Moro rebels attack 2 villages

COTABATO CITY – Moro rebels destroyed statues of saints in a Catholic chapel and fired rockets at a coastal village in renewed attacks on farming communities in Kalamansig, Sultan Kudarat the other day.

The rebels, according to the Kalamansig municipal peace and order council, chopped off the heads of religious statues in a chapel in Barangays Sangay and Paril before burning some 40 houses of Cebuano and Ilonggo villagers.

“They even stuck cigarettes in the mouths and ears of the statues they destroyed,” a resident told radio station dxMS here via mobile phone.

Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the attacks by Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas on communities in Kalamansig town could be in retaliation for the military’s bombardment last week of Barangays Sangay and Paril to drive them out after occupying the two areas for more than a month.

Ando said another group of MILF rebels also fired anti-tank rockets and 40-mm grenade projectiles on a detachment of militiamen in Barangay Santa Clara, also in Kalamansig, the other day.

Local officials said no one was killed or injured in the attack, but the incident triggered panic in the barangay, home to mixed Muslim and Christian residents.

Eid Kabalu, spokesman of the MILF, said the hostilities in the two barangays are rooted in a land dispute involving Christian settlers and a group of guerrillas led by a certain Commander Boyet.

Kabalu said the commander, a member of the MILF, and his relatives were just trying to reclaim some portions of the land in the two barangays that were owned by their ancestors, but subsequently became part of a titled estate of a Christian clan.

“This is a long-time land dispute that the provincial government of Sultan Kudarat is trying to resolve peacefully,” Kabalu said.

Muslim and Christian religious leaders in Kalamansig have appealed to the MILF to restrain its forces that have repeatedly been attacking the two villages for more than a month now.

While the MILF has been insisting that the conflict is due to squabbles by local villagers and MILF forces for control of arable lands in the area, Ando said guerrilla forces from surrounding towns have joined the foray, plundering villages and attacking military detachments.

“We have no way but to use force against them,” Ando said.