What is happening in Mindanao? First, on July 10, the Philippine Marines attacked the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) supposedly in pursuit of the Abu Sayyaf kidnappers of Italian priest, Father Bossi, who was not even near Basilan province. Bossi was released a few days later in Lanao thus belying Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) assertions that Bossi was in Basilan.
In a dramatic TV report with an embedded reporter, it was shown that the mortars used by the Marines had blank or defective ammo. And then, in a more dramatic announcement, the AFP claimed that 10 of their Marines were beheaded and mutilated by the MILF.
DOUBLE WHAMMY
The TV and succeeding media reports were damaging not only to the MILF but also to the government of Arroyo. First, they presented an Army that is not well-funded and well-equipped thus endangering the lives of its soldiers. Second, they portray the MILF and the people they represent (the Moros) as barbarians. This implies that that the government is doubly guilty for sending under- or mal-equipped soldiers to gruesome deaths from the hands of the barbaric Moros. This scenario of course calls for massive funding for the military to crush the MILF, if not the Bangsa Moro.
Fortunately, many Christian Filipinos smelled something fishy and did not support such an agenda. After all, this is already an old song played to the hilt by then President Estrada.
PSG TO BASILAN INSTEAD OF SONA
In a very strange move, Presidential Security Group (PSG) troops were sent to Basilan allegedly to avenge their fallen comrades instead of insuring the President’s safety, which is the PSG’s primary reason for being, during the President’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Some people asked, “Was the President sending the PSG to Basilan to fight the MILF or to be away from her.” Reportedly, the Marines who died in Basilan were formerly under Col. Querubin of the so-called “Fort Bonifacio stand-off”.
MILF’S CLAIMS
The 3-man MILF investigating team came up with the following conclusions:
· The Philippine Marines of the 1st Marine Brigade completely disregarded the ceasefire agreement between the MILF and the government by conducting three prior military operations before the bloody encounter on July 10, 2007:
Ø On July 8, 2007, the Marines conducted military operation in Barangay Lipu Upas, Tipo-Tipo, Basilan creating fear and chaos among the local inhabitants. Limbu Upas is about three (3) kilometers from Ginanta where the July 10 encounter took place.
Ø On July 9, 2007 the same Marine outfit made a follow-up operation and entered Barangay Linuan, Al-Barkah town, the defense perimeter of an MILF area at an adjacent barangay of Ginanta, which is well known to the AFP because the MILF had conducted a peace advocacy program there on June 2, 2006 that was fully coordinated with the MILF-GRP CCCH;
Ø On July 10, 2007, at 7:00 am, the Marines under the command of Major Marcelino entered Barangay Linuan again where they disarmed one MILF member, Hadji Hakim, of his carbine rifle and divested one other MILF member of his tiger uniform and MILF patches. When reminded by one of the two MILF members that the Marines were already encroaching on an MILF area covered by the ceasefire agreement, the Marines said: “We do not recognize any MILF area. The entire Philippines is ours.”
• At around 9:00 am on July 10, 2007, the Marines entered Ginanta, Al-Barkah (formerly Tipo-Tipo), where the MILF forces and camp are located. The presence of the MILF camp is previously known to the Philippine government because of the ceasefire agreement. And when the Marines suddenly entered the area, a firefight ensued.
• The fighting was directly initiated and provoked by the Philippine Marines. There was no ambush. What took place was a legitimate face-to-face 8-hour encounter. Marines killed on the spot based on body count were not just 14 but 23. Weapons captured by the MILF fighters were 17: three (3) M-60 machineguns, one (1) mini-machinegun, five (5) M203 grenade launchers, two (2) M-14 rifles with sniper scopes, one (1) 60 mm mortar, and five (5) M-16 rifles.
• MILF fighters involved in the fighting were only two (2) platoons from MILF military units, namely, the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Brigade of the 114 Base Command of the MILF’s Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) based in Basilan. More than 100 MILF fighters arrived as reinforcements but failed to participate in the battle because the fighting was already over when they reached Ginanta.
• At 5:00 pm a ceasefire was already in place, and this was arranged by the MILF Coordinating Committee for the Cessation of Hostilities (MILF) CCCH and the Govt. Of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) CCCH.
• With the ceasefire back in place, the MILF fighters were ordered to disengage and leave the battle scene completely. But before they left they conducted a clearing operation and they found and body-counted 23 Marines dead and not one was beheaded or mutilated.
• The MILF suffered five (5) martyred and six (6) wounded in combat.
• At around 6:00 pm of the same day, the MILF Local Monitoring Team (LMT) informed Marine Major Macatoon that the MILF fighters had withdrawn and the area of battle was cleared.
• At 8:00 pm, same day, Maj. Macatoon inquired from the MILF- LMT if the area was totally cleared, and the answer was positive. Thereupon Maj. Macatoon informed the MILF-LMT that all the Marines and their equipment were withdrawn including their dead casualties.
• At 9:00 pm, same day, Marine Col. Almadrones informed the MILF-LMT that there were ten (10) Marines held by the MILF as “captives”. After a thorough verification, no such Marines were captured by the MILF.
According to the MILF findings, there were no reports of beheadings until the following day. Also, an old man was abducted by the Marines who later killed him, with his head almost cut off from his body:
• On July 11, 2007, at around 5:30 am, the MILF-BIAF fighters conducted an inspection of the battle scene and they found six (6) dead Marines already beheaded, and one old man hacked in the back and his throat slashed so much so that his head was almost severed from his body. It was later identified that the dead civilian was 69 year-old Imam Hakim Ali or Alkanul.
• The MILF Investigating Team, in its preliminary findings, found out that on the early morning of July 10, 2007, the Marines forcibly took Imam Alkanul from his house in Ginanta and coerced him into accompanying them to where the MILF base is located. They also forced him to carry some of their loads, especially ammunition. When the firing started, Alkanul was with the Marines. His dead body, hogtied and bearing deeply inflicted wounds and his head almost severed from his neck, was found alongside the fallen Marines.
Furthermore:
• Commander Musawwarin reported to the MILF Investigating Team that MILF units involved in the fighting withdrew at 6:00 pm on July 10 and from this time up to 9:00 pm, the Philippine Marines started to retrieve their fallen and wounded comrades as well as equipment. He posed the question: “Why did the Marines only know that there were still ten (10) Marines unaccounted for after more than one hour, and after having been in the battle scene for at least one hour earlier?”
The government or the military denied the existence of the dead old man, Imam Hakim Ali. They did not comment on the MILF assertion that they counted 23 dead Marines, not 14 as claimed by the military.
WAR-MONGERING
Instead of calling for an investigation, the AFP drummed up support for an all-out war through their friends in the Media and the society at large, including the Philippine blogosphere.
The government, for its part issued arrest warrants for more than a hundred MILF soldiers and officers.
ARREST WARRANTS
President Estrada, in his ‘all-out war” against the MILF, which was greatly supported by majority of the Christians, also ordered the arrests of MILF leaders and soldiers. President Arroyo’s court also issued arrest warrants. Really, what is the required IQ for government officials?
If the government can just arrest MILF leaders and soldiers then there would not be any MILF now. And there would be no MNLF and there would be no need for Peace Agreements. And there would be no need for soldiers in Moroland. After all, serving arrest warrants is a duty of the Police, not the military.
MILF is AT WAR with the government, and in wars, there is no need for arrest warrants. The enemies can be summarily killed or captured! There is, however, a Ceasefire Agreement between the MILF and the Government, which both parties claimed to have been violated by the other.
MILF-GRP PROBE TEAM
According to the MILF website :
The probe team, composed of members of the government and MILF Coordinating Committees on Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) and Bantay Ceasefire with some international groups as associates, conducted ground validation and have interviewed commanders and men of the MILF 114 Base Command, members of the Philippine Marines, who were involved in that fighting, political leaders in Basilan and Al-Barka, as well as civilians who might have knowledge of the beheading. The team also interviewed Jun Veneracion of the GMA-7, who was embedded in the Marines when the fighting erupted.
However, the findings of this body were never released publicly.
The MILF insisted that they want the public release of the findings but it needed the go-signal of the Government side.
Goodness Gracious! This concerns lives and deaths of Christian and Muslim Filipinos and the public is not allowed to know!?!! What in the world is happening? Isn’t the Philippine government supposed to represent the Filipino people and doesn’t the MILF claim to represent the Bangsa Moro people? And so why are the people not told what exactly happened in Basilan on 10-11 July 2007?
INTERNATIONAL MONITORING TEAM EXCLUDED
Also, the International Monitoring Team (IMT) which was part of the security aspects of the MILF-GRP Peace Agreement, was not allowed to join the Probe or Investigating Team, apparently because the IMT’s jurisdiction does not include Basilan according to the Peace Agreement. The Government team reportedly objected to the inclusion of the IMT. The IMT is composed of the governments of Malaysia, Brunei, Libya and Japan headed by Maj Gen. Dato’ Md Ismail bin Ahmad Khan of the Royal Malaysian Armed Forces.
The
IMT is in Mindanao yet is not included in the Fact-Finding Committees. Why? People are dead and there is great potential for the escalation of hostilities, and the Philippine government is sticking to technicalities?
Is this another zarzuela or moro-moro being played on the hapless Filipino people??!
THE OLD SCAPEGOAT – ABU SAYYAF
And a funny thing happened again. The crooks turned out to be the old reliable bogeyman, the Abu Sayyaf Group, again resurrected after the deaths of its leaders.
How in the world could the Abu Sayyaf behead and mutilate the Marines when the fight was between the MILF and the Marines???
Did the Abus creep in after the battle and beheaded the dead Marines? But then, why did the Marines leave the bodies of their comrades? The MILF left the battlefield by 6 pm of July 10 and the Marines then reportedly carried off their dead comrades, except for 10 of them which were apparently missing.
As Alice in Wonderland noted, “It’s getting curiouser and curiouser.”
AFP FACE-SAVING TALE
To rationalize AFP’s humiliating loss to the MILF in the July 10 encounter, the military said that they were not able to send reinforcement because they used the wrong radio frequency. But now, an AFP official said that there was no such miscommunication. According to reports (Tribune.net):
With the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ officialdom claiming it was miscommunication due to wrong radio frequency used that caused the snafu in the July 10 clash in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan, that resulted in the death of 14 Marines with 10 of them beheaded and mutilated, a military official who sought anonymity yesterday, disclosed there was no radio frequency snafu and that the air reinforcement was recalled despite having established contact with the ground troops.
The official claimed that the OV-10 Bronco sent as a second wave reinforcement to the Marines and escorted by two MG-520 attack helicopters, dropped its bombs into the sea since the aircraft would not be allowed to land loaded with explosives.
He also claimed that the ammunition was wasted due to standard operating procedure, stressing that there was someone who issued that recall order.
Earlier, the military said investigation showed that the air reinforcement failed to contact the ground forces as they were operating on different radio frequencies.
Due to this snafu, the air support was prevented from firing at the enemy camp as it was claimed that there could be no bombing without information on bomb targets.
But the military source insisted it was “impossible” for the 1st Marine Brigade headquarters in Basilan to have given the wrong radio frequency to the Western Mindanao Command (Westmincom) in Zamboanga City, where the first wave of air reinforcements came from.
This flight, an MG-520 and a UH-1H helicopter, was dispatched to the scene at around 11:30 a.m. but had to turn back after the pilot of the second chopper was said to have been hit by enemy fire, the military officer said, adding that for the second wave, the OV-10 bomber and the two MG-520 helicopters, arrived at around later in the afternoon, from Sulu.
The official said the ammunition was wasted since it could have dropped the bombs on the enemy, pointing out that the air support could have minimized the casualties sustained by the outnumbered Marines.
The official said the air reinforcements knew where to fire and were given the following coordinates: “Al-Barkah municipality, enemy location at GC 068188, Troops location 062182.”
Earlier reports claimed the radioman of the Marines said only one soldier was killed.
The official however said only the area commander has the authority to recall air reinforcements.
In the case of Basilan, this would be Westmincom chief Lieutenant General Eugenio Cedo whom the official claimed was not at the headquarters, as he was claimed to have been attending a summit on the Human Security Act of 2007 in Cagayan de Oro City and left his deputy, Brig. Gen. Juancho Sabban, in charge.
The source said the pilot of the OV-10 bomber plane, identified as Captain Ferdinand Liwanag, made contact with the ground troops before the “recall” was made.
Wow, it is indeed getting curiouser and curiouser.
MNLF’S TURN
With questions about the Basilan killings still unanswered, the AFP turned its attention towards the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and attacked MNLF strongholds. Again, the military suffered a lot of casualties.
Some people are really bent on creating havoc in Mindanao. But for what purpose? And who are these people?
As the radio dramas of old say, Abangan ang susunod na kabanata! (Watch out for the next episode!)
==========000000000000==============
P.S.
By the way, what was Oliver North of the Iran-Contra scandal doing in Mindanao. North is now championing the cause of Bush’s “War Against Terror” in Iraq, Afghanistan and Mindanao. To get a glimpse of how North and some of his Filipino friends think, read his columns like this one –
Allied Angst