Avenge the Tumandok people, heed their clamor for justice!
Read in: Pilipino | Hiligaynon
The Communist Party of the Philippines calls on the New People’s Army (NPA) to heed the Tumandok minorities’ clamor for justice by punishing the police butchers behind the massacre of nine of their tribesfolk in Tapaz, Capiz yesterday.
The killings were simultaneously perpetrated by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) Region 6 under the command of Lt. Col. Gervacio Balmaceda in six rural villages on the pretext of “serving warrants of arrest.” The fascist criminals also arrested 17 tribesfolk in the same town and in Calinog, Iloilo on the same day. To justify these barbaric attacks, the police maliciously presented all victims as NPA members, and those killed to have fought back.
We hold Rodrigo Duterte and his blood-thirsty National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) responsible for these atrocities.
The victims include former and incumbent barangay officials and leaders of Tumanduk nga Mangunguma nga Nagapangapin sang Duta kag Kabuhi (Tumanduk), an organization that has been repeatedly red-tagged by state forces and the NTF-ELCAC.
The brutal offensives are clearly aimed at breaking the Tumandok people’s resistance to the Jalaur Mega Dam Project which will inundate their ancestral lands. These form part of the regime’s crackdown against democratic forces which aims to stifle dissent and suppress their mass struggles.
The NPA is duty-bound to defend the Tumandok people by holding to account the perpetrators of these crimes and carrying out offensives to disable the fascists from carrying out further attacks and armed suppression against Tumandok minorities.