The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday (September 15th) authorized an investigation into the Philippine government's drug war, marked by thousands of murders committed by law enforcement officials, which judges believe to constitute crimes against humanity.
To read also In the Philippines, the bloody war on drugs of "Duterte Harry"
Founded in 2002 to try the worst atrocities committed in the world, the court, concluding that there is a "
reasonable basis
" on which to speak of crimes against humanity, gave the green light to the opening of an investigation despite the withdrawal of Manila from the ICC in 2019, following the opening of a preliminary examination into the violence. Fatou Bensouda, outgoing ICC prosecutor, announced in June that she had called for an investigation into thousands of murders committed in the Philippines as part of the government's declared war on drugs.
The ICC has clarified that the “
so-called 'war on drugs' campaign cannot be considered a legitimate law enforcement operation, and the killings cannot be seen as legitimate, nor as mere excesses within the framework of of an otherwise legitimate transaction
”.
The available documents indicate "
that a generalized and systematic attack against the civilian population was launched in application or in the pursuit of the policy of a State
", specified the international judges in a press release.
The survey will cover the period from 2011 to 2019.
12,000 to 30,000 dead
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016 after an outrageous security campaign, promising to eradicate drug trafficking by killing tens of thousands of delinquents. The latest official figures show at least 6,181 dead and more than 200,000 drug operations in the Asian archipelago, but human rights defenders estimate that the actual number of killed is much higher. ICC prosecutors estimate, in court documents, that between 12,000 and 30,000 people were killed.
According to the latter, Manila did not deny that people died during police operations, but
rather "constantly maintained that these deaths were the result of agents acting in self-defense
".
Even though the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019, the jurisdiction remains competent to hear crimes allegedly committed on their territory when they were a state party to the Rome Statute, the court's founding text.
Policemen and militiamen killers
According to prosecutors, illegitimate killings were also committed by local police officers and militiamen before 2016 in the Davao region (southern Philippines), where Rodrigo Duterte served as mayor.
They were committed by a group that called itself the “
Davao Death Squad
”.
The majority of the victims were young men suspected of small-scale drug trafficking or petty crimes such as theft and drug use, but "
gang members and street children were also killed,
" the officials said. prosecutors.
Read alsoWar / drugs: Manila invites the UN to investigate
The Philippine president has repeatedly asserted that the ICC has no authority and will not cooperate with what he called an "
illegal
"
investigation
. He even threatened to arrest Prosecutor Bensouda. The court's decision was hailed by human rights organizations, which praised “
necessary control
” over
Rodrigo Duterte's
deadly “
war on drugs
”. "
The families of the victims and the survivors have reason to hope that those responsible for crimes against humanity can finally be brought to justice,
" said Carlos Conde, researcher for Human Rights Watch.
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/GQ7AFCK2OMNDZLULOZ7T5JPACM.jpg)
