Inclusion of 300 unnamed suspects questioned

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Peace advocacy outfits are ranting about the inclusion of 300 John Does in an arrest warrant issued by the Basilan court for Moro rebels involved in the ambush-killing of 19 soldiers in Al-Barka, Basilan last Oct. 19.

Included in the arrest warrant is Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi, who led the ambush of Army Special Forces who got close to their camp in Barangay Cambug, Al-Barka town.

Even the executive department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which has administrative and political jurisdiction over the island province of Basilan, is worried about the possible impact of the inclusion of unnamed suspects on the government’s confidence-building measures with Moro communities in the area.

Al-Barka only has more than 2,000 residents, of whom about 700 are registered voters.

Lawyer Anwar Malang, chairman of the Mindanao Human Rights Action Center, which is helping push the government-MILF talks, said local officials and community leaders must immediately initiate a dialogue with the Basilan police and the local prosecutor on the issue.

In a meeting presided over by Basilan Vice Gov. Al-Rasheed Sakalahul the other day, provincial board members expressed apprehension on how the police would go after the 300 unnamed suspects in the Al-Barka ambush, which also left a dozen other soldiers wounded.

Sakalahul said they would pass a resolution urging the prosecutor to amend the charges filed against the Moro rebels who attacked the patrolling soldiers.

The executive secretary of ARMM, lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, said the Basilan provincial peace and order council, chaired by Gov. Jum Akbar, must immediately convene and issue a position on the issue.

A convenor of more than 50 peace advocacy outfits here, Oblate priest Eliseo Mercado Jr., director of the foreign-assisted Institute of Autonomy and Governance, said he is apprehensive that a mass arrest of innocent men could ensue on the basis of the arrest warrant.

“We must not forget that the government and MILF peace panels and the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team are still trying to address that incident peacefully according to standing preliminary security agreements,” Mercado said.

Mercado said any undue enforcement of the controversial arrest warrant could be an irritant for both sides.

The government and MILF, under the 1997 ceasefire accord, are to jointly work out the arrest of wanted people, terrorists and criminals in areas covered by the agreement.