by SHAWN W. CRISPIN
Reporter Aquiles Zonio at the site of the Maguindanao massacre. PHOTO/María Salazar-Ferro
Ampatuan, Philippines
Weeds have overgrown the backhoe-scarred clearing set among the tropical hills of rural Maguindanao province. Aquiles Zonio has a question as he looks over this killing field where a year earlier a political hit squad executed his colleagues and friends, dumping their bodies into open pits.
Will it ever be safe to work here?
It was on this hilltop clearing, overlooking the abandoned bamboo shacks of a former rebel camp, that 57 people, including 32 journalists and media support workers, were systematically shot and killed in an orgy of violence now known as the Maguindanao massacre. The main suspect in the crime, Andal Ampatuan Jr., mayor of the town that bears his family’s name, is now on trial in Manila along with the police and paramilitary members he allegedly commanded.
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