Security beefed up following MILF attack

ZAMBOANGA CITY  – The military has intensified security in the south following an attack by the separatist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the first break in the four-year-old ceasefire.

The Marine Battalion Landing Team 8 was providing security to provincial and local officials during a hand-over of a completed road project in Ungkaya Pukan in Basilan when they came under attack at 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Col. Rustico Guerrero, First Marine Brigade chief, said the troops retaliated with a brief firefight before the MILF retreated.

“They initiated the attack on our soldiers just providing security for the noble project to help the villagers,” Guerrero said.

There were no casualties reported in the encounter.

Guerrero brushed aside MILF allegations that his troops had encroached on MILF territory and attacked the local faction, saying the soldiers were deployed to provide security and were not on a mission.

Up until this encounter and the Malaysian pullout from the International Monitoring Team (IMT), there had been no incidents with both sides pledging to abide by the ceasefire.

Ghazali Jaafar, vice chairman for political affairs of the MILF, said the front “has been religiously adhering to the ceasefire. It is always for the peaceful resolution of security problems in areas covered by the ceasefire.”

He said the phased pullout of the Malaysian IMT members had not dampened the enthusiasm of their Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities to continue performing its peacekeeping missions in the south.

Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said he was confident that government units scattered around Central Mindanao would not embark on any action that could derail the ceasefire.

“Almost all of our unit commanders in the field have undergone extensive conflict resolution and management training handled by different non-government organizations and foreign donors,” Ando said.

The government’s chief negotiator, Rodolfo Garcia, told reporters last week that while Malaysia is pulling out its peace monitors from the south, the IMT would not stop mediating the 11-year-old government-MILF talks. – Jaime Laude, John Unson and Roel Pareño