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By Al Jacinto, Correspondent
ZAMBOANGA CITY: Suspected New
People’s Army (NPA) rebels have freed a captured government
soldier after nearly two weeks in captivity in Mindanao.
Rigoberto Sanchez, a spokesman
for the New People’s Army, said Private First Class Ronnie
Trinidad was freed on humanitarian grounds.
“The arrest, safe and orderly
release of prisoner of war Trinidad amid the intense militarization
in the countryside and the terrorism of the state against the people
also indicate that Oplan Bantay Laya II of the criminal US-Arroyo
regime is a big failure.”
“This, as the revolutionary
forces continue to gain political and military headways against the
fascist and most hated regime. The NPA has once again stood for high
moral and political ground unlike the terrorism and barbarity of the
10th Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” he
said.
NPA rebels captured Trinidad, who
belongs to the 66th Infantry Battalion, on April 28 at a checkpoint
in the village of Pagsabangan in New Bataan town in Compostela
Valley province.
Trinidad was released in the
village of Ngan in Compostela town. The soldier’s release came a
day after the military accused the rebels of violating Trinidad’s
rights by holding him against his will, an accusation strongly
denied by the NPA.
The rebels said Trinidad was held
as a prisoner of war. The rebels seized Trinidad while on his way to
barracks with another soldier, Corporal Japhet Lavid, who was able
to escape.
Sanchez said the freed soldier
was investigated for possible human rights violations and other
crimes related to the operations of his unit in Mindanao. He accused
Trinidad’s unit of violating the rights of many innocent civilians
in Compostela Valley province over the past six months during the
military’s anti-insurgency campaigns.
Trinidad was freed after the
soldier’s family and other groups appealed for his safe release,
he said.
“This is also in consideration
to the appeals made by well-meaning individuals and allies, and the
soldier’s family. The case of POW Trinidad may be re-opened in the
event of another justifiable arrest in the course of the people’s
war,” Sanchez said.
The NPA is the armed wing of the
outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), which has been
waging a secessionist war in the country. Peace talks between Manila
and the CPP-NPA collapsed in 2004 after both sides failed to sign an
agreement to end more than four decades of bloody fighting.
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