After Massacre in Phillipines, It’s Workers Against Warlords

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5247/workers_against_warlords/

Monday November 30 10:14 am


Residents march in the streets to condemn the massacre of journalists in General Santos City, South Cotabato, on November 30, 2009. (Photo by TED ALJIBE/AFP/Getty Images)


By Lindsay Beyerstein

Last week in the Phillipines, dozens of politicians and journalists were dragged from a campaign convoy by about 100 armed men. The convoy was on its way to register a candidate for governor of the province of Maguindanao. Authorities eventually recovered 57 bodies from mass graves. Many of the victims were mutilated and some of the female victims appeared to have been raped.

Andal Ampatuan Jr., a powerful warlord who until this week was a close ally of Phillipine President Gloria Arroyo, has been charged with seven counts of murder, the government said. The central government has historically given local clan leaders and their private armies broad leeway in exchange for fighting Islamic insurgents and delivering votes at election time.

The November 23 massacre has galvanized organized labor to resist rampant warlordism in the region. Trade unions and media guilds are demanding an end to the prevailing culture of impunity.

A coalition of unions called KONTRA WTO, originally formed to protest the World Trade Organization, is turning its attentions to fighting the local strongmen and their political patrons.

KONTRA WTO expressed solidarity with the victims, over half of whom were journalists killed on the job. (At least 29 of the victims were journalists.) Two other victims were unionized public employees. According to the Alliance of Progressive Labor-Mindanao (APL-M), at least 13 of the dead journalists were "personally known and considered as friends" of APL-M.

The Alliance, a KONTRA WTO affiliate, sees warlordism as a byproduct of social inequality. It said in a statement last week that

If the economic structures consign the majority of our workers to poverty, the political structures trap them in a situation of powerlessness. Thus, to keep their hold on power, the ruling elites are corrupting the electoral system. Money-politics have rendered elections in this country almost meaningless.

FULL story at link.