MANILA — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte said on Wednesday he was ready to defend his bloody crackdown on illegal drugs, which has sparked US and international concerns, when he meets with President Barack Obama on the sidelines of an Asian summit next week.
Duterte said he would demand that he be allowed to first explain the context of his crackdown before engaging Obama in a discussion of the widespread deaths. The two will meet for the first time on the sidelines of the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Western leaders in Laos.
Nearly 1,800 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed since July 1, and US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said in Washington Monday that Obama plans to raise US concerns over the killings with Duterte.
“They must understand the problem first before we talk about human rights,” Duterte told a news conference. “I would insist, ‘Listen to me. This is what the problem is.’ Then we can talk. No problem.”
Speaking at Manila’s international airport, Duterte warned more than 120 Filipino workers who returned from the Middle East to stay away from illegal drugs.
“Avoid drugs at all costs because it could cost your life too,” Duterte said, adding that more than 3 million Filipinos are drug addicts.
In another development, Duterte rejected proposals on Wednesday for him to declare a state of emergency in a violent southern island to more rapidly defeat Abu Sayyaf extremists, who killed 15 soldiers in his government’s largest single-day combat loss so far.
Duterte also announced that government troops and police would not enforce a warrant of arrest for prominent Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari, who leads one of two large insurgent groups in the country’s south, so they could talk.
While Duterte has pursued talks with Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front and the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, he has ordered troops to destroy the smaller but more brutal Abu Sayyaf, which is notorious for bombings, ransom kidnappings and beheadings.
A massive military offensive in Sulu, a predominantly Muslim province where the Abu Sayyaf has had a long presence in lush jungles, has left 30 militants dead, including an influential commander. The Abu Sayyaf, however, struck back on Monday as the country was celebrating national heroes’ day, and killed 15 soldiers, including one officer, in fighting off Sulu’s mountainous Patikul town.
Asked if he would relent to a longstanding proposal by military officials to place Sulu under a state of emergency to allow government forces to arrest militants more easily and take tougher action against local officials conniving with the Abu Sayyaf, the usually boorish Duterte said he would not.
“No, it’s just punitive police action by the security forces of the government,” Duterte said at a news conference. “The magnitude of the trouble there does not warrant anything except the industry of the” military and police. — AP
