Tension wanes in Datu Saudi

CAMP SIONGCO, Shariff Kabunsuan – Tension has waned in Datu Saudi, Maguindanao, paving the way for a joint ceasefire committee to embark on maneuvers to reconcile the feuding town militia and local fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

Brig. Gen. Edgardo Gurrea, chairman of the government’s ceasefire committee, said his MILF counterpart, Von Al-Haq, has succeeded in convincing the rebels who attacked last Sunday a roadside militia detachment in Datu Saudi to return to their villages to enable investigators to dig deeper into the cause of the trouble.

"Traffic at the highway which traverses the areas where the militiamen and MILF fighters fought each other has resumed. Life there is back to normal," Gurrea said. He said the GRP and MILF’s joint Coordinating Committees on the Cessation of Hostilities are focused now on the safe return of families driven from their homes by the firefights in Barangay Dapiawan, a supposedly bustling spot in Datu Saudi. The military chided the MILF last Wednesday for filing a complaint against the eight militiamen, some 200 MILF rebels who attacked their detachment in Barangay Dapiawan on Sunday.

Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said it is the government’s peace panel that should ask the MILF to censure a dozen ranking rebel commanders whose groups joined together in perpetrating the atrocity.

"After attacking the roadside detachment, burning shelters, shooting houses in the surroundings, and looting houses civilians have abandoned at the height of the attack, the MILF got the nerve to file a formal protest against the militiamen there," Ando said.

Ando said the hostilities were precipitated by the shooting by the militiamen Sunday morning of a rebel named Ibrahim Kanapia, who is wanted for various criminal offenses.

Ando said the militiamen guarding the detachment in Dapiawan, a densely-populated barangay in Datu Saudi, tried to frisk Kanapia for him to be turned over to the local police, but he resisted and fought back. Ando said hours after the incident, Kanapia, who managed to escape, returned to Barangay Dapiawan already accompanied by some 200 MILF fighters.