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Soldiers go on the rampage

Army soldiers stormed a police station, seized government buildings and torched thatched houses in Pangutaran town off southern Sulu province, as security forces tried to stop the fighting between armed supporters of warring politicians, police and provincial officials said yesterday.

  • By Al Jacinto
  • Published: 00:00 May 14, 2001
  • Gulf News

Army soldiers stormed a police station, seized government buildings and torched thatched houses in Pangutaran town off southern Sulu province, as security forces tried to stop the fighting between armed supporters of warring politicians, police and provincial officials said yesterday.

Sulu Governor Abdusakur Tan said he received reports that five civilians were killed in the fighting on the island and that troops went on the rampage – shooting anyone on sight and virtually turning the once sleepy town into a battlefield.

"You don't want to know what's going on in the island," he said yesterday in a telephone interview from Sulu. Sulu provincial police chief Candido Casimiro said the town's main district was razed by soldiers, as thousands of ethnic Muslims fled their homes, while others who escaped the island on motorboats were turned back after a flotilla of government gunboats fired on them.

"Thousands have fled and many were fired at when they attempted to flee the fighting in the island," he said. The commander of the military's civil relations group Col Fredesvindo Covarrubias said the reports were baseless. "The soldiers were there (on the island) to protect the civilians and to put back law and order," he said.

Casimiro said soldiers disarmed a dozen policemen, seized their communication equipment and held them at gunpoint on Saturday in Simbajan village before government choppers fired rockets on suspected positions of former Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) rebels.

The MNLF members were supporters of mayoral candidate Margani Sanoh, Casimiro said. "The policemen were guarding the town's municipal building and the police headquarters when soldiers disarmed them and took their weapons and stripped them of their uniforms at gunpoint," Casimiro said.

Casimiro said: "Helicopter gunships delivered a devastating rocket bombardment that resulted in the burning of houses and eventually razing the entire centre of Pangutaran town and turning the district into a ghost town."

Sanoh's group clashed with armed followers of another mayoral candidate, Ibrahim Hadani, whose bodyguards were mostly Army soldiers, Casimiro said. "Both armed groups fought with mortars and automatic weapons."

But this was strongly denied by the military, saying, soldiers were sent to the island to pacify the warring groups and to protect innocent civilians who were trapped in several villages in Pangutaran.

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