UN peacekeepers’ boot camp being built in RP

A training center for United Nations peacekeepers is being set up in the Philippines.

Armed Forces chief Gen. Dionisio Santiago said yesterday facilities for UN peacekeeping operations are undergoing construction at Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac.

The UN would like the country to become a regional center for training its peacekeepers, he added.

Santiago said about 500 Filipino troops comprising a battalion in the Armed Forces are being trained for peacekeeping duties with the UN.

"They are undergoing training," he said. "We are already having quite a number of trained people within the AFP."

Filipino troops were sent to East Timor in 2000 for peacekeeping operations before the former Indonesian province became independent.

Filipino Maj. Gen. Jaime delos Santos was in command of the UN peacekeeping force at that time.

In Sulu, four Abu Sayyaf gunmen and a soldier were killed in a clash yesterday in Jolo, where American troops are to join Filipino soldiers in a military exercise.

Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya, Armed Forces Southern Command chief, said the soldiers stormed an Abu Sayyaf encampment near Bandang town, where some 50 bandits were holed out, triggering the gunbattle.

Radio intercepts indicated that Abu Sayyaf leader Mujib Susukan was wounded in the fighting.

Filipino and American troops will be sent to Sulu to "maximize" their training under the Balikatan military exercises, and not to "bait" the Abu Sayyaf into engaging them in combat.

However, Amado Valdez, executive director of the Presidential Commission on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFACom), said the Americans can "fire back" if the bandits shoot at them.

"Sulu is part of the Philippines’ territory anyway, and it could help maximize training," he said. "And if the exercise would provoke the Abu Sayyaf to get out of Sulu, then that would be a bonus."

Valdez said Sulu was chosen as site of the war games in response to the "clamor" of provincial and other local officials. – Mike Frialde, Efren Danao, Perseus Echeminada, Jose Rodel Clapano, AFP