[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 146 (Tuesday, September 27, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6128-S6131]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PHILIPPINES AND INDONESIA
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, according to recent reports, more than
3,000 people have been killed in the Philippines in the 12 weeks since
President Duterte announced his campaign to wipe out illicit drug use.
More than 1,000 of those deaths were at the hands of the Philippine
National Police during counternarcotic operations, compared to 68 such
killings this year in the months prior to President Duterte taking
office, half of which happened in the period between his election and
inauguration. The rest were killed apart from police operations,
incited by President Duterte's violent rhetoric, which has been well
documented. The vast majority of these individuals were low-level drug
users, victims of a government seeking to make up for years of
ineffective, corrupt law enforcement and rampant crime by terrorizing
the population into submission.
As the ranking member or chairman for more than 25 years of the
Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds U.S. foreign assistance
programs, I have been frustrated that we often fail to learn obvious
lessons when it comes to foreign assistance investments. One example is
that economic opportunity and security alone cannot assure stability.
Stability requires legitimate governance and the protection of human
rights. This is not just an aspiration; it is a practical, strategic
imperative.
As a former prosecutor and now ranking member of the Judiciary
Committee, I know the difference between those who need help versus
those who deserve to be punished. I also know, as do most people, that,
when governments condone extrajudicial killings and forced
disappearances and prey on vulnerable populations, they are sowing the
seeds of instability, not preventing it.
For roughly 700,000 Filipino drug users, the prospect of being
summarily executed on the street has led them to turn themselves into
the authorities. That would seem to be a good thing. But given the
shortage of drug treatment centers, these individuals are either told
to pledge that they will remain drug free and sent home to recover on
their own, or they are imprisoned in overcrowded, inhumane conditions.
By failing to address the needs of those who have risked coming
forward, President Duterte is missing an opportunity to combat the drug
trade in one of the most sustainable ways possible: by helping hundreds
of thousands of people get the help they want to beat their addiction.
No amount of killing will result in reforms that improve the
judiciary, end corruption and impunity in law enforcement, or
rehabilitate those caught in the vicious cycle of addiction. To the
contrary, if President Duterte is serious about improving conditions in
the Philippines, he should be focusing on improving services for
Filipinos, not casting them aside; holding law enforcement accountable,
not giving them a blanket license to kill suspects; and strengthening
the judiciary, not undercutting it.
In a troubling sign that these concerns are falling on deaf ears,
President Duterte's most vocal opponent of his antidrug policies, whom
President Duterte has publicly accused of being involved in drug
trafficking and attempting to smear him, was recently removed from her
position as the head of the senate human rights panel investigating the
killings. She was replaced by a senator who supports giving the police
the authority to arrest anyone without a warrant.
I know that as ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee,
Senator Cardin also has concerns with the situation in the Philippines,
and I yield to him for any remarks he may wish to make.
Mr. CARDIN. I thank my friend from Vermont for his raising this
important issue and appreciate the opportunity to join him today.
The relationship between the United States and the Philippines is
tremendously important for both our nations and both of our people; yet
I fear that today, because of the way in which the new government of
President Duterte is approaching this issue, we may find ourselves at
something of a crossroads.
If the current trends continue, we can expect that over 6,000 people
will be dead as a result of extrajudicial killings in the Philippines
by the end of this year--6,000 people. This is not a situation in which
there is occasional error or the overzealous application of force. This
is systematic, widespread, brutal, and beyond the bounds for a
constitutional democracy.
And as my colleague from Vermont pointed out, these dead are not just
drug dealers--although that would be troubling enough given the lack of
due process--but also include addicts, who need help, as well as
innocent bystanders.
I understand President Duterte's desire to stop the devastation
caused by illegal narcotics. I believe that most of my colleagues do.
We, too, have seen what drug trafficking and addiction can do in our
communities. We also have a long history of both successful and
unsuccessful efforts to combat narcotics, but we have learned that
there is a right way to approach this issue--with law enforcement, due
process and rule of law, with treatment--and a wrong way. President
Duterte, in advocating and endorsing what amounts to mass murder, has
chosen the wrong way. Senator Leahy is absolutely right when he said
that a lack of respect for rule of law and democratic governance breeds
instability, distrust, and sometimes violence.
[[Page S6129]]
Filipino police have attributed most of the killings to suspects who
``resisted arrest and shot at police officers.'' Yet it has been
impossible to assess police claims that the killings were all lawful,
since President Duterte has rejected calls to investigate these deaths.
He has instead declared the killings as proof of the ``success'' of his
antidrug campaign and, along with other more forceful and ``colorful''
statements which appear to endorse vigilante killings, urged police to
``seize the momentum.'' Human rights groups, the United Nations, the
U.S. Government, and a Philippine Senate panel have expressed concerns
about the killings, which allegedly have been carried out without legal
proceedings as provided for under Philippine law and international
obligations.
As the distinguished gentleman from Vermont knows, I have been a
strong supporter of the Philippines' law enforcement institutions,
including recently introducing legislation which would increase law
enforcement cooperation between our two countries.
But these recent reports of thousands of extrajudicial killings, as
well as detentions and a lack of respect for international human rights
commitments, are profoundly troubling. They undermine our mutual goals
of upholding liberal democratic values in the region and to
strengthening international law.
Indeed, as the Senator from Vermont knows, just this past week,
President Duterte said that he intends to reconstitute the
constabulary, the most abusive parapolice under the Marcos regime. For
any historian of human rights abuses in the Philippines, this is a
deeply troubling development.
I would ask my friend and colleague if he shares my concerns with the
direction that the Philippines appears to be going and the implications
for the US-Filipino relationship.
Mr. LEAHY. Yes, like the Senator from Maryland, I am deeply concerned
with these events, and I believe that, if the extrajudicial killings
and state-sanctioned violence continue and there is no accountability
for the abuses that have been committed, there will need to be an
appropriate response by the U.S. Government.
Mr. CARDIN. Indeed, as we celebrate the 70th anniversary of
diplomatic relations between our two countries, we should underscore
that our alliance is needed now more than ever. With a more assertive
China in the maritime domain, a changing global economic landscape, and
an increase of transnational challenges confronting the region, the
U.S.-Philippines alliance is critical to both our nations.
But this alliance is about more than just interests narrowly
construed. The relationship between our nations is more than an
alliance. It is a genuine friendship. This is a deep relationship built
on shared values and a deep appreciation, both here and in the
Philippines, of the importance of democracy, of rule of law, of due
process, of the proper application of justice, and of constitutional
order. It is because these extrajudicial killings shake the very
foundation of that shared vision of shared values that I find these
developments so deeply troubling.
So I would also ask my colleague his opinion, as the author of the
``Leahy Law,'' whether he thinks that the application of ordinary U.S.
policy and law, and the Leahy Law in particular, is sufficient to meet
the challenges that we see in the Philippines. Given the nature of
these extrajudicial killings, how would unit-level vetting apply? And
if the United States is unable to use the normal tools available, what
are the other options that we might need to consider?
Mr. LEAHY. I share the Senator's views about the importance of the
U.S.-Philippines alliance and his concerns with the implications of
President Duterte's antidrug policies for that alliance. I wrote the
Leahy Law, which applies worldwide, to ensure that the U.S. is not
complicit in human rights violations committed by forces that might
receive U.S. assistance and to encourage foreign governments to hold
accountable perpetrators of such abuses. While there are ways we can
find out which units were involved in these abuses, if President
Duterte's government is unwilling to work with us, including by
refusing to investigate allegations of abuses, then we are faced with a
broader issue that cannot be remedied simply by withholding assistance
from specific units or individuals.
The Leahy Law should be used to encourage reform and accountability,
but to address these systemic challenges, it may be necessary to
consider further conditions on assistance to the Duterte government to
ensure that U.S. taxpayer funds are property spent and until that
government demonstrates a commitment to the rule of law. I have asked
the State Department to discuss this with us to help inform our
deliberations on current assistance for the Philippines and on
decisions we will make for appropriations in fiscal year 2017.
Mr. CARDIN. I thank my colleague for his thoughtful response. I, too,
am greatly concerned that, unless we are able to see a more
constructive approach on these issues from the government of President
Duterte--an approach that is just as serious about combatting the
scourge of narcotics, but approaches the issue in a legal framework--
that we may need to consider taking these steps. This is an important
relationship. I have many Filipino-American citizens in Maryland, and I
care deeply about strengthening the US-Philippines Alliance, especially
given the challenges that the regional order faces from a rising China,
but this issue is critical as well.
Mr. LEAHY. I thank my friend from Maryland for his leadership on the
Foreign Relations Committee and for his interest in this issue. I look
forward to working with him to respond to the challenges President
Duterte's policies pose to our relations with his government, as we
seek to continue our strategic cooperation with the Philippines.
Mr. President, on a separate but related matter, we are seeing
another missed opportunity to reform the criminal justice system in
Indonesia. President Joko Widodo took office in 2014 amid the hopes of
many that he would improve on the country's history of human rights
abuses. Instead, he reinstated the death penalty for drug trafficking,
and the head of his government's antinarcotics agency recently
expressed his approval of President Duterte's approach to combating
illicit drugs. To the contrary, it is a serious mistake, and I urge
President Joko to reverse course and focus on improving his police
force and judicial system.
Any government that uses capital punishment risks taking innocent
life. But it is a particularly egregious practice in a country like
Indonesia, where executions are peddled as effective justice despite a
weak judicial system that is vulnerable to abuse, and to the detriment
of its reform--nor is torturing and burying those suspected of
involvement in the drug trade effective law enforcement. It is an abuse
of power, it prevents remedies to deeply flawed practices within the
security forces, and it belies the legitimacy of the government.
We have a complex relationship with both Indonesia and the
Philippines due to our own history in the region. However, we also
share many interests. I have supported assistance for both countries,
but I have also supported conditions on U.S. assistance related to
progress on human rights and reform of the judiciary, police, and armed
forces. Unfortunately, I fear that the progress that has been made is
now at risk of being eroded.
Often, we are presented with the false choice of supporting human
rights or national security. I see no such dichotomy here. Consider the
impact of our complicity in these governments' actions, both on our own
legacy and on the efforts we are undertaking to help improve security
and stability in the region. The Philippines and Indonesia cannot
combat extremism or profess to govern legitimately by murdering
innocent and nonviolent people, by creating a culture of lawlessness
and impunity.
The United States is far from perfect. We have not done as well as we
should in addressing the illicit drug problem in our own country. Many
Americans need and want treatment and cannot get it. But we should not
support those who make a practice of using excessive force or the death
penalty, rather than protecting the rights of due process and fair
trials.
I ask unanimous consent that two articles on this subject, both
published in the New York Times last month, be printed in the Record.
[[Page S6130]]
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, Aug. 13, 2016]
Indonesia's Push To Execute Drug Convicts Underlines Flaws in Justice
System
(By Joe Cochrane)
Jakarta, Indonesia.--Sixteen years ago, Zulfiqar Ali left
his native Pakistan for Indonesia in search of a new life.
Last month, that life was on the verge of ending in front of
a firing squad.
Mr. Ali has been on Indonesia's death row since 2005, after
he was convicted of heroin trafficking. A government-ordered
inquiry later found that he was probably innocent. Still, in
July, he was one of 14 convicts, most of them foreigners, who
were taken to the prison island of Nusakambangan off Java's
southern coast to be put to death.
Minutes before they were to be executed, on July 29, Mr.
Ali and nine other convicts were given a reprieve, for
reasons the government has yet to explain. But four were shot
dead as scheduled, including a Nigerian who supporters say
was framed. And Mr. Ali, like the rest who were spared,
remains condemned.
More than a year after Indonesia drew international censure
by putting to death 12 foreigners convicted of drug crimes,
the country has resumed a war on narcotics by way of
executions--and has again put a spotlight on its profoundly
flawed justice system.
Critics in Indonesia and abroad say those flaws go so deep
that the country should not employ the death penalty at all.
Researchers have found that many condemned convicts were
tortured by the police into confessing, did not receive
access to lawyers or were otherwise denied fair trials.
The resumption of executions means ``that the government
has ignored that there is something seriously wrong with our
judiciary and law enforcers,'' said Robertus Robet, a
lecturer and researcher at the State University of Jakarta's
sociology department. He characterized the government as
``trigger-happy.''
``When you execute someone, you execute the possibility of
finding out the truth,'' he said.
Amnesty International has denounced ``the manifestly flawed
administration of justice in Indonesia that resulted in
flagrant human rights violations.'' Similar concerns have
been raised by the United Nations and the European Union,
which sent a delegation to try to persuade Indonesia to spare
inmates who were condemned to die last year.
Indonesia has long had the death penalty, but its use was
sporadic in the years before President Joko Widodo took
office in October 2014. Declaring drug abuse a ``national
emergency,'' Mr. Joko denied clemency appeals from 64 death
row inmates who had been convicted of drug crimes, most of
them foreigners, and the government set a goal of executing
all of them by the end of 2015.
That did not happen, but five drug convicts were put to
death in January of that year, and eight more in April. (An
Indonesian was also executed for murder in January.) Among
the convicts executed in April, seven of whom were
foreigners, were Andrew Chan, 31, and Myuran Sukumaran, 34,
Australians who were arrested in 2005 trying to smuggle
heroin out of Bali, the resort island.
The men admitted their guilt, but their lawyers said the
judge in the case was corrupt, having offered a lesser
sentence in exchange for a bribe. Indonesia rejected appeals
by the Australian government to spare them, and Australia
withdrew its ambassador in protest.
Also executed in April was Rodrigo Gularte, 42, a Brazilian
convicted of drug smuggling who had repeatedly been given a
diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Indonesian
law forbids the execution of mentally ill convicts.
Dave McRae, a senior research fellow at the Asia Institute
at the University of Melbourne in Australia who has
researched the use of capital punishment in Indonesia, said
that the deficiencies in the justice system here could be
found in most countries that still used the death penalty.
``A lot of the objections to Indonesia's use of the death
penalty--inconsistent and arbitrary sentencing and
application of the death penalty, allegations of corruption
and wrongful convictions, questions over access to lawyers
and interpreters and adequacy of representation--are
questions that are raised all over the world,'' he said.
Such concerns have been raised about the cases against some
of the convicts spared last month--and some who were
executed, including the Nigerian, Humphrey Jefferson Ejike
Eleweke.
Mr. Eleweke was arrested in 2003 after the police found
heroin at a restaurant he ran in Jakarta, the capital; he
said an employee had planted it. His lawyers say that the
police beat him until he confessed.
They also say that by law, an 11th-hour appeal for clemency
issued to Mr. Joko should have automatically halted his
execution. Last week, legal activists filed a complaint with
a judicial watchdog against Indonesia's attorney general,
saying that Mr. Eleweke's execution and those of two others
should have been stopped because of those appeals, according
to local news reports.
``We cannot have the death penalty here because of the
judicial system--it's problematic, it's dysfunctional,'' said
Ricky Gunawan, director of the Community Legal Aid Institute,
a nongovernmental organization that represented Mr. Eleweke.
Another allegation of corruption emerged just before the
executions last month, when one of the men put to death, an
Indonesian named Freddy Budiman, was quoted as saying that he
had paid senior law enforcement officials more than $40
million to let his drug smuggling operation continue before
he was arrested.
That accusation was included in a report released by a
rights activist, Haris Azhar, who had interviewed Mr. Budiman
in prison; shortly thereafter, the police, the military and
Indonesia's anti-narcotics board, all of which were
implicated in the report, filed a criminal defamation
complaint against Mr. Azhar. On Thursday, Mr. Joko ordered
those agencies to investigate the corruption allegations.
The case of Mr. Ali, the Pakistani who was spared
execution, has also raised concerns.
Mr. Ali, who immigrated to Indonesia in 2000, was accused
of drug dealing in 2004 by a friend, Gurdip Singh, who had
been caught with heroin; Mr. Singh later said the police had
pressured him and offered a reduced sentence to name
accomplices. Mr. Al's lawyers say their client was arrested
without a warrant at his home, where no drugs were found, and
signed a confession after being beaten so badly in custody
that he needed two operations.
Though Mr. Ali retracted his confession and Mr. Singh
withdrew his accusation, both men were sentenced to death in
2005. But the severity of Mr. Ali's beating drew attention to
the case, and the government ordered an unusual inquiry,
which concluded that he was likely to be innocent.
The government never acted on those findings, and Mr. Ali
and Mr. Singh were among those who nearly faced a firing
squad.
``He was never involved in drugs,'' Mr. Ali's wife, Siti
Rohani, who lives in West Java Province with their three
children, said in an interview.
A spokesman for Mr. Joko, Johan Budi, denied that the
judicial system was dysfunctional, saying the executions had
followed legal procedures.
Mr. Ali, along with Mr. Singh and several of the other
convicts who were given reprieves, is still in prison on
Nusakambangan Island, where Indonesia conducts executions.
Ms. Siti said she and her husband's family in Pakistan were
in a torturous state of limbo.
``We're just confused because there is no certainty about
my husband's fate,'' she said.
M. Rum, a spokesman for the attorney general's office,
declined to explain why Mr. Ali and the other convicts had
been given reprieves, saying only that it was ``for judicial
and nonjudicial reasons.'' But he said the executions would
eventually be carried out.
____
[From the New York Times, Aug. 2, 2016]
Body Count Rises as Philippine President Wages War on Drugs
(By Jason Gutierrez)
Manila.--Since Rodrigo Duterte became president of the
Philippines just over a month ago, promising to get tough on
crime by having the police and the military kill drug
suspects, 420 people have been killed in the campaign,
according to tallies of police reports by the local news
media.
Most were killed in confrontations with the police, while
154 were killed by unidentified vigilantes. This has prompted
114,833 people to turn themselves in, as either drug addicts
or dealers, since Mr. Duterte took office, according to
national police logs.
Addressing Congress last week in his first State of the
Nation address, Mr. Duterte reiterated his take-no-prisoners
approach, ordering the police to ``triple'' their efforts
against crime.
``We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last
financier and the last pusher have surrendered or been put
behind bars or below the ground, if they so wish,'' he said.
But human rights groups, Roman Catholic activists and the
families of many of those killed during the crackdown say
that the vast majority were poor Filipinos, many of whom had
nothing to do with the drug trade. They were not accorded an
accusation and a trial, but were simply shot down in the
streets, the critics say.
``These are not the wealthy and powerful drug lords who
actually have meaningful control over supply of drugs on the
streets in the Philippines,'' said Phelim Kine, a deputy
director of Human Rights Watch in Asia.
Critics of the president's campaign have rallied around the
case of Michael Siaron, a 29-year-old rickshaw driver in
Manila, who was shot one night by unidentified gunmen as he
pedaled his vehicle in search of a passenger. When his wife
rushed to the scene, a photographer took a picture of her
cradling his body in the street, and the photograph quickly
gained wide attention.
Scribbled in block letters on a cardboard sign left near
his body was the word ``pusher.'' His family members insist
that he was not involved in the drug trade, though they said
he sometimes used meth.
Indirectly acknowledging criticism that his policies
trample over the standard judicial process, Mr. Duterte said
that human rights ``cannot be used as a shield to destroy the
country.''
He has called for drug users and sellers to turn themselves
in or risk being hunted down, a threat backed up by the
bodies piling up near daily on the streets of Philippine
cities.
The approach appears to be driving down crime: The police
say that they have arrested more than 2,700 people on charges
related to using or selling illegal drugs, and
[[Page S6131]]
that crime nationwide has fallen 13 percent since the
election, to 46,600 reported crimes in June, from 52,950 in
May.
Mr. Duterte's crackdown has been hugely popular. Filipinos,
pummeled by years of violent crime and corrupt, ineffective
law enforcement, handed him an overwhelming victory in the
May presidential election, and have largely embraced his
approach.
A national opinion poll conducted after his election and
just before he took office found that 84 percent of Filipinos
had ``much trust'' in him.
The model for Mr. Duterte's policies is Davao City, where
he was mayor for most of the past 20 years. Draconian laws
there, including a strict curfew and a smoking ban as well as
a zero-tolerance approach to drug users and sellers, have
been credited with turning the city into an oasis of safety
in a region plagued by violence.
The dark side of that approach was that more than 1,000
people were killed by government-sanctioned death squads
during his administration, according to several independent
investigations.
Mr. Duterte has denied having direct knowledge of death
squads, but he has long called for addressing crime by
killing suspects, whom he calls criminals and has referred to
as ``a legitimate target of assassination.''
He has repeatedly said that those hooked on meth, the most
popular drug here, were beyond saving or rehabilitation.
He ran for president largely on the pledge of applying the
same policies nationwide, promising to kill 100,000 criminals
in his first six months in office. While the number may have
been typical Duterte bravado, the threat of mass killing
appears to have been real.
On Tuesday, the International Drug Policy Consortium, a
network of nongovernmental organizations, issued a letter
urging the United Nations drug control agencies ``to demand
an end to the atrocities currently taking place in the
Philippines'' and to state unequivocally that extrajudicial
killings ``do not constitute acceptable drug control
measures.''
Ramon Casiple, a political analyst at the Institute for
Political and Electoral Reform, said that he shared those
concerns but that it was too early to decide whether Mr.
Duterte's approach is effective. ``Let's give him his 100
days,'' Mr. Casiple said.
Mr. Duterte has recently raised his sights beyond street-
level users and dealers, accusing five police generals of
protecting drug lords, though he presented no specific
evidence.
He also publicly accused a mayor, the mayor's son and a
prominent businessman of drug trafficking, threatening their
lives if they did not surrender.
But the people killed on the street tend to be more like
Mr. Siaron, the rickshaw driver.
Mr. Siaron lived with his wife in a shack above a garbage-
strewn creek. Having never finished high school, he survived
on odd jobs like house painting and working in fast-food
restaurants.
Lately he had been pedaling a rickshaw, earning about $2 a
day ferrying passengers through the warren of alleyways in a
run-down part of metropolitan Manila.
On the night he died, he had stopped by his father's fruit
stand to ask for an apple.
Then he told his father he would seek one more fare before
heading home. As he rode off, gunmen on motorcycles sped by,
pumping several bullets into him.
What happened next turned him into a national symbol of the
human toll of Mr. Duterte's war.
When she heard he had been shot, Mr. Siaron's wife,
Jennilyn Olayres, ran into the street, burst through police
lines and collapsed next to him on the asphalt. The
photographer snapped the picture: a distraught woman cradling
her lifeless husband under a streetlight, a Pieta of the
Manila slums.
The police have not commented publicly about the case and
have not accused Mr. Siaron of selling drugs.
``My husband was a simple man,'' Ms. Olayres said at his
wake several days later. ``He may have used drugs, but he was
not violent and never bothered anyone. His only concern was
looking for passengers so we can eat three meals a day.''
During his speech to Congress, Mr. Duterte dismissed the
photo, which had appeared on the front page of The Philippine
Daily Inquirer the previous day under the banner headline
``Thou shall not kill.''
``There you are sprawled on the ground, and you are
portrayed in a broadsheet like Mother Mary cradling the dead
cadaver of Jesus Christ,'' he said. ``That's just drama.''
But if the antidrug campaign has targeted people on the
margins of society, Mr. Siaron is an apt symbol.
``We're small people, insignificant,'' Ms. Olayres said
through sobs as she stood next to her husband's coffin. ``We
may be invisible to you, but we are real. Please stop the
killings.''
____________________