Military files complaint vs MILF over engineers’ ambush

PIKIT, North Cotabato — The military has filed a well-documented protest against the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for what it described as "extremely serious violation of the ceasefire" when separatist rebels wounded in an ambush here last Oct. 16 four Army engineers involved in housing projects for local Muslim communities.

Maj. Gen. Generoso Senga, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said their complaint, supported by reference materials, was channeled through the Armed Forces’ Southern Command, which has overall jurisdiction over Army and Marine units operating in Pikit and surrounding towns.

Senga said Lt. Gen. Roy Kyamko, Southcom chief, submitted the complaint to the government and the MILF’s joint coordinating committee on the cessation of hostilities, which met for two days in Cagayan de Oro City last week.

Government negotiators confirmed that the protest of the ambush of the four members of the Army’s 54th Engineering Brigade was taken up during the committee’s meeting.

"But the MILF has not responded yet. Maybe, it will still evaluate the complaint and investigate to determine if, indeed, MILF rebels perpetrated that atrocity," one of the sources said.

Muslim religious leaders here and in Pagalungan, Maguindanao earlier said they wanted the MILF censured for the ambush of the four Army engineers involved in the construction of low-cost houses for Muslim villagers in the Buliok complex.

MILF guerrillas used to occupy the Buliok complex until the military drove them away during an offensive early this year.

The Army engineers were returning to their camp here, on board a civilian vehicle, from a project site near the Buliok complex when they were waylaid.

"We were hurt because the soldiers they ambushed were non-combatants and were risking their lives to build houses for poor Muslim residents affected by the recent conflicts in Pikit and Pagalungan," a 50-year-old imam (preacher) earlier told The STAR.

Last month, Brig. Gen. Eduardo Lena, commander of the 54th EB, turned over more than a hundred newly built low-cost houses to residents of villages around the Buliok complex, an event witnessed by Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman and Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Parouk Hussin.

Lena said the ambushers used B-40 anti-tank rockets, which he described as "signature weapons" of the MILF.

"No other armed group operates in Pikit other than the MILF," he said.

Worse, Lena said his men were riding in a civilian vehicle when they were attacked.