Duterte blasts UN in threat to withdraw the Philippines
Print Edition
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte yesterday threatened to withdraw the Philippines from the United Nations, as he launched another profanity-laced tirade against the organization for criticizing his bloody war on crime.
More than 1,500 people have been killed since Duterte took office and began a law-and-order crackdown, according to police statistics, triggering criticism from the UN and rights groups.
Duterte, a lawyer famous for an acid tongue who has repeatedly told the UN not to interfere, stepped up his rhetoric against the organization yesterday.
“Maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations. If you are that disrespectful, son of a whore, then I will just leave you,” Duterte said at a press conference in his home city of Davao.
Duterte said he may even try to set up a rival international organization.
“I would invite everybody. I would invite maybe China, the African (nations),” he said.
The UN’s special rapporteur on summary executions, Agnes Callamard, last week said Duterte’s promise of immunity and bounties to security forces who killed drug suspects violated international law.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in June also strongly criticized Duterte, who during the election campaign promised to kill 100,000 people and dump so many bodies in Manila Bay that the fish would grow fat from feeding on them.
“I unequivocally condemn his apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms,” Ban said.
Duterte frequently peppers his public comments with swear words — he has also called Pope Francis and the US ambassador to Manila sons of whores — and days after his election win used typical language to criticize the UN.
“Fuck you, UN, you can’t even solve the Middle East carnage... couldn’t even lift a finger in Africa,” he said then.
Duterte lashed out in a similar fashion yesterday, accusing the “stupid” UN of not doing anything in Middle East hotspots Syria and Iraq.
Duterte referenced a haunting photo taken last week of a little Syrian boy, pictured sitting in an ambulance dazed and covered in blood after an airstrike, as evidence of the UN’s ineffectiveness.
“Is that stupid body complaining about the stench there of death. Look at the iconic boy taken out of the rubble. When he was made to sit in the ambulance, and we saw it. So what’s the difference?”
Duterte asked why police killings in the United States were not attracting the same kind of criticism as the Philippines.
“What do you think the Americans did to the black people there? Is that not rubbing off also? And (critics) say what?” he said.
Duterte also accused the UN of doing nothing for the Philippines — ignoring its poverty reduction programs and enormous help following typhoons and other natural disasters.
On the day he was sworn into office, Duterte called for people in slums to kill neighbors they believed were drug addicts, repeating a campaign line.
His aides have since said such comments are not meant to be taken literally.
However, nearly 900 people have been killed by unknown people during Duterte’s time in power, with police killing another 665 alleged drug suspects, according to the national police chief.
Duterte has repeatedly insisted police have only killed in self-defense, while maintaining the other deaths are due to drug syndicates killing each other.
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