The Philippines’ brash-talking president threatened Sunday to withdraw his country from the United Nations and lashed out at US police killings of black men in his latest outburst against critics of his anti-drug campaign, which has left hundreds of suspects dead.
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Duterte also told reporters he was thinking of breaking off from the United Nations, whose human rights experts recently criticized a Philippine drug policy that has led to the arrests of more than 4,400 people since June 30, when Duterte took office, as well as the extrajudicial killings of more than 500 suspected dealers.
“If you are that insulting, son of a bitch, we should just leave”, he said then in Tagalog, according to a translation by CNN affiliate CNN Philippines. “But maybe we’ll just have to decide to separate from the United Nations”, he said.
Duterte gained popularity in 1988 when he became the mayor of Davao on the southern island of Mindanao, where he reigned for 22 years over different periods characterised by his strong defence of extra-judicial killings.
However almost 900 people have been murdered by unknown people during Duterte’s time in power, with police killing another 665 alleged drug suspects, according to the national police chief.
Duterte, however, has vehemently denied these accusations, and said that the police only fired in self-defense, while he also lashed out at the UN. Take us out of your organization.
And Duterte asked why police killings in the United States were not attracting the same kind of criticism as the Philippines. “I would invite maybe China, the African (nations)”, he said.
“Is that stupid body complaining about the stench there of death?”
His aides have since said such comments are merely hyperbole and not meant to be taken literally.
“Why are you Americans killing the black people there, shooting them down when they are already on the ground?”
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have both condemned Mr Duterte’s “apparent endorsement of extrajudicial killings, which is illegal and a breach of fundamental rights and freedoms”.
The tirade was prompted by a statement released on Thursday by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that urged Duterte to end a wave of violence that began after he was elected in May.
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On Wednesday last week he said if an investigator came to the Philippines, “I’d like to box him in the head”.
