Militiamen torture Muslim boy

COTABATO CITY — Fears of a renewed ethnic tension among Central Mindanao’s culturally diverse residents, reminiscent of the one that gripped the region during the 1970s, have been rekindled by the torture of a 14-year-old Muslim boy by suspected militiamen in Carmen, North Cotabato last month.

It was in Carmen that the Ilaga (meaning "rat"), a vigilante group which the military used in its campaign against Muslim secessionists in the 1970s, first gained notoriety by killing some 50 Muslims while performing their Friday prayers inside a mosque.

Torture victim Montassir Bala, who is now under the custody of Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, secretary-general of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), said he was on his way home last April 16 when suspected militiamen blocked his path.

Bala recounted that his hands were tied and he was beaten up in a secluded stretch of a farm-to-market road in Barangay Liliongan on suspicions that he was a member of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

The boy recounted that his ordeal worsened when more militiamen, who spoke the Visayan dialect, arrived at the scene and told his captors that he was, indeed, a rebel because they had clashed with a band of guerrillas from his village.

Bala said he overheard the militiamen as telling those guarding him that they had killed a "young rebel" during the firefight.

The slain "rebel," Bala later found out, was his cousin Usop Alamada, who was hacked in the head several times.

Citing results of the MNLF’s initial inquiry, Sema said the militiamen took turns beating up Bala, after which they stabbed him twice, cut his stomach open and chopped off his right ear.

"The people who maltreated him must have presumed he was already dead when they left him," Sema said.

Bala’s relatives found him hours after the incident. They rushed him to a government hospital in nearby Damulog town in Bukidnon, but later decided to transfer him here after they heard from neighbors that suspicious-looking men were roaming around Barangay Liliongan, inquiring about his whereabouts.

Bala’s parents refused to report their son’s ordeal to the Carmen police, fearing it would only incriminate him.

"I don’t want to go home. I’m afraid the people who did this to me would come back and finish me off," a stammering Bala said in the Maguindanaoan dialect.

Sema said the manner with which Bala’s tormentors tried to kill him was a "trademark brutality" of the Ilagas during the 1970s.

Members of the Ilaga cult, who wore amulets, were known for disemboweling their victims and cutting off their ears.

"What the MNLF is worried about is that the incident could again rekindle animosities between the Muslims and the Christians in hostile areas in Mindanao," Sema said.

There is a long history of intense Muslim-Christian confrontations in Carmen town. In 2000, a group of MILF rebels, led by Pakil Ayunan, raided Barangay Cadiis in Carmen, blocked a portion of the North Cotabato-Bukidnon Highway, herded 16 Christian residents into one spot and executed them using automatic rifles.

More than 30 Muslim and Christian residents in Carmen have since been killed in vendetta killings that have virtually worsened the animosities between both sides.

Just two weeks ago, MILF rebels ambushed and killed the Visayan chairman of Barangay Ranso in Carmen, and three others in a secluded stretch of a farm-to-market road in the area. The attack also left seven villagers wounded.

Army intelligence sources said there is a possibility that MILF rebels could be responsible for the attempt on Bala’s life just to foment hatred among Muslims against military and local security forces in Carmen.

Sources from the Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade, which has jurisdiction over Carmen and nearby towns, said Muslim residents in Barangay Liliongan, where Bala and his family reside, has been supporting the government’s "pacification" campaign.

"The MILF is good in propaganda maneuvers. It needs that kind of propaganda to draw support from local Muslim communities and perhaps, even from the international community," one of the sources said.

Peace advocates in Central Mindanao, among them members of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, said Bala’s case must immediately be investigated and the people responsible for his ordeal prosecuted.