ZAMBOANGA CITY, 10 February 2007 — Unidentified gunmen shot dead a peasant leader in the southern Philippine province of Misamis Oriental, as if to thumb their noses at a United Nations team tasked to look into the continuing political assassinations in the country.

Police said Dalmacio Gandinao was having supper with his wife and three grandchildren in his house in Salay town, 750 kilometers (465 miles) southeast of Manila on Thursday, when five gunmen barged into his house and shot him dead.

The victim was shot several times in the body, police added.

A television news video yesterday showed policemen inspecting what appeared to be a bullet wound at the back of Gandinao.

Gandinao was the provincial leader of both the farmers group KMP and the Bayan Muna party, both left-wing groups, said KMP spokesman Carl Ala.

“The KMP denounces this political killing and demands justice for the victim,” he said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Bayan Muna blamed soldiers for the murder.

Gandinao was the 58th KMP leader killed since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo came to office in 2001, Ala said.

The local human rights group Karapatan said more than 800 people have been summarily killed since 2001, including more than 400 activists.

The head of a fact-finding commission created by Arroyo in August has blamed the majority of the killings on soldiers fighting a 38-year-old Maoist insurgency.

The military has often accused left-wing groups of acting as fronts for the rebels.

Arroyo, under increasing pressure to stop the killings, told foreign diplomats last month that communist rebels and some soldiers have both been involved in the assassinations.

She defended the military against charges of human rights violations.

Arroyo has invited Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, to investigate the crimes. Alston was scheduled to arrive in Manila this weekend for a 10-day visit, the UN office in Manila said, adding that details of his mission were still being finalized.

About 50 protesters gathered outside the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency in Manila to protest the almost weekly killings, carrying mock coffins and photographs of dead victims. They held placards reading, “The world should know” and “End the act of impunity.”

The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates welcomed Alston’s visit, but expressed concern that putting National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales in charge of his visit was “an attempt of the Philippine government to cover up state responsibility over the widespread, systematic and organized pattern of extrajudicial killings.”

Gonzales has downplayed the killings as a result of an internal purge within the communist movement. (With a report by AP)