Damning UN Report Alludes To Thousands Of Extrajudicial Killings In Duterte’s ‘’War on Drugs’’

President Duterte of the Philippines was elected in June 2016 with the promise that he would do everything in his power to crack down on drug-related crime in the country. Now, four years on, the UN has released a detailed report documenting the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people at the hands of those tasked with enforcing the presidents ‘’War on Drugs’’. The damning report offers an insight into the tragic human cost of this ruthless campaign.

The report finds that the killings are carried out with almost complete impunity, with the state inciting violence both directly and by encouraging non-state actors to carry out attacks. The violence appears to be affecting the poor and disenfranchised disproportionately with Amnesty International labelling it a war on the ‘poor’. Furthermore, Carlos Conde, UN Human Rights, stated that children are now becoming ‘’collateral damage’’ potentially scaring a generation. The UN report itself found that at least 70 children have lost their lives as a direct result of the ‘drug war’.

Duterte’s response to the report was predictably blasé, stating that it was founded on invalid data and ‘’rehashed claims’’, vowing to continue his violent war on drugs. For now, his impunity to act in these ways remains unwavering as Philip Robertson, Human Rights Watch Asian Division, pointed out Duterte’s government continues to act with ‘’almost total’’ freedom from any accountability. 

These state-sanctioned acts of violence began in 2016 following Duterte’s successful election campaign, during which he made a series of statements including; Stating that he would not stop until ‘’every drug lord was either behind bars or dead’’, going further at one of his rallies, he exclaimed that ‘’I don’t care about human rights’’ telling the crowd to ‘’go ahead and kill’’ any addicts that they knew. It is from this platform that his ‘’war on drugs’’ was born and snowballed into the monster that it is today which has drawn widespread criticism from international organizations and consequently triggering the UN investigation.

While Duterte continues to justify atrocities in the name of ending the drug-trade, history has shown that violence and stigmatization of drug users has rarely – if ever – had any positive effect on stemming the illegal drug trade.  On the contrary, violence has been found to worsen the problem. This was shown at the turn of the century during Portugal’s struggle with the illegal drug trade.

Portugal in the 1980s and 90s was following a similar path of violence and stigmatization that the UN report has uncovered in the Philippines. However, after years of failing to see any positive results, the state reversed its position opting instead to embark on huge rehabilitation and education programmes. Choosing to stigmatize violence as opposed to addiction, as a result, Portugal rose from the depths of a severe drug-epidemic to one of the greatest success stories in state-led mitigation of drug use. This revealing case study should be one that Duterte is encouraged to study closely.

The UN report has confirmed that when Duterte said he would continue his war to his ‘’last day in office’’, he meant it. The light that this report has shed upon the extent of human rights violation should be seen not as an ends in itself but as a means to be used by the international community as a stepping stone to ramp up calls for a change in direction, away from violence and abuse, towards a peaceful and positive approach. Duterte’s hostile response to the report sends a clear message to the international community: Without great pressure, the violence will continue.

Peter Zoltan Barker
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