and again failed miserably to deceive the people, to address the root causes of the armed conflict.

The RMPC calls on the people of Southeast Negros to stand up against fascism and wage all forms of struggles to assert and protect their democratic rights, welfare and demands. Collectively push for the ouster of the terrorist regime of Duterte.

All NPA units in Southeast Negros are instructed to launch punitive and offensive actions according to capacity against the heinous perpetrators of human rights violations in the AFP and GRP bureaucracy .###