[asia-apec 1511] Kalinaw Mindanao: Estrada all-out war spawns massive HR violations

[BAYAN]

KALINAW MINDANAO
Movement for Genuine Peace and Justice in Mindanao

MEDIA RELEASE
Aug. 9, 2000


ESTRADA ALL-OUT WAR SPAWNS 
MASSIVE HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS -- KALINAW MINDANAO

On the heels of public outcry against the fielding of 10,000 additional CAFGUs
and the most recent massacre of civilians in North Cotobato, the Kalinaw
Mindanao today bared the results of its fact-finding missions which found the
Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) responsible for gross violations of
human
rights and international humanitarian law (HR and IHL) during its all-out war
against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).  It likewise criticized the
AFP for  “baseless and therefore, irresponsible, as well as malicious public
pronouncements” regarding recent events there.

“Today we issue our final report so the public may see the inhumanity of the
Estrada government’s militarist policy in dealing with the Mindanao crisis and
the urgent need to save civilians and civilian populations from the barbarity
of all-out war,” said Kalinaw Mindanao convenor Dr. Carolina Pagaduan-Araullo.

Kalinaw Mindanao launched fact-finding missions to Central and Western
Mindanao
last June 23-26 in order to get a first-hand view of the situation gripping
over 500,000 internal refugees and to probe earlier reports of inhuman
treatment suffered by the civilian population at the hands of the AFP.

Another fact-finding mission was undertaken by Kalinaw Mindanao on July 31 -
August 2 to find out the truth behind the July 22 massacre of a truckload of
civilians in Balabagan, Lanao del Sur.

According to Araullo, the June fact-finding mission documented numerous
incidents of indiscriminate aerial bombardment, artillery fire and strafing of
civilian communities inside or in the vicinity of the MILF camps as well
as, in
certain cases, far from the battle lines.  

“These are a testimony to how non-combatants and civilian infrastructures such
as houses, schools and marketplaces and fields planted to crops ready for
harvest, became illegitimate targets of military attack. Not even places of
worship were spared, as evidenced by the bombed-out mosques and the AFP's
reprehensible tactic of  timing the bombardments precisely at the Muslims'
hour
of worship.,” Araullo decried.

The Kalinaw Mindanao report further stated that “entire families were
forced to
hastily evacuate their baranggays with their wounded and dead, leaving their
homes and crops, without clear direction as to where they could go or how they
would survive.”

Hundreds of thousands eventually ended up in makeshift evacuation centers with
hardly adequate provisions for the massive influx of these internal refugees. 
To date, government records over 900,000 “evacuees” as a result of the
escalation of military offensives in the last three months.

The Kalinaw Mindanao gathered cases of massacre, summary execution and
harassment by military and paramilitary forces of ordinary people, whose only
misfortune was to be suspected as MILF members/sympathizers, or whose biggest
mistake was to believe the government when it called on them to return to
their
homes and harvest their crops.   

According to the report, “War victims bewailed the senseless razing of their
dwellings to the ground, the looting of their meager belongings, the slaughter
of their farm animals, and the dismantling of houses that had escaped
destruction from the bombings for use in building temporary military
encampments.”

One of the urgent recommendations of the group was to put a stop to the
deployment of additional CAFGU and other paramilitary units, specially in
Mindanao’s war-ravaged areas, as they fear this will only provide the
conditions for further massive violations of human rights.

Another fact-finding mission sent to look into the July 22 Balabagan massacre
concluded that neither the military nor the police conducted any serious
investigation into the incident.  The mission found out from survivors that it
was only the Kalinaw Mindanao mission which had approached them to ask about
the massacre.  

>From interviews and sworn statements of survivors, relatives of victims,
members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGU)/Special CAFGU
Auxilliary Army (SCAA), local government officials and police officers, the
mission was able to draw an accurate account of what really happened when
armed
men fired at a truck loaded with farm workers and their families killing 13
and
wounding 16 others including children.  

Victims pointed to several suspects, members of the CAFGU/SCAA and former
security guards of the Maranao Plantation Inc. (MPI) and Ipil Plantation Inc.
(IPI), companies owned by landlord and former Congressman Ali Dimaporo.  

Cases of multiple murder and multiple frustrated murder have been filed at the
Municipal Circuit Trial Court of Malabang against Panginsaran Cadayon, Edres
Cadayon, Pangalian Cadayon, Koko Cadayon, Ibra Cadayon, Ibrahim Cadayon,
Ibrahim Omar, Arimao Omama and one John Doe. On July 31, 2000, Judge
Saidali M.
Dimangadap issued a warrant of arrest against the suspects.   

In the light of its findings, Kalinaw Mindanao called on the highest officials
of the AFP to acknowledge that they “erred in hastily accusing the MILF as the
masterminds of the massacre.”

The group also demanded that  defense, military and police officials stop the
practice of immediately accusing the MILF as perpetrators of every dastardly
crime that occurs, “ in an apparent bid to draw a negative picture of the MILF
as simply a criminal band preying on hapless civilians”.


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