FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Philippines Denounces UN ‘Human Rights’ Chief for Wild Attack on President Duterte
March 11, 2018 (EIRNS)—Sounding every bit as hysterical and rabid as the British assets’ attacks on President Trump, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, told a news conference on March 9 that President Duterte “needs to see a psychiatrist.” Al-Hussein has attacked the Duterte government repeatedly for human rights abuses because of the President’s war on drugs, but the current diatribe was prompted because Duterte filed a petition in court calling for 600 people to be declared criminals for their support for the communist insurgency in the country. The list included Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, appointed in 2014 as UN special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, whom Duterte included as a senior member of the country’s Maoist rebel group.
Tauli-Corpuz, a Filipina, has a filthy record going back to the days of President Ferdinand Marcos, when she led campaigns by indigenous groups to stop the development projects sponsored by Marcos. She was exposed by EIR as a front for George Soros in 2009 when she tried to stop dam construction in India on the basis of oppressing indigenous people (see “Pro-Drug Mafia Behind Opposition to Dam-Building in India’s Northeast,” EIR, Nov. 6, 2009)
Al-Hussein said Duterte’s attacks against UN special rapporteurs cannot go unanswered and the UN Human Rights Council must take a position. He said the Philippine leader needs to submit himself to some sort of psychiatric examination.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano countered al-Hussein:
“The Philippines take grave exception to the irresponsible and disrespectful comments of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that cast untoward aspersions regarding the President of the Republic of the Philippines.”
The current UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings Agnes Callamard has also openly organized within the Philippines against Duterte and his effort to crush the drug mafia in the country. The Philippines welcomed a UN investigation into Duterte’s signature war on drugs but rejected Callamard’s involvement, as clearly biased and not qualified.
Cayetano said further about al-Hussein’s attack:
“This could set a dangerous precedent that the council would have to immediately address, as otherwise member-states could also fall victim to those who seek to politicize and weaponize human rights to undermine legitimate governments.”
Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque said al-Hussein’s language was an affront to Philippine sovereignty.
