NPA launches attacks to avenge death of child in Compostela

From the Business Mirror (Apr 28): NPA launches attacks to avenge death of child in Compostela

THE New People’s Army (NPA) has launched a series of attacks against the military and the police in Compostela Valley (ComVal)to avenge the death of Roque Antivo, an eight-year-old child.

 

Speaking over the weekend, Daniel Ibarra of the ComVal-Davao Gulf Sub-Regional Command of the NPA said the series of punitive actions were launched against the 71st Infantry Battalion of the 10th Infantry “Agila” Division of the Army and the Mabini Police Station.

 

“As the soldiers denied culpability in its appalling attack against Antivo and two other children, the police planted false evidence at the crime scene to cover up the military’s atrocious act,” Ibarra claimed.

 

The communist guerrillas kidnapped a 71IB member, Pfc. Jesus Tomas Jr., 23, at 6 a.m. on April 24 in Barangay Elizalde, Maco, Compostela Valley.

 

He was part of a three-man supply team that was intercepted by the NPA.

 

Tomas is being investigated for his alleged involvement in “counterrevolutionary and anti-people activities,” Ibarra said.

 

“At around the same time, the NPA’s Sub-Regional Command Guerrilla Unit also ambushed the 71st IB’s ‘Charlie’ Company with command-detonated explosive, causing a number of casualties,” he added.

 

Earlier, on April 23, at 7 a.m., a team from the NPA Guerrilla Front 2 hit the Mabini Police Station with a rifle grenade. On duty policemen took cover against the NPA fighters who sped away aboard a motorcycle.

 

“The 10ID-Eastern Mindanao Command and the National Police are bent on obliterating proof of the 71IB’s atrocities. The police declared that other shells were found at the scene where the boys were hit in sitio Kidaraan, Mabini, to push the lie that the Army was in an encounter with the NPA,” Ibarra claimed.

 

“Together with the ComVal police, it coerced the victim’s family to agree to an autopsy—a move to bolster the scripted alibi of the 71IB. The local government of ComVal has become an accomplice, if not guilty of omission, for not lifting a finger on the atrocities of the 71st IB against the civilian communities. While moves were pushed to investigate the families of the military’s victims, there was no
concrete move to ultimately hold the soldiers accountable,” he added.

 

http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/news/nation/12718-npa-launches-attacks-to-avenge-death-of-child-in-compostela