NPA responsible for atrocities against the Lumads – Cabinet official

From GMA News (Oct 21): NPA responsible for atrocities against the Lumads – Cabinet official

A Cabinet official said on Tuesday that it was the New People's Army (NPA) that was responsible for the Lumad killings in Surigao del Sur, given that the NPA would rather extort money directly from  mining companies rather than share profits with the indigenous peoples (IP).

"It was the IP communities, the IP tribes, who were negotiating with the mining companies. But that didn’t sit well with the NPA,” explained Cabinet Cluster on Security, Justice and Peace Executive Director Undersecretary Emmanuel Bautista during a press briefing at the Malacañang. “They (the NPA) want themselves to be negotiating with the mining companies. So who is trying to get control of those ancestral domains and the mining area?"

Responding to accusations that the mining companies were using paramilitaries to harass and drive out the Lumads from their ancestral domain, Baustista countered, “You have heard about the issue on the control of the mining areas and the agreement between the CPP-NPA [Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army] and the local Lumad tribes there on who would to negotiate with the mining companies? We’re talking about the Malanday Agreement."

According to the Philippine Armed Forces' Civil Relations Service, the CPP-NPA-NDF [National Democratic Front] in 1994 met tribal leaders in the area  to propose that the NPA and the Lumads share the revenue coming form mining and logging operations, and agricultural plantations in the IP communities. The meeting resulted in the "Magdel-ay Agreement", which opened both parties to economic opportunities.

However, the CPP-NPA-NDF canceled the agreement ten years later and presented instead the "Malanday Agreement", which “cancelled all agreements contained in 'Magdel-ay agreement.'”

The AFP said that the communist leaders had realized that if the Lumads benefited from the economic activities, they would eventually no longer be interested in the communist group's revolutionary ends.

Because of the Malanday Agreement, some Lumad leaders decided to sever ties with the communist rebels. The NPA has since been attacking the Lumads that were against the said agreement, AFP claimed.

However, the Philippine military is being held responsible for a string of atrocities against the Lumads. The AFP has denied this, and instead blamed the atrocities on the a tribal conflict between groups affiliated with the NPA and an anti-communist paramilitary group.

But Surigao del Sur Gov. Johnny Pimentel was not convinced, and accused the AFP of coddling the paramilitary group. “If [the paramilitaries were] not supported by the Armed Forces, then why can we not apprehend or arrest these people?" Pimentel asked during a Senate hearing.

But Baustista insisted that government forces were not responsible for the violence. "Government is there to maintain peace and order, to uphold the rule of law, and that is the reason why government is there to protect the people and not for any other reason," he said. 

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/541384/news/nation/npa-responsible-for-atrocities-against-the-lumads-cabinet-official