Auckland Philippines Solidarity of New Zealanders and Filipinos take its protest up the peak of Mt Eden, one of the highest places in Auckland, New Zealand. Contributed photo
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO– Some 1,000 folk attended the burial of slain Dutch missionary Wilhelmus Geertman in Baler, Aurora province Sunday afternoon amid demand for justice in his killing.
This, amid a report saying that Geertman had helped Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Ma. Sison obtain asylum in the Netherlands.
“As a Dutch national,he was a staunch defender of the rights of progressives and Filipino refugees in the Netherlands.
He encouraged and supported Prof. Jose Maria Sison and others in their efforts to obtain asylum and in their struggle against persecution and terrorist-labeling,” the Norway-based Defend International (DI) said.
Journalist Fred Villareal, who witnessed the shooting of Geertman at his Alay Bayan Inc. office in Barangay Telebastagan here last July 3, said eight priests concelebrated a Mass for the Dutch national at the San Luis Obispo church in Baler before his remains were laid to rest at 3 p.m. at a new memorial cemetery in the capital town.
He noted that about 1,000 folk attended the Mass. The sympathizers also joined the one-hour march from the church to the cemetery, he noted.
“The sympathizers consisted of his allies, peasants, indigenous people and even professionals,” he reported.
In a statement, the DI has joined the call against “whitewash” in Geertman’s case.
“We condemn the maneuvers of the Aquino regime to whitewash the case by weaving a scenario of robbery gone wrong,” DI said in a statement, noting that “the manner by which he was killed is akin to the operation of killers of human rights advocates, progressives and political activists.”
The DI is an independent, voluntary, non-governmental human rights organization based in Norway backed by subscribers worldwide, mostly in the Middle East and North Africa region.
“Our mission is to respond to grave violations of human rights and of International Humanitarian Law and to monitor the implementation of preventive measures that are designed to end impunity for the perpetrators of these crimes,” its website said.
The DI statement recalled that the robbery claim of the police in the case of Geertman was “the same lie they wove to whitewash the killing of Bishop Alberto Ramento of the Philippine Independent Church whose killing remains unsolved to this day.”
Ramento, who had supported farmers in Hacienda Luisita in Tarlac, was shot dead in his church in 2008.
The DI noted that Geertman “carried the struggle of the Filipino people for genuine democracy, especially the struggle for land of peasants” and “undertook mercy missions and rehabilitation for victims of natural disasters.”
This, even as Grace Punongbayan of the organization Migrante based in Amsterdam said Filipino members of a group called the Red Tomorrow held protest rallies at the Philippine embassy in the Hague to protest the killing of Geertman.
Punongbayan said her group also handed over a letter to embassy officials to express their demand for justice in the case. She described Geertman as a “revolutionary comrade” which whom she had done “revolutionary work” among metal workers in Amsterdam.
Geertman’s brother Toon and sister Maria arrived last Friday from the Netherlands to attend their brother’s wake at the ABI compound in Barangay Telebastagan here and then last Saturday night the Mt. Carmel covered court in Baler, Aurora.
Meanwhile, the militant Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) and Anakpawis party list urged yesterday the Dutch Embassy in Manila to “officially file a diplomatic protest against the Philippine government over the brutal murder of Dutch development worker Wilhelmus Lutz Geertman.”
In a press statement, Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France and Anakpawis party list vice-chairperson Fernando Hicap said the Dutch embassy in Manila “should also lead a diplomatic campaign in the international community strongly rebuking the policy of extrajudicial killing under the Oplan Bayanihan regime of President Aquino.”
Dutch Ambassador Robert Brinks said he was “shocked and saddened” by the murder of Geertman, saying “human rights remain one of the important pillars of Dutch foreign policy.”
The Pamalakaya and Anakpawis party list leaders also earlier asked Brinks to ask the European Union to “recall its economic aid and other forms of assistance to the Aquino administration” following the murder of Geertman.
