Willie N Ng
ARMY intelligence men who arrested five followers of former President Estrada and tortured one of them for hours should stop trying to whitewash their sin and apologize.
They should learn something from US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair who admitted their mistakes in the waging of the war in Iraq, in particular, their contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
After years of brazening it out, they finally realized that their credibility was shot. Hence the admission.
Credibility is also a problem for the goings-on at the AFP.
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In this latest episode, army officers swooped down on the five suspects in the home of one of them, manhandled them and kept them in detention for days, torturing one of them while denying they even knew them.
Had their families not gotten wind of their detention and had Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez not ordered their release "for insufficient evidence," heaven knows what their fate would have been.
An army officer on TV said the other day that the army could have secretly disposed of them, but did not, showing its good faith. Good faith is okay but one would much rather have transparency and respect for the law.
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Banking on public anger over the Sept. 11 tragedy, Bush built his Guantanamo prison for terrorist suspects where US laws on human treatment for suspects would not apply.
Army intelligence is using presidential security as the excuse for secret arrests and torture.
Rumors of assassination plots surface every now and then. It may not be asking too much for a careful appreciation of assassination reports before doing the usual raids, arrests and the third degree.
The US embassy has raised the issue of human rights violations and a team of American women lawyers is coming to help persecuted activists. Who knows but that international embarrassment may be the cure.
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