Military Warns Indigenous Army: ‘Don’t use firepower to further your cause’

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — The Indigenous People’s Federal Army (IPFA) has the right to air its sentiments, but should not resort to the use of firepower in furthering its cause, a military spokesman said yesterday.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said they will not hesitate to neutralize the IPFA’s so-called "Ancestral Lands Defense Forces" if their armed members would intimidate people and use violence to dramatize their bid for a federal state for Mindanao’s tribal folk.

Ando also cautioned the IPFA against displaying its weaponry, saying its men are not exempted from the firearms ban currently enforced in connection with the July 15 barangay elections.

"Even when the imposition of the gun ban ends, we will still see to it that they don’t roam around brandishing unlicensed firearms. It must be made clear that the 6th ID is ready to quell any group that would pose a threat to the safety of civilians in any part of the division’s area of responsibility," Ando said.

For the first time, hundreds of IPFA fighters showed force in a clandestine meeting with this writer and reporters of radio station dxCM and an ABS-CBN outfit, both in Cotabato City, and the Radio Mindanao Network, in South Upi town this province last Sunday.

During the meeting, the IPFA spokesman, who introduced himself as Adrev, called on President Arroyo to focus her attention on the plight of impoverished indigenous groups all over the country.

Adrev, a Tiruray, said they decided to come out in the open to show Malacañang that the IPFA is not a "crackpot" as certain government officials described it, and that it has an army ready to wage a struggle for the recognition of the indigenous people’s right to self-determination.

Adrev admitted that the IPFA, led by a so-called "central convergence committee," was behind the bomb scare early this year, but said it was not meant to hurt people but to air their demand for the creation of separate federal states for the indigenous people, the Muslims and Christians.

Lawyer Nabil Tan, executive secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said Gov. Parouk Hussin will create a panel that would open a direct communication line between the IPFA, the regional government and Malacañang.