Duterte admits abuses in drug war
Print Edition
PHILIPPINE President Rodrigo Duterte acknowledged abuses in a war on illegal drugs, which has left more than 400 people dead in a month and alarmed rights activists, but refused to back down from a shoot-to-kill order for drug suspects.
Duterte said in a speech late Thursday that most drug dealers and addicts slain in gunbattles with police had put up a fight, but added that he was sure some were “salvaged,” a local slang for extrajudicial killings usually by law enforcers.
In the case of illegal killings, Duterte said the government will investigate.
“They really fight back, I know that,” Duterte said in a speech in southern Davao city, where he built a name as a mayor for his extra tough approach to crime before winning the presidency on June 30. “I’m sure there are some who were salvaged, I am also sure of that.”
Early yesterday, he told reporters that he gave “shoot-to-kill” orders against drug dealers, including politicians involved in the illicit trade.
“I’ll really have you killed. Look at what you’re doing to the Philippines and I’ll forgive you?” Duterte told reporters, apparently enraged after visiting a town police chief who was shot in the chest by a suspected drug dealer and rushed to a Davao hospital.
“My order is shoot to kill you. I don’t care about human rights, you better believe me,” said Duterte, a 71-year-old former government prosecutor.
Duterte’s centerpiece anticrime drive, focused on an ambitious campaign promise to end the widespread drugs problem in six months, has left more than 400 drug suspects dead, many of them either in firefights with police or under suspect circumstances. More than 4,400 have been arrested, police said.
The unprecedented killings have scared more than half a million drug users and dealers who surrendered themselves to police, according to officials.
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