DATE=8/5/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=PHILIPPINES AMBUSH (L-ONLY)
NUMBER=2-265165
BYLINE=KONRAD MULLER
DATELINE=MANILA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: On the main southern Philippine island of
Mindanao, local officials have blamed Muslim
separatist rebels from the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front for shooting dead 16
civilians, including school students. At least ten
other people were wounded. As Konrad Muller reports
from Manila, the massacre is the latest atrocity in an
increasingly brutal guerrilla war.
TEXT: The butchery occurred late Friday in North
Cotabato Province, around 900 kilometers south of
Manila. According to the Governor, Emmanuel Pinol, one
hundred armed men, believed to be
from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, stopped a
truck, a mini-bus and a car on a highway near the town
of Carmen.
Many of the passengers were schoolchildren heading
home. They were forced to get out of the vehciles and
robbed. Then they were hit with a spray of gunfire.
Philippine army units have been called to the scene to
search for the gunmen.
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front has denied
responsibility. Their spokesman, Mr Eid Kabalu, says
the killers were in fact bandits.
Whatever the exact truth, the carnage on a highway in
North Cotabato is the latest sign that the separatist
rebellion in the Philippine south is turning into an
ugly guerrilla war.
In April, Manila launched an offensive against the
Islamic Liberation Front, and last month seized the
rebels' main base. But rather than ending the
conflict, it seems the separatists
merely dispersed. Their fighting force is still
thought to exceed 15-thousand.
In addition to a spate of ambushes of military units,
the Islamic Front has been accused in recent weeks of
terrorist bombings in
central Mindanao, and of the cold blooded killing of
civilians, charges they typically reject.
This week, however, following an independent
investigation, the Philippine Commission on Human
Rights found Islamic Liberation Front fighters
responsible for the massacre of twenty civilians,
shot dead after they were herded into a building on
July 16th. (Signed)
NEB/KM/PLM
05-Aug-2000 03:57 AM EDT (05-Aug-2000 0757 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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