COTABATO CITY, 3 December 2002 — A German official of a non-government organization has accused an army soldier of threatening him and his companion while they were visiting a community in Maguindanao province.
Ekkehard Arnsperger, chairman of the Stiftung fuer Kinder, said the soldier, identified only as a Sgt. Mendoza of the 57th Infantry Battalion, barged into a gathering at the house of a village official in South Upi town on Nov. 27 and interrogating him.
Arnsperger and Thomas Varadi came to Barangay Pandan in South Upi to inspect a community project for pre-school children that their NGO was undertaking.
Stiftung fuer Kinder has several “self-help projects” in poor Philippine communities, providing assistance on educational, health and livelihood.
According to Arnsperger and some villagers, Mendoza and a colleague rudely interrogated him even after he introduced who they were and what their purpose was.
Arnsperger believed Mendoza suspected him of being a “subversive” or a member of a terrorist group, just like NGOs were suspected of being communists in the past.
He tried to downplay what happened, although he said Mendoza’s “arrogance and sharp remarks” reminded him of the Philippines during martial law.Arnsperger is a 62-year-old lawyer who had been involved community projects in the Philippines for years now.
Col. Yerson Depayso, commander of the 57th Battalion, said Mendoza would be investigated and punished if found to have violated Arnsperger’s rights as a visiting foreign national.
Depayso said the sight of a foreign national may have caused Mendoza to be apprehensive. Mendoza, Depayso said, would be directly responsible if Arnsperger had been kidnapped or harmed while in Pandan.
Foreigners have been favorite targets of kidnap-for-ransom groups operating in Mindanao.
But the spokesman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said the incident should prompt local officials and foreign governments to rethink their practice of immediately blaming the MILF for crimes happening in the south.
