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10 killed as MILF Fighters
Stage Attack After Declaring Truce
Mama Gubal & AP, Arab News
COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 30 May 2003 — Separatist guerrillas yesterday attacked two army positions in the southern Philippines, killing at least five civilians nearby, a day after announcing a unilateral 10-day cease-fire starting next week, the military said.
Soldiers also retrieved the bodies of five rebels killed in a clash after 70 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas fired mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at the army detachments in Carmen, North Cotabato, 900 kilometers south of Manila, said Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga, commander of the army’s 6th Infantry Division.
He said at least five residents were killed when the rebels set fire to 10 houses nearby. No soldiers were hurt, Senga said. “It appears that the MILF leadership has no control over (its) men in the field,” he said.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the cease-fire order has yet to reach some of their fighters in the field. Still, he said, the five killed were militiamen and were considered combatants. He said two rebels and several soldiers were also killed.
“If there were houses burned, that’s because they are situated beside the detachment and are owned by soldiers or (civilian militia),” he said.
On Wednesday, the MILF announced a 10-day cease-fire that would start Monday and demanded the government withdraw troops from guerrilla areas or face renewed attacks.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who on May 17 ordered a military crackdown on rebels suspected behind bombings and raids that have killed at least 210 people this year, welcomed the announcement. But she said the government wants a permanent cease-fire and a final peace settlement.
Arroyo called on the MILF leadership yesterday to sign a declaration renouncing terrorism and terror groups like Al-Qaeda, Jemaah Islamiyah and the Abu Sayyaf, some of whose members the government suspects were cooperating with the MILF in guerrilla training and bomb-making.
She urged the MILF to disclose the location of its units so that the government can check whether they have merged with terrorist or criminal groups, and reiterated her demand that the MILF hand over perpetrators of the recent bombings.
“We want peace with justice,” Arroyo said. “Any truce offer is only as good as the principle and sincerity behind it.”
Kabalu demanded the government pull out from captured MILF camps and recall arrest warrants and murder charges against MILF leaders suspected in the recent bombings.
He said Arroyo’s demand for the rebels to renounce terrorism was “impossible.” “We cannot renounce something we are not engaged in,” he said. He also said the MILF could not turn over fighters involved in “legitimate encounters” with the military.
He said the MILF had officially condemned
terrorism wherever it is done and whoever did it. “The condemnation was
made in an official resolution by the MILF Central Committee, so that
there is no need for the MILF to issue new one.”
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| Earth, a planet hungry for peace |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |
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| The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03). |