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Pacific News Minute: Philippines Drug War Creates “An Informal Economy of Death”: Amnesty Intl.

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Amnesty International issued a blistering report earlier today on President RoderigoDuterte’s drug war in the Philippines. More than 7,500 people have been killed over the past 7 months.  Of 59 deaths investigated by Amnesty, the group reported that the vast majority were “extra-judicial killings carried out by government order.” More from Neal Conan in today’s Pacific News Minute.

 

 

“This is not a war on drugs, this is a war on the poor,” according to Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Director.

“On the flimsiest of evidence,” the statement continued, “people accused of selling or using drugs are being killed for cash in an economy of murder.”

 

The report anonymously quoted a senior police officer, described as a ten year veteran in Metropolitan Manila as saying that police were paid a bounty of between 8,000 and 15,000 Philippine dollars per killing.  That’s about 160 to 300 Dollars US.

 

“We’re paid in cash secretly by headquarters,” the officer said, “there’s no incentive for arresting.” The report added that cops even made deals with funeral parlors, getting cash for every body delivered. 

 

In a late night news conference at the Malacanang Palace on Sunday, President Duterte temporarily barred the Philippine National Police from anti-drug operations because of rampant corruption. That followed the kidnap and murder of a South Korean businessman by police officers in Manila last October.

 

The man was snatched on a phony drug warrant and ransomed by his wife.  However, she did not know that the businessman had been killed, cremated and, according to an angry President Duterte, his remains flushed down a toilet.

 

For now, all anti-drug operations will be conducted by the much smaller Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency.

Over 36 years with National Public Radio, Neal Conan worked as a correspondent based in New York, Washington, and London; covered wars in the Middle East and Northern Ireland; Olympic Games in Lake Placid and Sarajevo; and a presidential impeachment. He served, at various times, as editor, producer, and executive producer of All Things Considered and may be best known as the long-time host of Talk of the Nation. Now a macadamia nut farmer on Hawaiʻi Island, his "Pacific News Minute" can be heard on HPR Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
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