Mindanao nun tags US military use of drones ‘killer program’
By Carlo Agamon and Julie Alipala
KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines—Washington’s drone program was branded “killer program” by a Mindanao-based nuns’ association as it called on the government to reject attempts by the Americans to put up a base in the country. Sister Noemi Degala, executive secretary of the Sisters’ Association in Mindanao (Samin), said in a statement e-mailed to the Inquirer that in Pakistan alone, under the so-called global war on terror, US drone strikes have killed as many as 3,549 people, 197 of them children.
“This is the fundamental moral issue why the drone program of the United States must be rejected,” she said. Degala said the program acts as “the prosecutor, judge and executor for and on behalf of a US president and military situated thousands of miles away from the targets.” “It is also a mockery of international humanitarian laws because it does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in times of armed conflict. In fact, the US is the number one violator of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) agreements,” she said.
Degala said the US government was so drawn to its drone program that the use of unmanned aircraft has become “a new form of idolatry or the idol worship of instrument of death at the expense of people’s lives, lands and human rights.” “It contradicts the words of Pope Francis opposing instruments of death in our times,” Degala said, adding that the US was now “the calf that demands the world’s absolute obedience.”
In Zamboanga City, Mayor Maria Isabelle Climaco-Salazar maintained her opposition to the prolonged stay of US forces in the city and decided to skip the ceremonial turnover of command for the US-led Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines as a manifestation of her protest. US forces have been in the city since 2002 and are deployed there under the Balikatan defense training program.
Read more: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/83541/mindanao-nun-tags-us-military-use-of-drones-killer-program#ixzz2cK3zq3eS
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