Bishop on `hit list' in Philippines

by Jarlath Dolan BISHOP Antonio Fortich, the former Bishop of Negros Occidental in the Philippines, has called for international assistance to aid the 600 displaced people living in a Catholic seminary after a vigilante group threatened to kill them.
In a message to the Catholic Third World agency CAFOD and other organisations, Bishop Fortich said: "On Saturday, July 8, vigilantes entered the (Sacred Heart) seminary here in Bacolod and threatened the evacuees and in a radio broadcast the following day threatened to attack in three days."
He called on the international and religious communities to go to the island and become "a non-violent presence", and to "show solidarity with the (evacuees) cause and create a zone of peace.
"These are displaced people, common rural people who have witnessed tragic human rights violations. Their hope is that if religious and international people come and he present with them, an attack may be prevented and they will live rather than die. They will realise they are not alone in their struggle for justice, peace, and the protection of their human rights."
The men, women and children at the seminary are among the 35,000 people who have been displaced from their homes in the mountains of Central Negros by the Philippine Army's "Operation Thunderbolt" against communist insurgents.
CAFOD's partner in the Philippines, the National Secretariat for Social Action (NASA), is actively assisting the evacuees.
Illegal vigilante groups who are fanatically anti-communist have been roving the countryside in search of leftist rebels who oppose the government of Presiden Corazon Aquino.
Bishop Fortich, a 1989 Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is already on a vigilante "hit list".
He said that: "We are vulnerable. This is an open field. Any kind of hand grenade or bomb can be thrown into the living quarters of these people. It is in this spirit of urgency that we request your prayers, your presence, your solidarity and your support."