Peasant leaders demand justice for Hacienda Luisita Massacre victims

Peasant groups leaders hold banners showing the faces of Hacienda Luisita Massacre victims
(Photo from Twitter)

Eleven years after the bloody protests that caused lives of seven farmers at the Cojuangco-owned Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, militant group Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) called for justice for the farmers who were killed on November 16, 2004.

KMP, along with peasant leaders from Australia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and the United States of America convened yesterday at the Ninoy Aquino Memorial Shrine in Quezon city to commemorate the 11th anniversary of the Hacienda Luisita Massacre.

“Hacienda Luisita farmers are still fighting for justice for the massacre victims,” KMP chairman Rafael Mariano was quoted as saying in a report by The Standard.

According to Mariano, nobody has been made accountable for the deaths of Jhaivie Basilio, Adrian Caballero, Jun David, Jesus Laza, Jaime Pastidio, Juancho Sanchez, and Jessie Valdez. The seven farmers died during the dispersal of the protest when government forces fired bullets to the attacking protesters.

“While the Aquino government is busy with its superficial image-building and overkill preparations for Apec this week, human rights violations intensify across the country,” said Mariano in the same report.

Mariano also said that despite the Supreme Court’s order of total land distribution of Hacienda Luisita to 6,000 farmer beneficiaries, the actual distribution of lands has been prevented under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, who is a member of the Cojuangco clan.

“The Cojuangcos implemented scheme after scheme of maneuvers to undermine the farmers’ struggle and to prevent actual land distribution,”  Mariano said.

The KMP alleged that the Department of Agrarian Reform is conniving with the Cojuangcos on manipulating the list of farmer-beneficiaries and in reducing the size of the land that will be distributed to the farmer-beneficiaries through the Agrarian Reform Program.

The militant group has also revealed that several military forces were stationed at the gates of Hacienda Luisita.

“The Northern Luzon Command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines is positioned at the very gates of the Hacienda and stationed within are different units of the military, police and paramilitary including the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the AFP, the Tarlac Provincial Police, private security guards, and the Cojuangcos’ ‘Yellow Army’ who are wreaking havoc and perpetuating fear and violence against the people of the hacienda,”  KMP said in the same report.

“The farmers struggle in Hacienda Luisita will remain a thorn in the throat of Aquino until his last day in Malacañang and beyond,” said Mariano.