MILF renegades outburst displaces 45,000 — UN report

Recent clashes between the military and the purported Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) breakaway group the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in the sourthern parts of Mindanao had displaced up to 45,000 people, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported yesterday.

UNHCR country head Arjun Jain said nearly half of the displaced were living in poor conditions in makeshift evacuation camps such as schools and madrassas.

“The evacuation sites are crammed and sometimes eight to 10 families are forced to share one room,” Jain said.

He said there were also concerns about safety, referring to reports that rebels had infiltrated the evacuation camps disguised as refugees.

“If the communities will be forced to remain in the camps any longer, we fear that the situation will become even worse for them,” he said.

Members of the BIFF attacked several army detachments in Maguindanao last week, triggering gun battles that left at least five soldiers dead.

The rebels occupied a major highway and sabotaged power lines, before the military forced them back and overran their mountain lair.

Sporadic fighting has continued and aid groups have had trouble getting access into affected areas, officials said.

The BIFF is made up of a few hundred fighters who broke away from the MILF, a 12,000-strong group that has struggled for decades for an independent homeland for the country’s Muslim minority.

The Muslim insurgency has left about 150,000 dead since it began in the early 1970s.

The MILF is now in peace talks and has said it is willing to accept an autonomous homeland in the south that remains part of the Philippines.
The government said last week’s attacks were carried out to derail the peace talks.

The BIFF’s leader, Ameril Umbrakato, is a Saudi Arabian-trained hardliner who led attacks against mostly Christian towns in the south in 2008, leading to the deaths of more than 400 people and displacing 750,000 others.

That attack came after the Supreme Court rejected a proposed deal that would have given the MILF control over large areas in the south they claim as their “ancestral domain”.

Two more BIFF satellite camps have fallen to government hands in a continuing military manhunt, the Army said.

The recovery of two more camps, described by Col. Prudencio Asto, as “satellite camps,” came a day after some 500 government soldiers, aided by paramilitary troops and backed by helicopter gunships and armored personnel carriers, overran a major BIFF camp – Camp Omar – in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao.

“There was no resistance, the rebels were no longer there but we recovered hundreds of empty shells of various caliber, personal belongings and documents about the BIFF organization,” Asto, speaking for the 6th Infantry Division, said.
He said two more satellite camps are up for recovery as government forces were carefully scouring the area for booby traps and improvised bombs.

An Army battalion was deployed in Camp Omar to prevent the guerillas from retaking it.

Asto said the 6th Infantry Division is recommending to the local governments of Maguindanao and four municipal governments to convert the captured camp and its vicinity into an agricultural and economic zone.

“The area is very productive. The soil is very rich and the local government units in three adjoining towns can plant rubber, oil palm or high-value crops there,” Asto said.

Now a lawless group after its members were removed from the ranks of the MILF, the BIFF is the subject of joint manhunt between soldiers and MILF rebels, according to Von Al Haq, MILF spokesman.

Al Haq said under the general agreement on the cessation of hostilities, the MILF and the Army will join forces in tracking down lawless elements, kidnappers, terrorists and lawless groups found hiding or within the vicinity of MILF identified camp.

He said should the military launch offensives against BIFF, the MILF will be willing to reposition its forces to avoid misencounter.

“No BIFF member is hiding in MILF camps, rest assured we will not coddle them,” Haq said in response to reports that some MILF members coddle BIFF forces because they were related by blood.
“We are checking that, but that is impossible,” he added.

When asked where Kato is, Al Haq said as far as the MILF is concerned, he is already gone. –Daily Tribune