RP military mobilization deplored
RP military mobilization deplored
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (Reuter): A Moslem community leader has
condemned government troop movements in the southern Philippines,
saying Manila is wrong to prepare for war while supposedly
negotiating peace with Moro rebels.
"I regret that while there is still negotiation, military
people are trying to mobilize, trying to show force," said Hadji
Nuno, a widely respected figure in this southern city.
"There must be no mobilization of the military...This is
wrong," Nuno said in an interview.
Nuno, 83 and long an advocate of a peaceful solution to a
decades-old Moslem campaign for autonomy, was commenting on
Manila's deployment of thousands of extra troops on the main
southern island of Mindanao.
The deployment, which Manila says is needed to counter a
threat by Moro rebels and to secure key government development
projects, is widely seen on the island as provocative.
Recent troop movements put 70,000 soldiers -- more than half
the total armed forces' strength -- in the southern islands.
The results are particularly visible in the Cotabato region of
Mindanao, a stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
(MILF) rebel group.
The well-armed MILF, which took a group of South Korean
engineers hostage last year in a dispute with the army, is very
sensitive to army encroachment in an area it regards as its own.
A cease-fire in the south has held since 1986, apart from
isolated clashes and attacks by groups branded as extremist by
both the government and the main rebel movements, the MILF and
the mainstream Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The government has held a series of peace talks with the MNLF
which have so far failed to produce an autonomy settlement.
MILF deputy chairman Hadji Murad said on Monday a new war in
the south was inevitable if a just settlement was not reached.
"They have been negotiating for years, and nothing has
happened," said Murad.
He says he commands more than 80,000 armed men but there was
no way to confirm independently the MILF's claimed strength. The
government puts it at less than 10,000.
Many in Mindanao have bitter memories of atrocities by both
sides in the last war, which reached its height in the 1970s, and
are alarmed at the current increase in tensions.
"We are tired of war...Everybody has lost important things in
our lives, including relatives," said Ali Macabalang, a media
affairs adviser to the regional government based in Cotabato.
Both Moslem and Christian residents say the impact of the last
war is still felt, with many poor farmers now landless because of
the fighting, afraid to return to ancestral homes.
"People are starving. They cannot go to their farms. They are
either taxed or scared away," Macabalang said. Both rebels and
soldiers preyed on the poor, he said.