MILF turns over 16 guns

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has returned 16 firearms and a mobile phone of police commandos killed in an encounter with its fighters in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan. 25.

The clash killed 44 members of the elite Special Action Force (SAF), 18 MILF guerrillas and five civilians.

The symbolic turnover of 14 assault rifles and two machine guns was held at the officers’ club of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division at Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

MILF chief peace negotiator Mohagher Iqbal told reporters they are still trying to locate the other firearms of the slain SAF men.

“We are not surrendering these firearms, we are returning them,” Iqbal said. He declined to set a self-imposed deadline for the return of the remaining firearms being held by MILF fighters.

Witnessing the turnover were the government’s chief peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Gregorio Catapang, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Quintos-Deles, Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Gov. Mujiv Hataman, Lt. Gen. Rustico Guerrero of the Western Mindanao Command and members of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team and the joint government-MILF ceasefire committee. Officials of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division led by Major Gen. Edmundo Pangilinan also attended the ceremonies.

Iqbal declined to reveal the identities of the rebels who returned the firearms.

“That is still subject of our investigation. We are still in the process of locating the other firearms that are possibly in the hands of MILF members. We can’t account for those firearms taken by other groups,” Iqbal said.

Fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and private armed groups also took part in the Jan. 25 Mamasapano battle.

In his message, Iqbal reiterated the Jan. 25 clash was something the MILF had never wished to happen and the group is doing its best to restore the momentum of the peace process.

BIFF spokesman Abu Misry Mama earlier said their fighters had killed and seized the weapons of 10 SAF commandos.

The BIFF, purportedly an MILF breakaway group, does not recognize the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the MILF. But the MILF and BIFF joined forces against the SAF in Mamasapano, preventing the commandos from capturing Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir, alias Marwan, and his cohort Abdul Basit Usman.

No reinforcements came for the SAF commandos, who managed to kill Marwan.

The head of the IMT, Malaysian Major Gen. Yaakub Samad, said the government and the MILF must continue the peace process despite the Mamasapano incident.

The IMT – comprising soldiers from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Libya as well as civilian conflict resolution and socio-economic experts from Norway, the European Union and Japan – has been helping enforce the ceasefire accord since 2003.

Don’t sell them

Also taken from the dead SAF men were personal belongings, including mobile phones, watches and wallets.

Amid reports that the Muslim rebels were selling the SAF troopers’ firearms and gadgets, Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III appealed to politicians, businessmen, gun lovers and other civilians not to buy the looted items.

“Those are government property and should be returned to the PNP. You have no use for those weapons and gadgets. You cannot register them. Buying and possessing any of those is against the law,” Albano said.

He said buying such items is equivalent to stealing from a dead man. “It will be on your conscience,” he added.

Albano has filed Resolution 1909, which seeks an inquiry into the defective grenades used by the team that assaulted Marwan’s hideout in Barangay Tukanalipao, Mamasapano town.

In his sworn statement taken by a PNP investigator, Supt. Raymund Train, head of the assault team, said his men did not run out of ammunition “because I instructed my men to have a fire discipline or shoot only when you see the enemy.”

“However, many of our M203 ammunition were duds when we fired it,” he said.

On Feb. 4, less than two weeks after the Mamasapano carnage, PNP officer-in-charge Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina told congressmen and reporters that he received information that the dead SAF troopers’ weapons were being sold for P1.5 million.

“MILF, you should return the weapons, uniforms, cellular phones, and other things of our men. Those are not yours, they belong to the PNP and our dead policemen,” he said.

“You already killed our policemen. Don’t add insult to injury (by keeping their weapons and belongings),” he said.

On Feb. 9, Iqbal sent the Senate a letter in which he said his organization “has decided to return the firearms and any retrievable personal effects of the fallen SAF-PNP in deference to the peace process and the recognition of the MILF that it never wanted that unfortunate incident…” With Jess Diaz