The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has left Manila on a plane headed to The Hague, hours after he was served with an arrest warrant from the international criminal court over the killings resulting from his “war on drugs”.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr told a press conference that a plane carrying Duterte took off at 11.03pm local time on Tuesday. “The plane is en route to The Hague in the Netherlands, allowing the former president to face charges of crimes against humanity in relation to his bloody war on drugs,” he said.
The former leader, who will turn 80 this month, is accused by ICC prosecutors of crimes against humanity over his anti-drugs crackdowns, in which as many as 30,000 people were killed. Most of the victims were men in poor, urban areas who were gunned down in the streets.
Also worth noting that the current president, the child of a dictator, is using his support to impeach Duterte's daughter. He also said he wouldn't support any action of the ICC and now is.
If this action was in isolation, it could be taken at face value, but with other manoeuvrings, it's looking like Marco's consolidating his grip on power.
The other point and kind of backing up what you've said, is that Fillipino's I've talked to have commented that drug problems in their area disappeared but used to be pretty horrible.
I'm not one to defend crimes against human's, but one cannot discount the level of criminality and the impact it was already having on people's lives. Whether the tactics were fair or decent is one thing, but another is, did it work? Did it solve a serious problem the country was grappling with. You only have to look at Mexico to realise that if you don't deal with these things, the level of murder and suffering often skyrockets.
There should be accountability, but I'm not sure this is about accountability.
No, it didn't work and the perpetrators admitted so themselves.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-philippines-drugs-performance-exclusi-idUSKBN2010IL/
https://www.pressreader.com/philippines/manila-times/20190404/281483572747957
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/philippine-president-dutertes-drug-war-an-utter-failure-says-vice-president
I must contest to these news sources.
Furthermore, out of my own experiences, I confirm that general population of Philippines shares the same support and opinion about the drug problem AND it's handling by Duterte (concensus is generally positive).
I'm really not familiar with the political and social climate of the Phillipines, and I know it's easier said than done, but surely there's a better way to deal with drug use than murdering every drug addict (and probably a lot of other innocent people too). From an outside perspective that just seems horrifying.
As a foreigner, I’m shocked at how drug free even the poor parts of the city are. Coming from America, you see drug users everywhere.
Here? I think I saw 1 maybe over the course of a few years.