Maguindanao clash kills 2, hurts 5

Sunday, July 24, 2011

DAVAO CITY -- An encounter between two Moro rebel groups in Maguindanao province turned violent Saturday, leaving two people dead, five wounded, and hundreds of residents displaced.

The clash occurred on the same day Maguindanao Governor Esmael Mangudadatu vowed not to initiate conflict in the province and the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), saying "the people have grown tired of fighting."

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Reports said the clash broke out when the group of Kumander Mamas Boy of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) attacked the territory of Kumander Unggaw of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in Bobuquiron, Talayan, around 7 a.m.

Colonel Prudencio Asto, Public Affairs Office chief of the Army's 6th Infantry (Kampilan) Division, said an exchange of gunfire lasted for three hours, with both groups using high-caliber weapons, forcing hundreds of residents to flee their homes.

The fighting ceased upon the arrival of local officials, Muslim elders and members of the government and MILF Ceasefire Committee and International Monitoring Team.

The government and the MILF are back at the negotiation table and the government hopes a peace deal will be forged before the end of President Benigno Aquino III's term.

Asto said two people died while several others were wounded in the clash Saturday. The victims' identities, however, have yet to be released.

Maguindanao Governor Mangudadatu has ordered a task force to resolve the dispute between the two groups.

The governor said he is hoping the conflict between warring groups in the province would soon end, citing Maguindanao has suffered the most from fighting in Central Mindanao.

In 2000, when the government declared an all-out war against the MILF, around 985,000 people fled their homes. That was the first of three major waves of displacement.

The latest was in 2008, when fighting broke out between the government and the MILF. The conflict started after the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain.

The Supreme Court issued an injunction against the scheduled signing in August 2008 over criticism that the government entered the agreement without consultation. Critics of the agreement said the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity it proposed would have violated the Constitution because it would create "a state within a state." (Sun.Star Davao/Sunnex)