MILF denies coddling Marwan; report claims SAF breached ceasefire agreement

From InterAksyon (Mar 24): MILF denies coddling Marwan; report claims SAF breached ceasefire agreement

A copy of the 35-page Report on the Mamasapano Incident by the MILF Special Investigative Commission (SIC) was submitted Tuesday by Mohagher Iqbal, Chairman of the MILF peace panel to Senate Committee on Local Government and Urban Development chaired by Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

The same report was also submitted to the Head of Mission of the International Monitoring Team in Cotabato City on March 22, 2015.

The report asserted that the Philippine National Police–Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) violated the Agreement on the General Cessation of Hostilities firmed up on November 14, 1997.

"In the Revised Joint AFP/PNP AHJAG (Ad Hoc Joint Action Group) Operational Guidelines, it is also clear that there should be coordination between the government and the MILF," the report pointed out.

The rebel group said that "except for operations against high priority targets, a list of which shall be provided by the GPH panel to the MILF, the AHJAG shall inform the GPH and MILF CCCH at least 24 hours prior to the conduct of AFP/NP operations in order to allow sufficient time for the evacuation of civilians and to avoid armed confrontation between the GPH and MILF forces."

The MILF underscored that one of the signatories to this protocol, representing the PNP as chief of the national police, was Director-General Alan Madrid Purisima, who in the Senate inquiry had admitted "advising" sacked SAF chief Director Getulio Napeñas, and saying that he himself [Purisima] would take care such coordination.

"As there was no coordination between the government and the MILF through the ADJAG (Ad Hoc Joint Action Group) and CCCH (Coordinating Committee on Cessation of Hostilities), the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BAIF) cannot be faulted for concluding that the PNP-SAF forces that they chanced upon in Sitio Amilil were enemies, especially after they were fired upon, and after two (2) of their men were shot and killed by the PNP-SAF," the MILF indicated in its findings.

MILF said that its Special Investigative Commission found the following "undisputed facts":

The PNP-SAF did not coordinate their entry and operation in Tukanalipao, Mamasapano with the existing coordination mechanisms such as the AHJAG and the CCCH of the peace panels.



The BIAF forces based in Mamasapano were not duly informed of the PNP-SAF operations conducted on January 25, 2015.
The MILF CCCH was the first to inform its counterparts in government of the unfortunate encounter in Mamasapano on the said date.
The MILF CCCH was the first to suggest to their counterparts in government to immediately proceed to the encounter site to find ways of effecting a ceasefire and to disengage the fighting forces.
The MILF also denied mutilating, beheading and willfully killing the SAF men, which was depicted in a video that was circulated in social media and went viral a day after the incident.

"The reports about mutilation, beheading and willful killing are unfounded. The viral video of an armed man shooting at close range a man apparently from the PNP-SAF 55th Special Action Command while the latter was lying down on the ground and already wounded, does not clearly show it was BIAF's 105th Battalion Command that was responsible for this," the report said.

The MILF also denied desecrating dead bodies of SAF men but admitted they moved them in order to get their firearms.

"The members of the BIAF, in the course of fighting and after it had waned, took steps to retrieve the bodies of their fallen comrades and used this opportunity to take war booties when it was apparent that the enemies had already died," the report said.

Meanwhile, the MILF also denied coddling the Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir (nom de guerre Marwan) and his cohort, the bomb maker Ustad Basit Usman, claiming that nobody in the locality knew the subjects were in their community.

"The house in which Marwan was found and killed belonged to Ustadz Baguindali, who died in 2008. The MILF did not know that Marwan and Usman had moved into Barangay Pembalkan, Mamasapano," the MILF report said.
It pointed out that, when Marwan was killed, he was with the group of Basit Usmam in the vicinity where the BIFF and the break-away group of Mohammad Ali Tambako were based.

Marwan's hut is found in Barangay Pembalkan, three kilometers away from Barangay Tukanalipao, the area where the MILF has presence and control.

"Note that the site where the encounter between the BIAF and the 55th Special Action Company took place was not in Pembalkan but about two kilometers away in Sitio Amilil, in Tukanalipao," the report said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/107574/milf-denies-coddling-marwan-report-claims-saf-breached-ceasefire-agreement