#gjv2013

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

“I represent the government not the people”

Head of the Human Rights Committee in the Bondoc Peninsula when asked to answer for the Human Rights Violations found there

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

Just an update

I'm at the International Conference for Human Rights and Peace right now, and the stuff that we are getting into is heavy. I will do my best to post from my immersions earlier this week, because there are stories that need to be told, but I am also attempting to process all of the information that we are trying to pack into three days.

Hopefully I will be posting more soon!

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

Frustration atop frustration

Last week we tried for many days to go and visit a Lumad village near Dumingag, however the municipal mayor would not allow it. This is a man who used to be an activist, working with our partners at InPeace here in Mindanao, but since entering politics. he has done his best to distance himself from the hard left.

While in office he has implemented somee great things, a smoking ban, clean streets policy and an impressive organic farming infrastructure. However, he has had trouble with the military and government because he refuses to let mining companies have access to the mineral rich mountains that surround the municipality. As a result, higher ups are looking for any excuse to oust him from government, because to help the people here is to critique the corruption.

It is because he is so intent on protecting his work and programs that he is not letting us go into the mountains to see the Lumad village, even though the villagers themselves consented. 

Instead we were shown a propaganda video of his initiatives and toured an organic farm. While there his representative who met us kept making references to the the Lumad and how great their organic farms are thanks to this mayor, yet we are kept from seeing for ourselves. It makes one wonder what they really don't want us to see.

Julius, the mayors representative, told us that certain mining companies have sent in expeditions to survey without official permission, but they are not restricted as we have been. It is very frustrating that those looking to exploit the people are given full access, but we who are fighting for their rights are expected to passively swallow whatever shiny bauble the mayor wants us to see in order to push his agenda and hide any injustice.

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

The Problem of Education

Many of the peoples of the indigenous communities wish to become better educated so that they can be informed of the policies that are drastically changing their lives. Basic schools are common in the Lumad communities that teach arithmetic and simple literacy, yet this is still seen as to much by the government. These simple community schools are under attack on a regular basis, sometimes by militant occupation, claiming the school houses as barracks for the military as they fight the MILF or the NPA, or by simple policy change.

NGOs support these schools as much as they can, but there are times when that is not enough. Even if for some reason you can afford to go to an established private school in your area, you are looked upon as an activist attempting to start an insurrection.

What kind of government actively fights to keep its people illiterate and complacent?

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

NGOs

The Government here is under the impression that they stand to gain from protecting outside corporations over their own people, which they truly do not.

As a result anyone who tries to organize the people, to speak out against the injustice to the poor, who makes too much noise, the government tries to silence. By using the military as a mercenary group the Filipino government cuts down any opposition that speaks for the people by branding them as Maoist insurgents trying to overthrow the unjust status quo. 

However, the people know better. There is a network of NGOs, of which InPeace involved, that is dedicated to finding and exposing the truth of the atrocities carried out by the western corporations and covered up by the government. To be an activist here is to deal with real issues and the danger that if you fight too fiercely to help the people defend what is theirs, the government will retaliate with no accountability.

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

The Actual Conflict

While Christians and Muslims had enjoyed a relatively peaceful coexistence before U. S. intervention, there was and still is a significant struggle and threat to the livelihoods of millions of people in Mindanao. 

Mindanao itself is the region of the highest poverty, hunger, illiteracy, malnutrition and morbidity in the Philippines, yet it has some of the most natural resources being home to gold, silver, and many other precious metals. The soil is rich in nutrients and can sustain a variety of crops. 

So why is Mindanao so poor?

The people are no longer in control of their own land. Huge companies come in from the west and build plantations, or mine the mountains for oil. They claim land that has historically belonged to indigenous nomadic tribes and desecrate their sacred places all for the sake of profit. 

When the Lumad choose to fight back they are silenced. At InPeace we are fighting for these peoples rights, while researching and exposing all the illegal and disturbing practices of these huge corporations.

[watchlydiawandertheworld]

Initiatives for Peace in Mindanao

Karolyne and I recently had a crash course on the kind of work that we would be doing with InPeace and the history of the organization. However, as it is ALOT of information, I'm going to distribute it in bits and pieces over then next few days until I have news to update with.

InPeace itself is actually an umbrella name for a broad number of different human rights organizations across Mindanao. It came to be ten years ago when there was a bombing that killed 70 people in 2003, and the government blamed it on the prominent Muslim population here.

Now up until this there had been no Muslim-Christian conflict in the Philippines at all, but the post 9/11 hysterical Islamophobia had penetrated every part of the globe and the Abu Sayyaf (essentially the Filipino Al Qaeda) was blamed.

InPeace was (unofficially) asked to investigate the bombings and report to the U. N. what they found was that the Government staged the bombings in order to receive more   USAID, which would be then be pocketed by the military leaders entrusted with distribution. It worked. USAID to the Philippines has more than tripled since 9/11.