What America taught a murderous drug warrior: Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte follows prohibitionist logic to its lethal conclusion.

AuthorSullum, Jacob
PositionDRUGS

THE MASKED GUNMEN came for Paquito Mejos two days after he surrendered to police in Manila, identifying himself as an occasional user of methamphetamine, known locally as shabu. The cops later claimed Mejos, a 53-year-old electrician and father of five, was a drug dealer who drew a gun on them. Relatives say the cops planted the gun, along with a packet of meth.

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This is what daily life during Rodrigo Duterte's murderous war on drugs looks like, which is why his critics were dismayed that Donald Trump seemed to bless it during a "very friendly" telephone conversation with the Philippine president in April. Trump's chumminess with Duterte fits a pattern of admiration for authoritarian leaders around the world. But it is also a logical extension of the policies the U.S. government has been pushing for more than a century.

According to the Philippine National Police (PNP), more than 7,000 people have been killed by officers, vigilantes, or other unidentified gunmen since Duterte took office last summer. As of April 23, some 2,717 of the dead were described as "suspected drug personalities killed in police operations," a category that supposedly includes Paquito Mejos.

When Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigated that case and 31 other deaths, the group found "a damning pattern of unlawful police conduct in these killings, designed to paint a veneer of legality over summary executions." The author of the report said "police routinely kill drug suspects in cold blood and then cover up their crime by planting drugs and guns at the scene."

Besides the police killings, the PNP's numbers indicate, another 3,603 people had died in "extrajudicial, vigilante-style, or unexplained killings" as of January 9. HRW says many of these homicides "are in fact death-squad-style extrajudicial executions by police and police agents."

The carnage, which has drawn international condemnation, is only a down payment on Duterte's campaign promise to "kill them all." As a candidate, he said he would fatten the fish in Manila Bay by tilling it with the bodies of criminals. Since his election, he has publicly urged people to murder drug addicts, described children killed in the drug war as "collateral damage," likened his own bloodthirstiness to Adolf Hitler's, and told police...

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