Army troops have clashed with Muslim guerrillas in a southern village, leaving at least three soldiers and four rebels dead and sparking fears that an escalation could threaten a 2014 peace pact that has considerably eased years of heavy fighting.
The sporadic clashes erupted Tuesday and Wednesday in a village in Ungkaya Pukan town on the island province of Basilan, where leaders of the military and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) separately ordered their forces to halt the fighting and allow de-escalation talks on Thursday.
Military and rebel commanders at the scene of the fighting accused each other of violating the 2014 peace accord, which eased years of bloody and extensive fighting between government forces and the Muslim rebel front, the largest separatist insurgent group in the south of the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The clashes left three soldiers dead and seven others wounded, the military said, while the rebels reported at least four dead and several others wounded. The conflict underscored the fragility of law and order in a southern region faced with a surfeit of loose firearms, private armies, crushing poverty and a long history of violence.
Under the 2014 peace pact, the MILF dropped its secessionist demand in exchange for a more powerful and better-funded Muslim autonomous region called Bangsamoro.
The five-province Muslim region is now led by former guerrilla leaders under a transition period ending in 2025.
Nearly half of about 40,000 guerrillas have agreed to lay down their firearms and return to normal life in exchange for livelihood packages under the peace pact. Thousands of other rebels have kept their firearms while waiting to be subjected to a years-long “decommissioning process,” a subtle term for surrendering their weapons. The process has been delayed amid complaints that former rebels have failed to receive promised cash and other incentives from the government.
“This is very alarming because the implications are worrisome to us,” Naguib Sinarimbo, the interior minister of the Bangsamoro autonomous region, told The Associated Press. “Our worry is if there are sparks like this, concerns may arise whether the decommissioning process would continue.”
Brig. Gen. Domingo Gobway, an Army brigade commander in Basilan, said his forces were cracking down on armed men involved in extortion and intimidation using homemade bombs.
Amid the military campaign, the gunmen fled to a Basilan village called Ulitan, where they were protected by MILF guerrillas, he said.
The rebels and the extortion gang were forced to leave Ulitan village in September amid the military crackdown, but MILF guerrillas returned on Monday with their firearms in violation of an agreement that rebel firearms and other weapons should be restricted in mutually identified MILF encampments, Gobway said.
Troops came under fire in Ulitan on Tuesday and Wednesday, prompting them to return fire and take action to bring the situation under control, military officials said.
Mohagher Iqbal, who led the Muslim guerrillas in years of peace talks with the government, said the violence “was an unfortunate incident that no one desired to happen…while the peace process’ dividends have started to be felt by the people.”
Iqbal called for the combatants’ “immediate disengagement to prevent the situation from escalating” and urged government and rebel cease-fire representatives to carry out an investigation to prevent a repeat of such deadly clashes.
Western governments have welcomed progress in years of peace talks between Manila and Muslim rebels that have turned major battlefields into potential growth centers in the south in recent years, in the homeland for minority Muslims who live in some of the poorest and least-developed provinces in the country.
Had the decades-old Muslim insurgency continued to flare in the southern Philippines, there were worries that large numbers of Muslim insurgents could forge an alliance with outside extremist forces and turn the south into a breeding ground for extremists.
‘Stay the course’
The Government Implementing Panel for the GPH-MILF (Government of the Philippines-MILF) Peace Accord has called for calm and sobriety following the recent armed clashes between government soldiers and fighters of a breakaway group of the MILF in Basilan.
But it also asked its counterpart from the MILF to help douse fiery commentaries on the incident.
“We ask the cooperation of our partners from the MILF to stay the course and work together with the cease-fire mechanisms and government forces to uphold the cease-fire agreement, which has been a product of arduous efforts from both parties in the interest of the welfare of our people and the preservation of the peace agreement,” said the statement from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (Opapru), formerly the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.
The Opapru identified the fighting Moro unit as elements of the 114th Base Command of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Force, the military arm of the MILF.
It said the armed clash happened in Barangay Ulitan, Ungkaya Pukan, Basilan province on November 8. The Opapru described the incident “an unfortunate untoward encounter between GPH and MILF forces despite progress and headways gained by the GPH and MILF parties in the peace process.”
It said it has immediately called for “sobriety and prudence of stakeholders to assail misinformation circulating on said incidence.”
“The GPH and MILF cease-fire mechanisms, the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities [CCCH] and the Ad Hoc Joint Action Group [AHJAG] are in place and are closely coordinating to immediately de-escalate the conflict to effect the cease-fire and mitigate further exacerbation of conflict,” it added.
The Opapru said the government panel remained committed to implement the peace agreement as it asked for the support “of all parties from the government forces, Barmm [Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao] and the Basilan local government to work together to immediately cease the armed incident and prioritize the safety of the affected communities.”
Brig. Gen. Gobway, commander of the 101st Infantry Brigade and Joint Task Force (JTF) Basilan confirmed on Wednesday the battle between Army soldiers and MILF forces in Ungkaya Pukan town in Basilan province.
Gobway said there were an estimated 100 MILF fighters involved in the battle that began at 12:25 pm on November 8. He said more MILF fighters have reinforced pushing soldiers on the defensive. He said the MILF should have refrained from sending reinforcements.