CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 20, 2012) – Philippine communist rebels said Friday they killed six government soldiers in separate attacks in the Mindanao province of Bukidnon
Rigoberto Sanchez, a spokesman for the New People’s Army, said the attacks, which were carried out on Wednesday in the town of Kitaotao
“The inter-front operations against the 23rd Infantry Battalion and the 8th Infantry Battalion were aimed in shoring up the local peasants’ clamor against the atrocious military combat operations,” he said in a statement sent to the Mindanao Examiner.
Sanchez said the rebel attacks contradicted earlier claims by Major Jacob Thaddeus Obligado, chief of the 10th Infantry Division’s Civil Military Operation Battalion, who bragged about growing NPA losses.
Obligado said the military “neutralized” more than 300 rebels last year, but the Sanchez belied the report and branded it as propaganda.
“The 10th Infantry Division-Eastern Mindanao Command is daydreaming when it crows over its supposed accomplishments. For over a year, it tries to change skin through the deceptive Oplan Bayanihan to win over civilians and chase off Red fighters. And for over a year, it fails miserably, again and again, to shed off its fascist fangs and to sway the masses to ignore the exploitation, land grabbing and the human rights abuses,” he said, referring to the government’s anti-insurgency campaign.
The rebels have been fighting for decades now for the establishment of a separate communist state in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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