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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Communist rebels on Friday accused government
soldiers as behind a recent grenade attack that killed three people
in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao.
Rigoberto Sanchez, a spokesman for the New
People’s Army (NPA), said government intelligence agents were
behind the attack Thursday that also wounded at least a dozen
civilians.
The Philippine Army said rebels were behind the
attack that targeted motorcycle taxi drivers who were suspected by
the NPA as government spies. “It was the handiwork of the New
People’s Army rebels,” said Captain Michael Aquino, of the 10th
Infantry Division. “We have reports saying that the attack
targeted the habal-habal drivers in the area because the NPA
suspected them as government spies.”
Sanchez denied the allegations. “There is no
tinge of truth to this. The enemy is just manufacturing stories to
divert attention from the successive and successful tactical
offensives by the NPA. The revolutionary forces condemn this
criminal attack against civilians,” he said.
The NPA also tagged military agents as behind
the murder of a Bagobo tribal chieftain Dominador Diarog, in Davao
City, in April this year. Sanchez said the NPA has stepped up
attacks on police and military targets in retaliation to widespread
human rights violations among other crimes and repression of
civilians in Mindanao.
“The series of tactical offensives are meant
to punish the Arroyo regime for its despicable crimes of large-scale
corruption, imperialist plunder and fascist atrocities on the
people,” he said.
On Thursday, insurgents raided a police base in
Banaybanay town in Davao Oriental province and carted away over a
dozen weapons, mostly automatic rifles and ammunition. A similar
incident happened to a police station in Dapa town, Surigao del
Norte’s Dapa.
The NPA is fighting the past four decades for
the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. Rebel leaders
broke off peace talk with the Arroyo government in 2004 after
accusing Manila of reneging on its commitment to free all political
prisoners and to put a stop to political killings, among others.
-- Al Jacinto
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