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“I will really kill you. If I become president, you will all get wiped out. I will order your execution within 24 hours,” Rodrigo Duterte, 2017

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Donald Trump to Rodrigo Duterte, 2017

Although former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was not in court in The Hague, his words were. Video after video was played of Duterte promising he would enable death squads to murder with impunity.

Deemed by his lawyers as too frail and old to attend his pre-trial hearing for crimes against humanity, the hearing concluded without him.

Prosecutors laid out evidence for the charges: three counts of crimes against humanity for murder and attempted murder. The court now has 60 days to determine if the evidence is sufficient for him to stand trial.

Duterte faces the charges for crimes against humanity in connection with his so-called “war on drugs” that began when he was mayor of Davao City, and later, when he became Philippine president — he is estimated to have killed at least 6,200 people in police operations by May 2022 — human rights groups now estimate the total may reach 30,000.

Prosecutors, however, narrowed the case down to 49 incidents of alleged murder and attempted murder, including 78 victims, between 2011 and 2019.

In Deputy ICC prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang’s opening statement, he quoted from Duterte to show that his “criminal plan and his intent were no secret.”

For his part, Duterte claims he was “kidnapped,” while his defense counsel, Nicholas Kaufman, admitted that his language was vulgar and cruel, but dismissed it as “bluster” and “tough tongue of the street.”

Duterte’s tough tongue “kill order” targeted the young and poor. According to court records, his death squads aimed at the disenfranchised, who were least likely to be able to defend themselves.

As Patricia Evangelista wrote in Rappler:

As it happens, Rodrigo Duterte is not in detention at Scheveningen Prison because he punctuated sentences with son of a bitch. Neither is he there because he considered fuck a reasonable alternative to a number of everyday verbs. Rodrigo Duterte said, “Do not fuck with my country, because I will really kill you.” Kill was the operative word. It was not fuck. And when he said kill, he was not a drunken uncle holding court at a kitchen table, “rambling on in his own uniquely colorful and crusty language.” When he spoke of what Kaufman called “homespun theories on crime control,” he spoke as President of the Republic and Commander of the Armed Forces, the man who held executive control over more than 200,000 police officers equipped with lethal weaponry.
The president, in fact, had many words for killing. “Slaughter these idiots,” he said. They would “have to perish,” he said. Wipe them out “from the face of the earth,” he said. Hang them with wire. Drown them at sea. Push them off helicopters. Cut off their heads. Ambush them, poison them, stab them, shoot them in the vagina, kill them all. “I am telling everyone, the criminals, the druggies, the rebels. Do not destroy my country because I will kill you, period,” he said in 2019. “No excuses, no apologies, no nothing.”

In addition, Duterte said publicly: “I’ve always told you, that if you have to shoot, shoot them dead… I’d prefer they’d shoot them in the heart or in the head. That’s the end of the problem.”

And in 2017, he said: “If you kill criminals, it is not a crime against humanity.”

His dehumanization earned accolades from Donald Trump, who championed the Duterte murders, which parallel Trump’s escalating extrajudicial murders.

In a transcript from a 2017 phone call, Trump applauded Duterte’s murderous rampage.

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte, according to the transcript.

In addition to Duterte, ICC judges issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leader Ibrahim al-Masri last November for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Gaza conflict, which prompted the retaliation against the ICC officials, according to Trump.

And after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and five other Russian officials over their war crimes in Ukraine, including illegally deporting children, Trump invited Putin on US soil, while punishing ICC judges with abusive sanctions.

Killer ‘Bluster’

As I read the words that Duterte is quoted as saying, I think about the words that Putin said about Chechens, according to investigative reporter Anna Politkovskaya, how he promised to “wipe out” the bandits after they’re cornered “in the shithouse.”

Typical rhetoric from the gangster from St. Petersburg.

I’ve lost track of the venal, dehumanizing words that come out of Trump’s mouth, he’s moved the Overton Window so far, but “animals,” “vermin,” “garbage,” and “scum” come to mind, not to mention how he liberally deploys the vocabulary of misogyny… ie “quiet, piggy.”

The words of Duterte, who admitted paying troll farms to boost fake popularity online, were a main focus of the hearing.

In multiple 2015 interviews, the ICC quoted Duterte as saying:

“When I become president, you should hide. That 1,000, it would become 50,000. I would kill all of you who make life miserable for Filipinos. I will really kill you. I will win because of the breakdown of law and order. I don’t want to commit a crime, but if by chance God places me there, watch out. That 1,000 will become 100,000. That’s where you’ll see the fish in Manila Bay get fat. That’s where I will throw them. I don’t want to kill people, so don’t elect me as president.”
“In Davao, I will really kill you. If I become president, you will all get wiped out. I will order your execution within 24 hours.”
“Tell me what my credentials for the presidency are? Then I would say Davao is my Exhibit A. Now, here in Davao, I’m not saying this city is clean. It’s not perfect. So maybe, I said, if I get to Pasig, I can promise you not heaven, but I will promise you a comfortable life. Corruption has to stop. Criminality has to stop. Either I get what I want, or you perish. Let’s just be straightforward. What does that mean? That means killings.”

He also boasted that his “death squad…is organized.”

As Trump and Netanyahu wage an illegal and murderous war in Iran, and Putin wages an illegal and murderous war in Ukraine, following the proceedings at the ICC at a time when remaining democracies are ever so fragile feels almost sacred.

According to courtroom reporters, victims’ families were present as videos were played of Duterte promising there would be death squads and delivering on that promise.

‘In The Hague for Life’

Yesterday, on the first anniversary of Duterte’s arrest, Roman Catholic priest and human rights activist, Father Flavie Villanueva, told his congregation: “Duterte, who ordered the killings, you will be in The Hague for life.”

Villanueva established a center in Manila to help families of death squad victims. He organized the special mass on March 11, the date the former president was arrested upon his arrival from Hong Kong, and then flown directly to The Hague in the Netherlands where he’s been ever since.

In another echo of what America has endured under Trump for more than a decade, a progressive leader in the Philippines noted how the lack of daily “bluster” has been a positive side effect of Duterte’s incarceration.

“For one year now, the Filipino people have been spared the daily spectacle of Duterte’s authoritarian bluster, misogynistic remarks and violent rhetoric that normalized cruelty and killing in our public life,” said Rafaela David, the president of the Akbayan progressive party.

All three ICC judges, tasked with determining whether Duterte stands trial, are women.

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Author’s note: The International Criminal Court just announced today that it has opened an investigation into alleged crimes against humanity by the government of Belarus led by dictator Alexander Lukashenko.

The ICC prosecutor’s office said the probe was launched over alleged crimes that began after Belarus’s 2020 presidential election, including politically motivated deportations carried out as state policy.

“There is also a reasonable basis to believe that these crimes were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, considering their large scale, the number of victims, and the organised nature of the acts,” the ICC said in its statement.—Heidi Siegmund Cuda for Bette Dangerous

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The 'Bluster' of a Killer