PIKIT, North Cotabato, 12 February 2003 — President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo yesterday ordered military troops fighting Muslim separatists in the southern Philippines to halt an offensive that has left at least eight dead, officials said.
A spokesman for the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), however, said they would continue fighting until the troops pull out of their stronghold in Pikit town of North Cotabato province.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said Arroyo’s mere “stop firing“ order was “unacceptable.”
“Their proposal is just to stop fighting. The MILF command wants disengagement — they should go back to their original position,” Kabalu told reporters. “Now, they’re inside the MILF communities. Even if they stop fighting, they’re inside, that’s unfair, we will not agree.”
Using tanks, attack helicopters and with planes dropping bombs, about 2,000 soldiers attacked about 2,000 separatists in Pikit before dawn yesterday.
The military accused the MILF of sheltering members of the notorious kidnap gang Pentagon, which is on a US “terrorist” list.
Up to 20,000 villagers have sought shelter from the fighting in schools and other government buildings.
“The Pikit operation is giving us problems. The president has ordered the (military) to stop the fighting,” said Jesus Dureza, head of the government panel on seeking peace with the MILF.
He said a joint cease-fire committee would meet today.
A civil peace group, the Moro-Christian People’s Alliance, condemned the government offensive and called on the military to respect the observance starting yesterday of Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to the holy city of Makkah.
The group accused the military of confiscating rice and goats distributed by Muslim relief organizations, apparently thinking they were supplies for MILF.
Army spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando said seven MILF fighters and one soldier were killed and four other soldiers wounded in the fighting, near the border of North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces, about 920 kilometers (575 miles) southeast of Manila.
Kabalu said only three of their fighters were killed in action and some were injured.
He said the fighting had been confined to Pikit, particularly at Bulol and Rajamuda, despite the heavy presence of government troops at Kabasalan also in Pikit, at Kudal in Pagalungan town in Maguindanao. “Two battalions of marines were facing eyeball to eyeball with BIAF-MILF fighters with only about 300 meters distance from each other,” he said late yesterday.
The fighting comes despite a shaky 1997 cease-fire and efforts to resume peace talks between the government and MILF, which is fighting for a separate Muslim state in the country’s impoverished south since the 1970s.
Kabalu denied that MILF fighters were sheltering Pentagon members. He accused the government of using the military to pressure the MILF into accepting a political package being prepared for peace talks in Malaysia. (AP)
