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YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can upload, view and
share video clips. However, uploading videos containing pornography,
nudity, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and
material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited.
This is probably why YouTube site administrators
have decided to remove a video clip of Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) commander Ameril Umbra Kato taunting the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP).
Kato and two other separatist leaders—whose
own superiors in the MILF have branded as “renegades”—went on
a murderous rampage in Central Mindanao as the controversy over the
memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) peaked,
resulting in the MOA-AD’s subsequent cancelation.
On August 7, Kato and his MILF 105th Base
Command seized and occupied 15 villages in North Cotabato. On August
18, Commanders Abdulrahman Macapaar alias Bravo of the MILF’s
102nd and 103rd base commands attacked several municipalities and
barangays in Lanao del Norte and Sarangani provinces.
The attacks left 58 civilians dead and 68 others
injured. Some of the fatalities bore grisly signs of mutilation.
Nearly two hundred houses and 11 school buildings were torched,
raked with gunfire or looted. The MILF renegades’ violent tantrum
also displaced hundreds of thousands of villagers, both Muslims and
Christians, and caused incalculable economic disruption in what is
already one of the country’s most impoverished regions.
The government has offered a P10-million reward
for the capture of Kato, P10 million more for Bravo and P5 million
for Pangalian. The prize on their heads has apparently begun to take
its toll on the three renegade MILF leaders.
In a huddle with newsmen last week, AFP Chief of
Staff Gen. Alexander Yano said that prior to their rampage Kato,
Bravo and Pangalian lived like virtual satraps in their respective
territories.
“They had access to funds and were thus living
the good life,” Yano said. “They exercised political power. Even
the local government officials there deferred to them or otherwise
curried their favor.”
The AFP chief added: “All those perks are
gone. Kato, Bravo and Pangalian are now on the run—wanted men
hiding out in the jungle who are vulnerable to betrayal even by
their closest lieutenants.”
Kato, in particular, has been forced to dismiss
his once large close-in security detail. “Fearing that they might
be tempted by the P10-million bounty, he had to get rid of them,”
the AFP chief said. “Instead, Kato has had to ask his relatives to
act as his bodyguards—still, he cannot be too sure of his own
kinsmen.”
In the YouTube clip, Kato was reportedly shown
brandishing an automatic weapon—just like his bodyguards who were
all masked, perhaps to conceal their physical resemblance to him.
When told about the renegade MILF chief’s show of lethal hardware,
Yano could only chuckle.
“These people are often shown on TV in platoon
or company formations, dressed in military-style fatigues, wielding
what from a distance look like modern assault rifles,” Yano said.
In fact, the general added, the AFP has seized a
number of those so-called state of the art firearms and found them
to be no more than dummy rifles—“exactly like the wooden
replicas that our PMT or CAT cadets in high school use for their
drills.”
The AFP chief estimated that in a typical
company-size MILF unit, only 20 out of their 100 rifles can be
considered modern assault rifles. The rest of their “weapons”
are probably only good for stick fighting.
Yano said the severe lack of weapons was one of
the reasons that the three major MILF base commands quickly
disbanded after the AFP launched its counter-offensive.
“As soon as President Arroyo issued the order
to go after the renegades, we had hundreds of troops from Quezon
province in Luzon and other provinces in the Visayas mustered before
dawn. Before noon they were airborne on C-130 transport planes,”
Yano recalled. “By mid-afternoon they were engaging the renegades
in Central Mindanao.”
As a result of what the AFP calls its
“law-enforcement operations” against the renegades, government
troops have captured four major and 15 satellite camps of the MILF.
Meanwhile, the three renegade leaders were forced to break up their
commands—that once consisted of nearly 4,000 armed followers, or
one-third of the MILF’s armed strength—into small formations.
Blending in with the civilian populace, the
renegades have been reduced to ambuscades and other hit-and-run
tactics.
Yano said he will not allow his troops—more
so, himself—to be lulled into thinking that they have already
accomplished their mission.
The general’s forecast: “We expect these
renegades to continue creating trouble—even after a final
agreement is signed between the government and the MILF top
leadership.”
“We’re in this for the long haul,” added
Yano, who said that what has been keeping the soldiers’ spirit up
are the spontaneous expressions of popular support.
The morale-boosting gestures include thousands
of handwritten letters from schoolchildren. The troops have also
received material support—in the form of rice, groceries and even
cellphone cards—from several business groups based in Manila,
Makati, Davao and Zamboanga cities.
The renegade hotheads have committed a strategic
blunder. Thanks to their atrocities and ill-discipline, they have
not only set back their own timetable—they have also strengthened
the hand of the government and its security forces. They have caused
the public to rally behind the AFP.
dansoy26@yahoo.com
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