UN team grills Manila lawmakers on rebel ties

MANILA, Feb 20 (Reuters) A team of rights experts from the United Nations grilled leftwing members of the Philippine lower house today over allegations they have direct links with communist rebel group, the New People's Army (NPA).

Manila has been battling the NPA since the late 1960s and the tit-for-tat conflict has come under the spotlight following a surge in murders of leftwing activists, many of whom were members of organisations the state views as fronts for the NPA.

The head of a government-created inquiry into the murders said last month that elements in the military were behind most of the shootings, but President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has blamed the NPA and has refused to make the inquiry's report public.

Philip Alston, an Australian law professor and UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, came to Manila earlier this month after Arroyo invited the UN and some European states to help her government further probe the murders.

''I managed to raise a number of issues that are concerned to me,'' Alston told reporters after meeting with lawmakers.

''And this will be reflected in the report that I will make.

I think I provided opportunities for groups across the spectrums to 'brainwash' me, if that's the word for learning.'' Alston was expected to give preliminary findings after a 10-day mission in the Philippines tomorrow.

Teodoro Casino, a member of Bayan Muna (Nation First), which the government views as a front for the NPA, said allegations that the group was bankrolling the NPA were ''grossly unfair''.

''For the last two years, we have been challenging them to come up with documentary evidence,'' he said.

Liza Maza, of the women's group Gabriela, also complained to the rights team that there were real efforts ''to demonise'' leftwing parties in the House of Representatives, linking them to terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and the Muslim terror group Abu Sayyaf.

She handed Alston three posters calling her a terrorist and labelling Gabriella and other leftwing groups as ''enemies of the state''.

Local human rights group Karapatan has claimed more than 800 people have been murdered and reported missing since Arroyo came to power in 2001. About 365 were leftwing activists, including 127 Bayan Muna members.

The police have disputed the figures, saying that 136 people have been murdered for work-related or political reasons since 2001.

REUTERS MS PM1430