WALKING IN THEIR SHOES A policeman helps Commission on Human Rights Chairperson Etta Rosales cross a wooden bridge on Wednesday, at the site of the encounter between members of the Special Action Force and Moro rebels. Rosales heads the investigation of reported excesses against civilians during the Mamasapano clash that left 44 police commandos, 18 rebels and four civilians dead on Jan. 25 in Mamasapano town, Maguindanao province. JEOFFREY MAITEM/INQUIRER MINDANAO
MAMASAPANO, Maguindanao—“When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”
Commission on Human Rights (CHR) Chairperson Etta Rosales made the statement at the site of the bloody clash between the Special Action Force (SAF) commandos and combined forces of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters that left 44 policemen and 18 MILF combatants dead.
The fighting also left several civilians dead.
“Whenever there are armed confrontations, it’s the civilians who are affected,” Rosales said.
Some 1,500 families were displaced by the clash.
“It’s tragic because these are farmlands … where [civilians] are getting their livelihood,” Rosales told reporters after she was briefed by Mayor Benzar Ampatuan on the cornfields where the bodies of the SAF commandos were recovered.
“If we cannot reach those unfortunate people and fight for their rights in their homes, jobs, schools and even in their small community that is out of the map, our efforts toward promoting human rights are useless,” Rosales said.
Not attending classes
Because of the bloody fire-fight, parents have ceased sending their children to school for fear of their safety, the CHR chair said.
“I hope we will all make a promise. It’s enough. We hope the firing of guns will totally stop here. We need to show to the public that we can stop the fighting,” she added.
Rosales said the CHR would return to this town to conduct further investigation as well as to promote human rights in the town’s 14 villages.
She appealed to the MILF leadership to continue engaging in the peace negotiations with the government. “We need to consider the interest of the entire people in Mindanao. Our family, children and their future.”
Rosales said she talked with leaders of the MILF recently and she was impressed by their sincerity in the negotiation. “They are also Filipinos. Some of us don’t fully understand them—why they are (doing this)—but it’s because of poverty for so many years.”
Excesses
In Cotabato City, Rosales said the focus of the CHR investigation was the reported excesses committed on civilians during the clashes.
“We will focus on the possible violation of human rights by all those involved in the incident regardless of their affiliations,” she said.
Rosales had met Gov. Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao before her team, accompanied by representatives from other line agencies in the region, went to Barangay (village) Tukanalipao in Mamasapano for site inspection and information gathering.
But before she left, she told civilians that the CHR investigation was independent of the other probes being conducted by various agencies and bodies.
“We would like to get to the bottom of the incident, who the actors were and who the victims of human rights violations were. This is our mandate,” Rosales told reporters.
She said the CHR would be talking to as many civilians “because we believe they have stories that remain untold to date.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the CHR offered a Mass for all the victims of the clash at Immaculate Conception Cathedral in Cotabato City, with Cotabato Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo as celebrator.
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