Insurgents kill mine worker, take two

DAVAO CITY: Communist insurgents killed a gold mine worker and abducted his two brothers in a raid on a village in the southern Filipino province of Compostela Valley, security officials said on Sunday.

Officials said the New People’s Army insurgents shot and killed Felix Valiente Jr. after he resisted the gunmen late Friday in the village of Calbcab in Maco town. The gunmen also seized his brothers, one of them a former insurgent, who surrendered to the military several years ago.

“In a show of ruthlessness, New People’s Army [NPA] terrorists shot dead a mine worker while two more of the victim’s brothers were abducted in the village. Felix shot dead when he resisted to go with the terrorists while his two brothers identified as Jamil Valiente and Jimboy Valiente were taken at gunpoint,” said Captain Emmanuel Garcia, a spokesman for the 10th Infantry Division.

“Local residents believe that the crime was done in light of the continued refusal of the victims’ other brother to rejoin the NPA. Felix they say have repeatedly rebuked the NPAs in trying to convince his other brother, a rebel returnee known with his nom de guerre as Aying, to rejoin the local terrorists,” Garcia said.

He said the NPA also killed four other people, including a 13-year-old girl, in separate attacks in Davao since earlier this year.

“The NPA publicly admitted carrying out several killings—targeting civilians, soldiers—conducting peace and development projects, unwary policemen and unarmed government militias to include village officials and elders of indigenous communities who oppose the communist influence in Mindanao,” Garcia said.

There was no immediate statement from the NPA about the allegations. The NPA is the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a secessionist war for decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. –AL JACINTO Correspondent, Manila Times