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Tuesday, February 08, 2005
28 rebels, soldiers killed in Mindanao clashes
MANILA -- Close to 30 soldiers and insurgents were killed in separate clashes between soldiers and rebel groups on Saturday and Monday in Mindanao, military reports said.
At least 12 soldiers were killed and 15 others wounded in Monday's clashes sparked when hundreds of armed followers of jailed former Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari attacked government troops and occupied an Army detachment on the southern island of Jolo.
Over the weekend, around 100 communist guerillas encountered two Army platoons on patrol in Compostela town in Mindanao, triggering a two-hour-long firefight that left 14 insurgents and two soldiers dead, said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Buenaventura Pascual.
In Monday's incident in Jolo, the attacks by about 500 followers of Misuari in Jolo's Panamao and at least two other nearby towns were apparently touched off by a disagreement over recent military offensives against the Abu Sayyaf that affected his strongholds, said Army Brigadier General Agustin Demaala said.
Fighting seemed to be centered in Panamao's Siit village, where up to 300 gunmen attacked and occupied an Army company detachment near a civilian hospital, Demaala added.
Demaala urged the attackers to withdraw from the area to avoid full-scale fighting, stressing they were not being targeted by government troops in recent offensives.
"We're not running after them," Demaala, who heads an anti-terrorist force on Jolo, said. "They should withdraw so there would be no escalation of this fighting and we would not have to use bombs and stronger weaponry."
Demaala said he would ask local civilian officials to intervene to halt the clashes.
Jolo Governor Ben Loong said he was flying from Manila to his province, about 950 kilometers south of the capital, to help negotiate a halt to the fighting.
While a clash was underway in Panamao, about 80 suspected followers of Misuari attacked Army troops involved in a civic project in nearby Parang town, killing a soldier and wounding two others. The other soldiers fired back, wounding an undetermined number of attackers, the military said.
In Patikul, also near Panamao, attackers opened fire on military reinforcements, killing 11 marines and wounding 13 others, a military officer said.
The gunmen apparently wanted to retaliate after Army troops attacked their strongholds near Panamao where Abu Sayyaf guerrillas involved in a recent kidnapping and killings sought refuge last week.
A child was reportedly killed in the crossfire during the military assault, Demaaya and other officials said.
Misuari formerly headed the Moro National Liberation Front, a large Muslim separatist group that accepted limited autonomy and signed a peace deal with the government in 1996.
He was later elected governor of the five-province Muslim autonomous region that included Jolo in the country's volatile south.
A week before elections were to be held in November 2001 to elect his successor as governor, hundreds of his followers attacked an Army camp in Jolo in an assault officials alleged was aimed at derailing the ballot.
More than 100 people, mostly Misuari's followers, were killed.
Misuari was arrested and jailed on rebellion charges. He is still being tried on those charges, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Many of his armed followers still maintain strongholds in Jolo.
They have periodically been accused by military officials of supporting Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, who have been targeted by government offensives on the island.
The Abu Sayyaf, which has been blamed for mass kidnappings, beheadings and bombings, has been loosely linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network and is on a US list of terrorist organizations.
On Saturday last week in Compostela town, military spokesman Pascual said the military could not retrieve the slain rebels and based its report on the number of guerillas killed on civilians' accounts.
Government proposed a ceasefire with communist rebels on Monday.
Pascual said three soldiers and "scores of rebels" were wounded during the clash. The communist guerilla leadership could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its 8,500-strong armed wing are also on US and European lists of terrorist organizations.
The government and the rebels have entered into peace talks but have not agreed on a ceasefire, and sporadic clashes continue.
The rebels suspended the last round of negotiations hosted by the Norwegian government in Oslo in August to protest the government's alleged refusal to push the United States and the European Union to remove them from their terrorism lists.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye on Monday called on the rebels to "discard the option of armed revolution," saying: "A ceasefire is feasible and will bring the peace talks to a principled conclusion."
He did not elaborate.
But the CPP said a ceasefire would be agreed to only after outstanding social, economic and political issues are resolved.
"(A ceasefire will) not serve its purpose of addressing the roots of the armed conflict, but will only be used as an added instrument of the (government) to compel the subjugation of the revolutionary forces," a CPP statement said. (AP)
(February 8, 2005 issue)
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