Hundreds flee as MILF, farmers clash in NorthCot

From MindaNews (Jun 17): Hundreds flee as MILF, farmers clash in NorthCot

TULUNAN, North Cotabato - Close to 200 families in two barangays in this town have been displaced after members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and local farmers figured in clashes Sunday for control over a contested area.

Data from the local disaster risk reduction and management office revealed that 168 families from sitios Silang, Malipayon, Saban and Purok 1 in Maybula and sitio Tuburan in New Bunawan have fled to the barangay centers.

Tulunan Mayor Lani Candolada, who was with Governor Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza on Sunday said armed farmers were trying to hold off the MILF fighters in Barko-Barko, a high ground southeast of Malipayon which is being claimed by both groups.

Candolada confirmed the death of an unidentified farmer, and that authorities were verifying the reported discovery of three more dead bodies in Tuburan.

Taliño-Mendoza, who personally checked the situation in Maybula on Sunday, has called on Malacañang and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) to intervene in the conflict.

 

Barko-Barko, previously declared as a free zone, was recently occupied by the MILF. Lately, however, armed local farmers regained position of the area.

Lying in the tri-boundary of North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao provinces, Barko-Barko is now the target of attack by the MILF’s 109 base command, Candolada said.

Taliño-Mendoza said Barko-Barko is supposed to be a free zone but the MILF occupied it first and from there staged attacks against civilians in Malipayon and the defensive position of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

To end the series of harassments, armed civilians in the area were forced to take control of Barko-Barko, she said.

The military and the police cannot directly intervene in the situation due to the ceasefire agreement between the government and the MILF, she noted.

The military in the area is under orders to stay in defensive position, she pointed out.

“Three provinces are involved in this conflict. Surveys were supposed to start in the area as stipulated in the agreement signed between the mayors of Tulunan in North Cotabato, Columbio of Sultan Kudarat and Datu Paglas in Maguindanao”, Taliño-Mendoza said.

The surveys did not happen due to the objections of the other provinces, she said.
She added the OPAPP has been informed of the situation but is yet to act on it.

She said the military should take control of Barko-Barko since there is already an agreement that farmers from North Cotabato and the MILF from the side of Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao provinces should not enter the area.

The governor said the military should be allowed to secure the area so that the surveys and other important activities could be done.

In 2011, the provincial boards of the three provinces, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Agrarian Reform sat in a joint session to agree on measures that would end the conflict in Barko-Barko.

Among the agreed measures was the conduct of actual surveys.

The OPAPP through its Pamana program had allocated P5 million to fund the survey and a technical working group was formed for the activity.

http://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2013/06/17/hundreds-flee-as-milf-farmers-clash-in-northcot/