|
Monday, May 31, 2004
N. Cotabato eyed as next US-RP Balikatan venue
By Bong S. Sarmiento
KORONADAL CITY -- The Philippine and United States governments are trying to strike a deal to hold joint military exercises in North Cotabato, one of the provinces in Central Mindanao that bore the brunt of war between the military and the Moro rebels in recent years, said a military commander Saturday.
Col. Alfredo Cayton Jr., commander of the 601st Infantry Brigade operating in South Cotabato and Sarangani and in parts of Sultan Kudarat and Davao del Sur, said Philippine and US officials are planning to hold the next joint military exercises in the town of Carmen.
He said the information was relayed to him by his superiors in the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Camp Aguinaldo.
Cayton said military officials from both countries are considering the suitability of the terrain of Carmen town even as he stressed that in case the plan will materialize, there will be three Philippine military platoons at the most that will participate.
Likewise, as in the past Balikatan exercises held in Mindanao and Luzon, the American troops "would be limited only to training, and not actual combat, activities," said Cayton.
He said ongoing negotiations were anchored on last year's bid of North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piņol to host the Balikatan exercises in his province.
Cayton said that US Army official have already visited several areas in Central Mindanao region, but this was "not in relation to the planned holding of the next joint military exercises in Carmen town but in preparation of a separate medical mission in the area."
Exercise host
Reports circulating here said at least four American servicemen were seen scouting the coastal town of Palimbang in Sultan Kudarat, one of the provinces in Central Mindanao were Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadafi Janjalani and some 60 heavily armed followers were reported to have visited in July last year.
In March last year, Piņol announced that the Provincial Board approved a resolution allowing the holding of the next joint RP-US military exercises in North Cotabato province.
"As far as the local government officials in North Cotabato are concerned, the holding of the Balikatan 03-1 exercises in our area is very much welcome. We are also ready to play host to it," the governor told reporters at that time.
Taking a cue from the provincial legislature, Piņol said other local officials' associations in North Cotabato, such as the leagues of the mayor, vice mayor and barangay chiefs, followed suit and wanted the next Balikatan exercises in the province.
The move was also being supported by provincial civic groups such as the Jaycees and Rotary clubs, according to the governor.
The Balikatan 03-1 was originally set in Sulu, but Sulu residents objected, citing the US massacre of their ancestors in the late 1800s.
Besides North Cotabato, other provinces that offered to host the next Balikatan are Davao del Norte and the Mindoro Occidental, Mindoro Oriental, Romblon and Palawan (Mimaropa) region.
However, the religious sector in North Cotabato expressed strong opposition to the pro-Balikatan stance of the government officials, with Pikit parish priest Roberto Layson pointing out that what the area needs are peacekeeping forces from the United Nations.
"Our people here do not need Balikatan as this would only compound the situation. Hold the Balikatan elsewhere and not in North Cotabato," said the priest, who witnessed several mass evacuations in Pikit town as a result of the intermittent heavy fighting between the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front since he became the town's parish priest in the late 1990s.
Intensify dissent
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, then president of the influential Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, reportedly said that Balikatan would incite a larger armed conflict and widespread opposition from civil groups.
"Any combat participation by foreign troops in our country will not only increase resistance by armed groups but will also intensify dissent by civil society," Quevedo stressed.
But Piņol had made it clear that once the next Balikatan would be held in his province, US soldiers would be "restricted from actual combat and would only serve as trainers to local soldiers going after the enemies of the state."
In limiting the US troops' role to combat training, the governor explained that US troops' participation in actual combat against lawless armed groups is a violation of the Constitution.
Piņol has offered the periphery of North Cotabato's portion of the vast Liguasan Marsh, where the MILF maintains its forces, as venue for the Balikatan 03-1.
Liguasan Marsh is likewise a known retreat point of criminal elements in Central Mindanao.
The MILF's Buliok complex in Pikit town, which forms part of Liguasan Marsh, was overrun by the military after intense days of fighting in February last year and this was where Piņol originally proposed the next Balikatan to be held "to pave the way for the area's development."
In 2002, US troops participating in the Balikatan 02-1 in Basilan constructed roads there as part of the social component of the joint military exercise.
Piņol expected the same benefits to be extended to his province once the National Government decides to stage the next Balikatan in North Cotabato.
(May 31, 2004 issue)
Write letter to the editor.Click here.
Join the Sun.Star message board.Click here. |
|
|
|
[return to top]
[home]
|
|
Church heads ask: Avert delay, unrest