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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: A Muslim human rights group on
Wednesday accused the Philippine military of covering up soldiers
accused of killing eight people in Sulu province.
The Philippine military absolved dozens of
members of the Army Light Reaction Company and Navy Special Warfare
Group in the murder of seven civilians and an off-duty soldier
during a raid on the village of Ipil in Maimbung town on February 4.
The Western Mindanao Command’s Judge Advocate
General’s Office absolved all the soldiers involved in the
killings and said the attack in the village was a legitimate
operation. “It was a legitimate encounter with the Abu Sayyaf and
that is according to the report and findings of the JAGO,” Army
Major Eugene Batara, a regional military spokesman, said.
Colonel Fred Lleosa headed the JAGO team that
investigated the killings, he said.
Sulu Gov. Sakur Tan said among those killed in
the raid were two children, two teenagers and a pregnant woman,
including a seaweed farmer and a village councilor. He also accused
the soldiers of murdering innocent villagers.
He said a fact-finding board was created
Wednesday to study and file appropriate criminal charges against the
soldiers and their commanders implicated in the killings.
“There should be no cover-up in the killings.
We want justice and justice we will get. We will file criminal
charges against those involved in the killing of innocent people,”
he told The Manila Times.
The Philippine National Police and the
Commission on Human Rights (CHR), which held separate investigations
into the raid, also accused the soldiers of killing innocent
civilians.
But the Philippine Commission on Human Rights
said there was no Abu Sayyaf in the village and that seven of those
slain in the military attack were innocent civilians.
“None of them was an Abu Sayyaf member. Seven
civilians and a government soldier were killed in that attack,”
CHR Regional Director Jose Manuel Mamauag said.
The Suara Bangsamoro, an umbrella organization
of Muslim human rights groups, urged the Philippine Congress and the
Senate to investigate the killings and reports that four US soldiers
were spotted on a Navy boat just off the village of Ipil as local
troops were firing on civilians they mistook as Abu Sayyaf
militants.
Amirah Ali Lidasan, national president of Suara
Bangsamoro, said her group has long expected that the military will
absolve the soldiers. “We believe the CHR’s findings because
they were based on testimonies of survivors and the whole
seaweed-farming community of Ipil. We have long feared that the
Western Mindanao Command investigation will want to whitewash the
investigation and absolve their soldiers for the crimes,” Lidasan
said in a statement.
“The Philippines should be concerned in giving
the Moro people the long-awaited justice that the military deployed
in our communities have time and again have been absolved. This
cycle of injustice is only one of the many reasons why the Moro
people cannot stomach the Arroyo administration and her anti-terror
and militaristic policies,” she said.
The Western Mindanao Command had previously
said, even before the start of investigations, that those killed in
the raid were either members of the Abu Sayyaf or coddlers of the
group and in several occasions claimed the victims were killed by
the Abu Sayyaf or hit in the crossfire.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the
country’s largest Muslim rebel group, also criticized the findings
of the military investigation.
“The findings are sanitized aimed at lessening
the burden of responsibility to members of the elite troops under
the Light Reaction Company and the Navy’s Special Warfare Group.
Acting as judge for itself will lead to nowhere and no justice is
expected forthcoming,” the MILF said.
The CHR findings detailed how troops attacked
the village and plundered houses owned by civilians. Mamauag has
recommended the filing of criminal charges against the soldiers
involved in the raid.
The slain civilians were identified as Marisa
Payian, 4; Wedme Lahim, 9; Alnalyn Lahim, 15; Sulayman Hakob, 17;
Kirah Lahim, 45; Eldisim Lahim, 43; and Narcia Abon, 24. Two of the
raiders were also killed and five others wounded when they mistook
each other as enemies and traded gunfire, according to the CHR
report.
Reps. Yusop Jikiri of Sulu province and Mujiv
Hataman of Basilan have separately called for a congressional
investigation into the killings in Maimbung.
Muslim religious groups and human rights
advocates are reportedly planning to hold a series of street rallies
to demand justice for the victims. But many are worried that
Muslims, angered by the cover-up of the military on the killings,
may mount sympathy attacks targeting government soldiers in Sulu.
Dozens of Christian soldiers had been killed in
Sulu in random machete and gun attacks in the past years by angry
villagers because of atrocities and human rights abuses of the
military in the island of over half a million Muslims.
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