Duterte Was the Death Squad
The Filipino Leader Finally Faces Justice
Who murdered between ten and thirty thousand people in the Philippines?
Was it the mysterious gunmen who in July of 2016 started killing a hundred people a night, mostly in slums, mostly drug addicts? Were they responsible?
Or was it the president who took office that same month, and repeatedly urged police, soldiers, and neighbors to simply kill all criminals, addicts, and “do-nothings”?
I tried to make the case in a 2017 New York Times article that it was Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, who was directly responsible for the massacre. I went to 38 murder scenes, 18 of them with bodies still on the ground. In prisons by day, in some of the deepest, densest slums in the world by night, I found circumstantial evidence that the death squads were off-duty or former police officers and intelligence operatives, often assisted by contract killers. To fight crime and poverty and drug addiction, they were shooting some of the poorest, most desperate people on earth at Rodrigo Duterte’s request.
More evidence came from witnesses—who have now testified before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. And even more evidence came from Duterte’s own mouth. He ran for office vowing to kill “more people than Hitler.” On the very day he took office, he went to a slum and encouraged the residents to shoot dead any neighbors who were on drugs. Duterte would often deny any connection to death squads. But almost as often—sometimes in the same speech—he would admit responsibility for the killings. He once said he would “go to Hell” because of them.
(See more quotes below).
Just before being arrested two days ago, Duterte took responsibility again, hiding behind patriotism: “I am the one who led our law enforcement and military. I said that I will protect you, and I will be responsible for all of this.”
Yes you will.
Duterte arrived at the International Criminal Court in Holland yesterday. Full coverage is available from the publications that did more to prove Duterte’s guilt than anyone, Rappler, https://www.rappler.com and The Philippine Inquirer.
My article, THE LIST, on vigilante killings in the Philippines, from the New York Times Sunday Magazine: https://nyti.ms/2jAFRSv
A few quotes from Duterte:
June 30, 2016
“If you know of any addicts, go ahead and kill them yourself as getting their parents to do it would be too painful.”
August 6, 2016
“This campaign (of) shoot-to-kill will remain until the last day of my term. I don’t care about human rights, believe me.”
September 30, 2016
“I’d be happy to slaughter them.”
October 27, 2017
“Forget what they say, those human rights (activists). The problem with these pests, they invite (UN) human rights commission and all, only to show the statistics: here, 10,000 died. What the hell? For me, they can add to that, make it 50,000.”