PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday dared the United States to file a human rights complaint against him before the United Nations as a result of its continuing criticism of his deadly war on drugs.
“We are members of the United Nations. I thought you had a lawyer?” Duterte said in a speech in General Santos City.
“If you have something, you go to the United Nations assembly. You shout your complaint and you cry there and then ask for a motion that I be investigated.
“Go ahead, file a complaint to the United Nations. I will even burn the United Nations if you want. If I go to America I’ll lit up that devil shit.”
Duterte also called an official of Amnesty International an idiot after he provided details on how he and policemen killed kidnappers in Davao City when he was its mayor.
Rafendi Djamin, AI director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific, had said in a statement that Duterte’s claim “takes the meaning of ‘state-sanctioned’ violence to a whole new level… and the climate of impunity in the Philippines has intensified since Duterte began his brutal crackdown on [drug suspects] in July, with a wave of unlawful killings claiming more than 5,000 lives across the country.”
Duterte made his dare to the US as he complained about its alleged nitpicking and of its using the UN to reprimand him over the alleged summary killings of drug suspects in the Philippines.
He recalled that when he was mayor of Davao City he was the United States’ “favorite whipping boy” on human rights.
Duterte had been accused during his term in Davao City of allegedly sanctioning the killings of criminals carried out by the vigilante group Davao Death Squad.
“When I was mayor it was okay. When I became president I carry on my shoulder the sovereignty of the people. You do not reprimand me or chastise me in public,” Duterte said.
“It’s an insult, and every time you talk about the suspension of aid… the assistance, you have done that to so many presidents of this country.”
Duterte likewise cursed the US as he mentioned the US’ Millennium Challenge Corporation board’s decision to defer the selection of the Philippines as a recipient of a multi-million-dollar development grant over concerns on “the rule of law and civil liberties.”
He also cited the US State Department’s cancellation of a firearms’ sale to the Philippines.
“You think every time you criticize you always connect it with the aid. Bullshit, you guys,” Duterte said.
“You know what, I tell you straight, you invaded my country, sat on it for 50 years and you have the gull to say to us that we do not give you the aid. Son of a bitch. You are a son of a bitch. Do not do that to us.”
Duterte said the Philippines would survive without aid from the US.