The US Congress must cancel or postpone the sales of attack helicopters to the Philippines until Manila enacts serious reforms to end military abuses and bring those responsible to justice, a prominent human rights watchdog said Friday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd May, 2020) The US Congress must cancel or postpone the sales of attack helicopters to the Philippines until Manila enacts serious reforms to end military abuses and bring those responsible to justice, a prominent human rights watchdog said Friday.
"Approving contracts for attack helicopters would be sending a terrible message to the Philippine government that long-running military abuses without accountability have no consequences on the US-Philippines relationship," Human Rights Watch's (HRW) Asia advocacy director John Sifton said in a press release.
Any deal for military technology between the US and the Philippines should be contingent on Manila enacting serious reforms, Sifton added.
"Congress should be impressing upon the Philippine government that real reforms are needed to end military abuses before deals like this can be approved," the HRW official stated.
In April, Washington approved two potential sales, with a value of just under $2 billion, of AH-64E Apache and AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters to Manila.
More than 6,600 people in the Philippines have been killed by the country's police force since mid-2016 amid President Rodrigo Duterte's anti-narcotics campaign, according to official statistics. The human rights watchdog claims that thousands more, including at least 100 children, have died at the hands of unknown gunmen.
