ZAMBOANGA CITY, 25 July 2007 — After threatening to attack Moro Islamic Liberation Front forces for the deadly July 10 attack on a Marine convoy in the southern island of Basilan, the government now says there is a need to preserve the peace talks with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group.
“We have to exhaust all means to preserve our gains in the peace process and we should not allow the Basilan incident to squander the gains that we have all achieved so far,” said presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza yesterday.
Dureza also called on the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the MILF to refrain from making public statements about the tense situation in Basilan.
Acting Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales and AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon last week gave the MILF until July 22 to surrender those involved in the ambush and beheading of 10 soldiers or face a military offensive. Four others Marines were killed and nine wounded in that nine-hour gunbattle in Al-Barka town.
MILF leaders rejected the military’s demand, saying the Marines were killed in a legitimate encounter.
The Marines said they were returning to their base in Lamitan town after an unproductive search for kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi when they were attacked along a road in the village of Ginanta in Al-Barka.
The MILF said its fighters were only defending their stronghold from the encroaching soldiers, who did not make prior coordination to a joint committee enforcing a cease-fire agreement between the government and the separatist group.
Bossi was released days later by his captors in Lanao del Norte province, east of Zamboanga Sibugay and far from Basilan, showing that the Marines were a victim of false intelligence reports that led them into rebel territory.
Fears of war in Basilan, fueled by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s sending of a company of her own security force to the troubled island, has reportedly sent thousands of villagers fleeing their homes in Al-Barka.
The military’s ultimatum ended on Sunday but an expected offensive has not materialized so far, prompting speculations that the proverbial cooler heads within Arroyo’s Cabinet may have prevailed.
Yesterday, Dureza appealed for sobriety, saying the cease-fire committees of the government and rebel peace panels along with the Malaysia-led International Monitoring Team were investigating the July 10 attack.
“We call on all concerned groups to properly respond to the unfolding events with informed and engaged actions toward the preservation of peace,” he said.
The military, however, said it has formed a new anti-terror task force to run after those who beheaded the soldiers.
Maj. Eugene Batara, a regional army spokesman, said the new group called Joint Task Force Meteor will be headed by Marine Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban.
“It will be tasked to conduct operations and effect punitive action against those involved in the beheading and mutilation of marines in Ginanta. The task force will coordinate with the Philippine National Police and the Department of Justice,” Batara told reporters.
While the MILF has acknowledged its Basilan forces engaged the Marines, it denied beheading the fallen soldiers.
Sattar Alih, head of the MILF cease-fire monitoring team in Basilan, has said their fighters withdrew from the battle scene, leaving the bodies of soldiers behind, after military and rebels agreed to a cease-fire.
Intelligence sources in Basilan have implicated gunmen working for unnamed politicians to have mutilated the 10 soldiers.
Development Projects
MILF Chairman Ibrahim Murad, meanwhile, yesterday warned that development projects being funded by donor countries and institutions in conflict-affected in the south would be jeopardized by a military offensive in Basilan.
Murad relayed the warning in letters to ambassadors of the United States, Canada, Japan and other donor institutions funding development projects in conflict-affected southern regions.
“The present situation in Basilan no doubt will seriously affect the primacy of the peace process,” Murad said in the July 22 letter to more than 10 Western and Asian ambassadors and financial institutions.
The letter was read to The Associated Press yesterday by a rebel commander, who refused to be identified because he was not authorized to release details of the letter.
Both the government and rebels acknowledge a flare-up of violence imperils the talks.
The resolution of the conflict “is quite vital to the interest of the international donor community” funding development projects in conflict-affected areas because of the possibility that the guerrillas could “turn our back on the peace process,” Murad said.
“Any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life or escalation in the economic costs of the armed conflict would, in effect, produce deep religious agitation and political crisis,” he said.
US Embassy spokesman Matthew Lussenhop said he could not comment on any private correspondence or confirm if the letter has been received by his embassy.
“We’re continuing to assess the security of our people and projects” in Basilan, he said. “Nothing has been canceled or postponed at this point,” Lussenhop added. (With reports from AP)
