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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
Dozens of mostly civilians were killed and
wounded on Monday as hundreds of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)
rebels attacked several towns in southern Philippines.
The MILF insurgents were reported to have gone
on a shooting rampage and pillaging of villages in the towns of
Bacolod, Kauswagan, Kolambugan, Maigo and Tubod as they advanced to
other areas in Lanao del Norte province.
The rebels also were reported to have attacked
villages in the neighboring provinces of Sarangani and Sultan
Kudarat.
Police and military authorities heightened
security in Misamis Occidental after hundreds of villagers from
Lanao del Norte crossed into the province to escape the attacks.
“There is fighting in the areas and we are
trying to drive away the rebels and secure civilians and vital
government installations,” said Army Brig. Gen. Hilario Atendido,
commander of a military task force.
One commuter bus on its way to Misamis
Oriental’s Cagayan de Oro City from Zamboanga City was also
ambushed at a rebel checkpoint near Kolambugan around 4:30 a.m. and
rebels executed at least 14 passengers who had begged for mercy.
“They [passengers] were mercilessly gunned
down. They were executed as they pleaded for their lives,” said
bus driver Antonio Aurilla, who was able to escape the carnage along
with three others.
Aurilla added that the rebels ordered those who
were left behind to line up outside the bus and executed them. “I
heard the rebels shouting, ‘Finish them off’ and then there was
a burst of gunfire,” he told radio station dxRZ Radyo Agong in
Zamboanga City by phone from his hiding place in the town.
One soldier, a Corporal Borlado, who was
interviewed on the phone by dxRZ, said they had recovered three more
corpses, apparently shot, at a bridge in Kolambugan.
Six Catholic priests, led by Fr. Reggie
Quijano, said they hid inside their convent in Kolambugan after
rebels occupied the town. “I saw two squads of rebels near our
church and we immediately hid on the second floor on the convent,”
he added.
The priests were earlier reported to have been
taken hostage by the Muslim insurgents.
By sunrise, the highway connecting Lanao del
Norte with other provinces was already occupied by rebels as
thousands of civilians fled their homes to seek refuge in safer
areas.
Mayor Bertrand Lumaque of Kolambugan said the
rebels also took a still undetermined number of villagers and used
them as shields against pursuing soldiers.
“I cannot account how many people were taken
hostage by the rebels, but the reports we received said many
villagers were being held by the MILF and using them as shields,”
he added.
Television pictures showed several houses and
vehicles still burning in Kolambugan and the body of a man left near
the road where rebels had passed. Video footage also showed
civilians running away from a village in the town bringing nothing
but bundles of clothes. The fighting turned Kolambugan into a
virtual ghost town.
In Kauswagan town, at least 16 persons were
reported killed by rebels in the village of Lapayan.
Witnesses said some areas in the occupied towns
were burning after rebels torched houses and buildings as the
fighting was raging. Radio reports said rebel forces burned down
markets and set on fire small government buildings in the towns.
The MILF, which is currently negotiating peace
with Manila, said the attacks were carried out by its forces who are
disgruntled over the slow pace of the talks and the failure of both
sides to sign an agreement on ancestral domain.
These attacks “could be connected with the
failure of the signing of the ancestral-domain agreement and many
rebels are disgruntled. We are trying to reach Commander Bravo, but
we cannot get through him. This fighting should stop. We don’t
want the fighting to spread to other areas,” said Eid Kabalu, a
senior MILF leader.
Kabalu was referring to Abdul Rahman Macapaar,
leader of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces in the
province, who is responsible for the carnage. Macapaar, a known MILF
hardliner, is a veteran mujahideen blamed by authorities in past
attacks on military and civilian targets in Lanao del Norte.
Kabalu said the attacks were not sanctioned by
the MILF.
Philippine military chief Gen. Alexander Yano
said the rebel attacks violated a ceasefire agreement between the
government and the MILF. He added that he had ordered security
forces to drive away the raiders from the provinces. “We have
filed a formal protest [with the ceasefire committees of the two
sides] against the MILF for these attacks,” Yano said.
“We have launched military operations in
Mindanao and this will go on until the perpetrators are punished and
normalcy is established in the area,” he added.
Yano, during a news conference in Manila, called
the attacks a virtual “declaration of war” against the
government.
Thousands of troops have surrounded the Lanao
del Norte towns where the MILF forces were holding out but the
rebels used villagers as shields as they escaped to other areas.
Government attack helicopters were also sent to
the province to provide support to ground troops fighting hundreds
of rebels.
Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro branded the
rebel attacks in the provinces as a criminal act.
“This is plain and simple violation of the law
and we cannot put any justification as to their actions, like they
can be frustrated with the issuance of the TRO [Supreme Court’s
temporary restraining order on the signing of the ancestral-domain
deal between Manila and the MILF]. This is not sufficient reason or
justification to commit an illegal act,” he said.
Peace negotiators last month reached a deal on
the ancestral domain but the Supreme Court stopped the formal
signing of the accord set for August 5 in Malaysia after politicians
and lawmakers opposed to the deal filed petitions asking Manila to
make public the rest of the agreement.
Ancestral domain is the single most important
issue in the peace negotiations before the rebel group can reach a
political settlement with the Philippine government.
Presidential peace adviser Hermogenes Esperon
Jr. had cited a need to amend the Constitution to allow a plebiscite
in areas under the ancestral domain that would make up the so-called
Bangsamoro Juridical Entity and give Muslims their own homeland.
The ancestral domain covers the whole of the
Muslim autonomous region—Basilan, Maguindanao and Lanao del Norte,
including Marawi City, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi—and some areas in
Zamboanga Peninsula, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani
provinces where there are large communities of Muslims and
indigenous tribes. It also covers Palawan province in western
Philippines.
Manila opened peace talks in 2001 with the MILF,
the country’s largest Muslim rebel group that has fought for
nearly four decades for the establishment of their so-called
homeland.
The latest fighting came barely a day after two
homemade bombs went off in two budget hotels in Iligan City in Lanao
del Norte, injuring three persons. Lanao del Norte is among the
areas being claimed by Muslim rebels as part of their ancestral
domain.
-- With Jefferson Antiporda and Maricel V. Cruz
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