COTABATO CITY – The Philippine military has linked the Moro Islamic Liberation Front – which signed a peace deal with Manila last year – in the abduction of three people in the southern province of Lanao del Sur.
The trio – Omainah Cuno, Jabbar Mimbala and Maisara Mangoranca – were seized May 16 and freed to international peace observers the next day in the village called Bualan in Balindong town.
The military tagged MILF Commander Haji Malik in the abductions. It said the army’s 103rd Infantry Brigade has filed a protest with the Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities following the abductions because the MILF violated the cease-fire agreement it signed with the government.
Capt. Ben June Cerbo, of the Western Mindanao Command, said the MILF released the victims due to the pressure exerted by the military.
“Pursuit operations and prior coordination with the peace mechanism of the MILF-Ad Hoc Joint Action Group were conducted by Joint Task Force ZAMPELAN (Zamboanga Peninsula-Lanao), pressuring the MILF to release and turn over the kidnap victims to the International Monitoring Team and Crisis Management Committee of Ditsaan Ramain in Lanao del Sur,” Cerbo said.
Cerbo did not say the motives of the abductions and the MILF has not issued any statement about this, but it occurred at the height of widespread opposition by lawmakers and civilians over the proposed law on the creation of a new Muslim autonomous region in the troubled, but mineral-rich region of Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)
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