Negros attack a 'legitimate' NPA operation - NDF

From InterAksyon (Feb 8): Negros attack a 'legitimate' NPA operation - NDF

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines said the recent New People's Army operation in La Castellana, Negros Occidental that killed nine people was directed at a "legitimate target" -- armed policemen and village auxiliaries.

The rebels have come under fire for the deaths of civilians in the incident and accusations that wounded victims were finished off with headshots.

But Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the NDF peace negotiating panel and a member of the rebel organization’s National Executive Committee, denied the allegations that the wounded were executed.

Jalandoni, a native of Negros Occidental, said the rebels involved in the January 27 incident were able to seize two M16 rifles and a submachine gun from the policemen and members of the Barangay Peacekeeping Action Team onboard a truck they waylaid.

Authorities said the police and BPAT personnel were taking the truck back to their base after securing a village fiesta when civilians asked to hitch a ride.

Among the civilian fatalities was the wife of a BPAT member who reportedly shielded her husband with her body when the rebels were about to kill him.

Jalandoni said the NPA unit had only planned to disarm the policemen and BPAT members but were fired on first, countering police and military claims the victims never got the chance to fire. He also said the BPAT are not “civilians” as authorities claim but “paramilitaries.”

"The objective of the New People's Army unit concerned was to make a checkpoint. It fired a warning shot because the truck did not stop,” he said. “Then, the police and paramilitary personnel fired at the NPA unit in heavy volume. Thus, the NPA fired back."

The rules on organizing village peacekeeping auxiliaries have constantly changed through the years.
During then President Corazon Aquino’s “Total War” against the communists, she gave her blessings to the “Alsa Masa,” a vigilante organization, as well as the use by the military of armed religious cults based in the countryside.

While civilian volunteers are understood to be unarmed, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo authorized the recruitment of armed village auxiliaries to act as “force multipliers” of the police and military. And in some areas of the country, politicians and other power holders are known to arm civilian volunteers and use them as their private armies.

"GPH (Government of the Philippines) and its military and police officials are the ones culpable for war crimes for issuing high-powered rifles and other firearms to paramilitaries and allowing the police and paramilitaries to commandeer and hostage civilians,” Jalandoni said. “The GPH should admit its crimes, apologize and compensate the civilians."

Earlier, the NPA's Leonardo Panaligan Command, to which the rebels involved in the incident belonged, apologized for the civilian casualties and offered assistance to the victims and their families.

It also admitted that the unit involved had violated both the NPA’s rules and the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Laws between the rebels and government.
The rebel command also promised to sanction the NPA unit and its commander.

Earlier this week, acting Negros Occidental police director, Senior Superintendent Celestino Guara said he had been informed by representatives of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process that President Benigno Aquino III had ordered the filing of charges against the rebels for violating international humanitarian law.

But Jalandoni accused both the administration and the OPAPP for "destroying the peace negotiations for making false charges of war crimes and for acting like robots of the fascist elements in the military and police."

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/54594/negros-attack-a-legitimate-npa-operation---ndf