Angry mob hacks MNLF rebel to death

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Angry residents of Barangay Cabatangan hacked to death here yesterday one of 250 partisans of jailed Gov. Nur Misuari who had taken 110 of their neighbors hostage.

Reports said a posse of villagers was scouring the barangay’s outskirts for stragglers of Misuari’s fighters when they chanced upon four of them resting in the bushes.

Former barangay chairman Nicolas Guevarra told The STAR yesterday the posse spotted the weary guerrillas from an inclined area though a pair of binoculars.

"We saw the rebel group resting," he said.

Brandishing bolos, the villagers demanded that the surprised guerrillas surrender and hand over their automatic rifles or they would be harmed.

Three of the partisans immediately threw their weapons to the ground and surrendered with arms raised.

But the fourth guerrilla refused to give up and held on to his rifle.

Without warning, the villagers lunged at the defiant guerrilla and hacked him in the face, head, arms and different parts of the body until he fell to the ground.

The villagers stopped only when the unidentified guerrilla lay dead.

A barangay leader, who requested anonymity, told The STAR yesterday the three guerrillas were not harmed after they surrendered four Armalite and M-14 rifles.

"The other one was ganged up on and hacked to death by civilians," he said.

Meanwhile, five other Muslim gunmen were killed in fresh clashes yesterday as the military warned it would file charges against scores of others who had mounted a bloody revolt.

"Five rebels were killed" when soldiers repulsed an ambush mounted by some 30 to 40 rebel stragglers on a hillside near the Cabatangan government complex of Zamboanga, military Southern Command chief Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu said.

The fighting occurred a day after the bulk of Misuari’s rebel army agreed to swap 113 civilian hostages for safe passage outside the city, ending two days of fighting that claimed 28 lives.

On the other hand, Cimatu also said yesterday that "charges will be filed" against all the Misuari gunmen, including those given safe passage. "We will pursue them once warrants of arrest are issued," he said.

He did not elaborate on the charges but it is believed that they would be accused of rebellion.

Cimatu said some of the gunmen who took part in the siege were from the Abu Sayyaf kidnap-for-ransom group, which operated in Basilan and Jolo.

"We have information that around 30 of them are Abu Sayyaf members," Cimatu said.

Hundreds of Cabatangan residents refused to return to their homes because of reports that 200 armed Misuari partisans, who had split from their comrades, are still roaming the barangay. Radio stations in Zamboanga City have been besieged by calls from residents irate at the military’s decision to allow the gunmen to leave the city.

Military commanders allowed them to leave with their weapons, which included assault rifles, machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades.

The guerrillas had taken the hostages after forcing their way into homes of Cabatangan residents while fleeing a military bombardment of their hilltop base.

After a tense 36-hour standoff, the Misuari followers released all their captives, many of them women and children, in a deal that allowed them to leave the city with their weapons.

Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said that under the deal, the partisans were required to later surrender their weapons to ARMM officials.

However, Tiglao did not explain how the government intended to enforce the apparently face-saving agreement as the guerrillas had already gone back to their camps in the mountains outside Zamboanga City.

Last week, hundreds of Misuari’s followers attacked military camps in Jolo in a failed uprising in which about 160 people were killed.

Misuari is now detained in Malaysia and has been charged in the Philippines with rebellion. — Roel Pareño