RIGHTS GROUP RAPS PHILIPPINES

A Philippine human rights group has accused soldiers, police, and vigilante groups of killing or torturing hundreds of detainees last year in a ``total war'' against communist rebels. The Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates reported to the UN that out of more than 2,000 people held for political reasons in 1988, 363 were tortured, 368 were killed, and 73 had disappeared. Many of the ``disappeared'' were activists, believed murdered or still kept in military jails, said the report, released here yesterday.