17 killed after 3 days of fighting in South

BIG GUNS. A soldier checks shells for the howitzers used to bombard the ranks of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Rajah Buayan town in Maguindanao province on Monday. The military has scaled up its operation against breakaway members of Moro Islamic Liberation Front. JEOFREY MAITEM/INQUIRER MINDANAO

MANILA, Philippines—Fighting raged for a third day on Tuesday between government forces and Moro breakaway rebels who demanded “direct” talks with the Aquino administration to establish an “independent Bangsamoro Islamic state.”

“We want a state where everyone is equal. No Muslim, no Christian, no lumad (indigenous people). Everyone must have equal rights. No one is poor and no one is rich,” said Abu Misry Mama, spokesman of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

Military officials, however, said that before any talks could transpire, the BIFF should first answer for their “criminal activities.”

The BIFF, which broke away from the mainstream Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), has carried out many deadly attacks in recent years in a bid to derail the peace negotiations between the MILF and the government. On Saturday, the two parties agreed on the final parts of a planned peace accord aimed at creating a Bangsamoro autonomous region.

On Tuesday, government forces and BIFF rebels clashed in Shariff Saydona Mustapha, a poor municipality in Maguindanao province. At least 17 rebels have been killed so far in three days of fighting, according to Col. Dickson Hermoso, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, “but this has yet to be confirmed.”

10,000 displaced

Some 10,000 civilians have been displaced in the towns of Rajah Buayan and Sultan sa Barongis, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s Humanitarian Emergency Action and Response Team (ARMM-Heart) reported.

Mama expressed dismay that no one from the government came and tried to talk to the BIFF. Instead, he said, its members were treated as bandits. “For years, the government sent heavily armed troops to our communities forcing us to fight back.”

After splitting from the MILF in 2008 over disagreements on how the peace negotiations were to be conducted, the BIFF, led by Ameril Umra Kato, launched attacks on mainly Christian towns in North Cotabato province after the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a proposed Bangsamoro homeland deal. More than 400 people were killed and 750,000 displaced.

Kato, who was reported to have suffered a stroke, can no longer walk and is not in the area of heavy fighting the past days, Hermoso said. Two of his lieutenants, Commanders Kagi Karialan and Bongos, are leading the BIFF in the ongoing clashes, he said.

“We were taught that if our enemies will talk to us, we must face them and entertain them nicely,” Mama told the Inquirer on the phone. “Islam is teaching us to create a world without boundaries and exploitation.”

Mama said the BIFF was demanding a Bangsamoro state free from the “control” of the government. “We do not want a negotiation that is similar to the MILF, which lasted for years. We want something that is direct,” he said.

Hermoso, however, said that the BIFF “must first face their criminal acts before the government can entertain them. What they did were criminal offenses and not political offenses.”

Ghadzali Jaafar, vice chair for political affairs of the MILF, said the decision to start talks with the splinter group lay in the hands of the government.

“My perception is that the government is avoiding talks with the BIFF. But I may be right or wrong. Maybe the government is thinking that if it will talk with the BIFF, it would legitimize the existence of the organization,” Jaafar said in a phone interview.

He said it was possible that the government was afraid that another legitimate organization would complicate the process of resolving the Bangsamoro issue because there would be more demands from different groups.

Spare the civilians

The Mindanao Human Rights Action Center (MinHRAC) appealed to the military and the BIFF to spare civilians from the fighting. It has documented more than 1,000 displaced families in Maguindanao.

In Shariff Saydona Mustapha, at least 500 families fled their homes in the village of Ganta and 180 families in the village of Bakat. In Datu Piang town, at least 211 families evacuated in the village of Damabalas and 150 families in the village of Reina Regente.

Over 5,000 people were displaced in Pikit town in North Cotabato, said Tahira Kalantongan, municipal disaster officer. “The number is increasing,” she said in an interview.

She said the villages of Kabasalan and Paidu Pulangi in Pikit had been deserted since Monday. “We have enough food for the evacuees but their problem was lack of kitchen utensils since they hurriedly left,” she said.

MinHRAC reported that an 8-year-old girl and a pregnant woman were hurt when a bomb exploded at a public terminal in Datu Piang.

Mama denied that the BIFF was behind the blast. “We do not use bombs and we do not attack civilians. These civilians are our relatives. We will not hurt them,” he said.

Arrest warrants

“MinHRAC is calling on all parties to avoid hitting or harming civilians and their properties. It is also calling for aid agencies to attend to the needs of the civilians and make sure that no one is excluded from aid,” its executive director, Zainudin Malang, said in a statement.

“What transpired since the weekend is a law enforcement operation initiated by the government. This is in support of Philippine National Police to battle lawless elements such as the BIFF and other auxiliary threat groups that threaten the community, threaten the safety and security of the people residing the community,” said the Armed Forces of the Philippines public affairs information chief, Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala.

BIFF members have been harassing military detachments since AFP Day last December. Some 10 soldiers had been injured in the different incidents, Zagala said. “We consider them peace spoilers that they may do actions that are detrimental to our peace process,” he said.

Hermoso said the PNP and the AFP “closely coordinated” with the local government unit, the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) before they served the warrants of arrest to 27 BIFF leaders, including Kato, Karialan and Bongos, on criminal charges, including kidnapping, murder and extortion of civilians.

Residents in the MILF communities on the fringes of the battle areas have not evacuated but only “moved a little away,” he said. “They are now being kept secured by the MILF combatants.”

But some 1,400 families were moved out of their homes before the fighting so that they could not be used as human shields by the BIFF rebels, Hermoso said.—With reports from Karlos Manlupig, Charlie C. Señase and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao; and AFP

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