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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Suspected communist rebels on Friday vowed to launch
more attacks against government and military targets in Mindanao
even as thousands of troops were sent to the strife-torn region to
fight insurgency.
The New People’s Army (NPA) said the
deployment of military forces in Mindanao would give the rebels
opportunities to carry out more “telling tactical offensives.”
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said
the deployment of more troops in the southern region was in response
to growing NPA attacks in the provinces.
Marco Valbuena, a rebel spokesman, said the NPA
forces have launched hundreds of successful tactical offensives
since last year. The more recent, he said, was the raid on a
drilling site of the Sagittarius Mines in Kiblawan town, Davao del
Sur on July 19 where rebels carted away a dozen of firearms from the
firm’s arsenal.
But police and military also blamed communist
rebels for the killing of a government militia in a landmine attack
Thursday that also wounded three others in Makilala town in North
Cotabato province where NPA gunmen raided a banana plantation owned
by Dole Philippines.
Valbuena said the deployment of additional
troops would not affect rebel offensives in Mindanao. “The
deployment of troops will in no way hinder the advance of the armed
revolutionary movement. On the contrary, by pouring in more fascist
troops and brutalizing more and more people in its campaigns of
suppression, the AFP succeeds only in teaching the people the need
to wage an armed revolutionary struggle against the reactionary
regime,” he said.
“The redeployment of AFP troops allows the
armed revolutionary forces in other guerrilla fronts greater leeway
to step up their revolutionary work and continue tactical offensives
against small and isolated enemy units.”
Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the
government operations against the NPA are ongoing, despite a
proposal by AFP chief Alexander Yano to forge an “indefinite
cease-fire” with rebels to pave the way for the resumption of
suspended peace talks with communist leaders.
Rigoberto Sanchez, another rebel spokesman,
downplayed the presence of huge government forces in Mindanao,
saying, it is no match to the guerrilla warfare the NPA is
campaigning in the south.
“A display of superior armament and troop
strength by the AFP is inconsequential to the New People’s Army.
While tanks and artillery are important weapons in conventional war,
they hardly play a significant role against a mass-based army waging
guerrilla warfare.”
-- Al Jacinto
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