DAVAO CITY (Mindanao Examiner / 08 May) – Communist rebels freed a government soldier they seized in the southern Philippines after more than three weeks in captivity, the New People’s Army (NPA) said on Tuesday.
The NPA earlier said it would try the captive, Sgt. Albert Balodoya, of the Philippine Army, for war crimes after he was seized at a rebel checkpoint in the village of Aliwagwag in the town of Cateel in Davao Oriental province.
A rebel spokesman Rigoberto Sanchez, of the NPA Merardo Arce Command, said the soldier was released on humanitarian grounds.
“During his detention, POW S/Sgt. Balodoya's NPA custodial force provided him utmost medical care, security, food and other basic necessities under guerrilla conditions inside the territory of the People's Democratic Government,” Sanchez said in a statement sent to the independent regional newspaper, the Mindanao Examiner.
Police said the soldier was on his way to the town when rebels stopped him at the checkpoint April 16. It said Balodoya may have mistaken the rebels for government soldiers because they were clad in military uniform.
“The arrest and safe and orderly release of POW SSgt. Balodoya amid the massive militarization in the countryside and the ferocious attacks against the masses and civilians only show that the U.S.-Arroyo regime's Oplan Bantay Laya 2 is a clear failure while the New People's Army continues to score political and military victories,” Sanchez said, referring to the government’s anti-insurgency operation.
“The New People's Army has again taken the high political and moral ground as against the pit-level barbarity and brutality of the enemy,” he said.
There were no other details about the soldier's release.
The United States is supporting Manila’s anti-insurgency campaign and tagged the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the NPA and the National Democratic Front, its political group, as foreign terrorist organizations.
The rebels are fighting the government for more than four decades now for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country.
The rebels have previously seized government soldiers and policemen in the countryside and put them on trial on their so-called people’s court.
Those found guilty of war crimes and serious human rights violations are executed, but most of the victims are freed after months of captivity to neutral groups, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross. (Juan Magtanggol)
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