World | Philippines
Arroyo vows to avenge soldiers' death
President Gloria Arroyo yesterday called for deterrent punishment to killers of government soldiers in the southern Philippines last Tuesday.
- By Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief
- Published: 23:31 July 14, 2007
- President Gloria Arroyo (left) watches as a local priest blesses the coffins bearing the remains of 14 slain soldiers on their arrival at the Villamor Air Base in Manila on Saturday.
- Image Credit: EPA
Manila: President Gloria Arroyo yesterday called for deterrent punishment to killers of government soldiers in the southern last Tuesday.
She and teary-eyed relatives of the deceased received 14 coffins of the slain troopers at Pasay City's air base yesterday.
"We will not allow those who committed barbaric acts to hide under the negotiating table. Only principled warriors deserve a seat on it," Arroyo said in a statement before the arrival of the coffins by a C-130 cargo plane at the Villamor Airbase at about 4 in the afternoon.
Arroyo hinted that the on-and-off peace talks with the formerly separatist Moro Islamic Liberation front (MILF) might be further derailed because the fatal clash between government soldiers and MILF fighters occurred in MILF-controlled area in Tipo-Tipo, Basilan.
Determination
"We will not run away from the peace talks [with the MILF]... Our desire to see the killers punished is matched by our determination to forge peace," Arroyo said.
Before the clash, the two camps were scheduled to resume in Malaysia next month the stalled talks to resolve issues on ancestral domain for Muslims in Mindanao.
Meanwhile, Mohaqer Iqbal, the MILF peace negotiator, said the MILF will not return the weapons that the MILF fighters had confiscated from the military men who entered the MILF-controlled area in Basilan on last Tuesday.
"We will not [return them]. This is a legitimate encounter after the other [side] violated the ceasefire," Iqbal said in Mindanao.
The MILF reasoned that the encounter happened because government soldliers entered an MILF territory without an notice.
It did not own responsibility for the beheading of the soldiers.
The slain soldiers were with a group that looked for the kidnapped Italian priest Giancarlo Bossi in a MILF-controlled province in the south.
At the same time, Rear Admiral Emilio Marayag said that the killers of the soldiers were already known.
"We are consolidating the offensive against the perpetrators."
"We have sufficient forces to run after those behind the attack," he said, but did not give details.
Government soldiers were deployed into Tipo-Tipo because military officers believed that Bossi and his kidnappers might have gone there, after the kidnapping incident in the Zamboanga peninsula on June 10.
Sources told Gulf News that the Abu Sayyaf, a local terror group with active links to the Al Qaida network, was behind the kidnapping of Bossi and the beheading of the soldiers.
Monitoring team
The Abu Sayyaf members were at the MILF-controlled territory when the clash between government soldiers and MILF fighters occurred, the source said.
An international monitoring team led by Malaysia has been based in the southern Philippines to observe the implementation of the ceasefire agreement signed by the Philippine government and the MILF in 2003, the third sine they started peace talks in 1997.
- With inputs from Ulyssis Israel, Correspondent
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