Local leaders have yet to find a formula to stave off renewed confrontations.
Tension in Datu Piang worsened following threats by local MNLF leaders of "international repercussions" of the military’s bombardment of their communities in the area, recognized by foreign donors as "zone of peace," in offensives that also displaced estimated 400 Muslim families.
The MNLF, now led by a 15-member Executive Council, forged a truce with the government on Sept. 2, 1996, an accord that paved the way for the gradual integration of its qualified members into the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces and the recognition of its former enclaves as "areas of special concern."
Abdurahman Basco Totin, chairman of the MNLF’s Sedepan Kutawato State Committee, said one of his nine followers killed in the hostilities was his 18-year-old son, Adzis Totin.
The military said the skirmishes in Kitango erupted when Totin’s followers engaged combined combatants of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the 301st Brigade sent to pacify two local factions, one identified with the MNLF and the other with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), squabbling for control of arable lands in the area.
Army Col. Triponio Salazar, commander of the 301st Brigade, told Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza that instead of cooperating with the military, MNLF forces in Camp Bulatukan in Kitango opened fire at advancing soldiers, provoking a firefight.
Salazar told Dureza that Totin, also known as "Commander Basco," had ignored prior efforts to allow the entry of soldiers into their camp to perform peacekeeping jobs and prevent civilians from getting trapped in the crossfire between the feuding groups, one led by Kayab Baguinda and the other headed by Mamalaka Tamano.
Tamano, who belongs to the MILF, and his men, were said to have voluntarily turned over their firearms to the soldiers.
Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, who is the secretary-general of the MNLF, said the trouble should be jointly probed by the front’s central leadership and the Armed Forces.
Sema, in an initial dialogue yesterday with Southern Command chief Gen. Ernesto Carolina and Gen. Generoso Senga of the 6th ID, said that MNLF and state forces in Datu Piang should reposition themselves to pave the way for the amicable settlement of the dispute.
The 6th ID said the military’s supposed pacification role in Barangay Kitango was to search for notorious kidnappers Datumama Utto and a certain Nardz, both implicated in the recent spate of kidnappings in Maguindanao and Cotabato City.
Sema said the two kidnappers are known in Datu Piang as "allies" of Tamano and not the MNLF leaders in the area.