Army responsible for many Philippine killings: UN

By Manny Mogato

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippine military appears to have been responsible for many of the hundreds of extra-judicial killings in the country, a U.N. investigator said on Wednesday.

Philip Alston, an Australian law professor and U.N. special rapporteur on extra-judicial executions, delivered the strong indictment of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's government after a 10-day investigation in the Southeast Asian nation.

Local rights group Karapatan has said more than 800 people, most of them left-wing activists, have been murdered or reported missing since Arroyo came to power in 2001.

The military says most of the deaths could be attributed to internal fighting in the communist New People's Army (NPA).

Alston said he did not know how many had died, but added: "I am certain the number is high enough to be distressing.

"The impact of even a limited number of killings of the type alleged is corrosive in many ways," he told a news conference.

"It intimidates vast numbers of civil society actors, it sends a message of vulnerability to all but the most well-connected, and it severely undermines the political discourse which is central to a resolution of the problems confronting this country."

The government said it was concerned about the killings and the fact it had invited the United Nations to investigate was proof it wanted to act on the matter.

"No right-thinking government or leader will tolerate such things happening and that's the reason why we're looking into it," Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told reporters. "It is the policy of the state to look into it and put a stop to it."

Ermita said Manila would finally release a damning report by a government-created inquiry into the murders on Thursday.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Jose Melo, who headed the probe, told Reuters last month that elements in the military were behind many of the killings but, until now, Arroyo had refused to release his findings, triggering a wave of criticism.

ALL-OUT WAR

Alston laid much of the blame on the military.

"The armed forces remain in a state of almost total denial of its need to respond effectively and authentically to the significant number of killings which have been convincingly attributed to them," he said.

However, he said there did not appear to be a state sanction for the killings: "I do not believe that there's a policy at the top designed to direct that these killings to take place."