KMU Davao condemns dispersal of IPs in UCCP compound

STATEMENT ON THE BRUTAL DISPERSAL OF BAKWITS AT UCCP HARAN COMPOUNDWe condemn the sheer brutality of the deployed forces of the Davao City Police Office, working in concert with the DSWD, NCIP, Rep. Nancy Catamco, and paramilitary group ALAMARA, on the raid at the UCCP Haran Compound which has for months served as sanctuary for lumads (indigenous peoples) fleeing military atrocities in their respective communities in Talaingod, Kapalong, and Bukidnon. In a display of ferocity, the police with their truncheons brought down the gates of Haran and destroyed the cyclone fence that enclose the sanctuary in order to supposedly rescue the women and children inside the compound. As a result of the dispersal, 20 have been reported hurt after suffering truncheon blows on the head and limbs.The very government agencies that claimed to be rescuing the lumads have ended up brutalizing them. This was not a rescue mission, but a terrorizing mission done at the instigation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its lackey Rep. Nancy Catamco.The actions of the police and government agencies providing rationale for the attack in Haran deserve utmost condemnation. The AFP and its lackeys have long insisted that the lumads have been held hostage and to this end, trumped-up cases of serious illegal detention and human trafficking have been filed against regional and national leaders of progressive organizations who supported them. The plea of the lumads is singularand pullout the soldiers from the communities and let them live in peace. Trucks and buses were brought to ferry those who were willing to go home but the lumads were not persuaded. Forcing them to go home, as what the PNP, Alamara and Catamco did today, would have subjected them to their deaths.What occurred in Haran is symptomatic of the culture of fascism and brutality heaped out on ordinary people, particularly the indigenous peoples, and fueled by the government's counterinsurgency program Oplan Bayanihan. Aquino's bloodtrail under his five-year term as President continues with impunity. Under the US-Aquino regime, in Southern Mindanao region alone, forty seven (47) civilians have been killed by the mercenary AFP and lumads have been forcibly recruited into the paramilitary group Alamara. The latest killings have been those of Barug Katawhan leader Ricky Basig and the Paquibato massacre victims Datu Ruben Enlog, Garyo Quimbo and Randy Carnasa.We support the right of the lumads to determine for themselves what is beneficial and just for their people. We support their call for the immediate pullout of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the disbandment of the lumad paramilitary group Alamara in their communities and schools. We enjoin the public to continue supporting the struggle of the lumads to protect their ancestral lands and to make their communities free from military encroachment and brutality.