Rebels Vow More Attacks In Mindanao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / July 25, 2008) – Philippine communist rebels on Friday vowed to launch more attacks against government and military targets in Mindanao even as thousands of troops were sent to the strife-torn region, south of the country, to fight insurgency.

The New People’s Army said the deployment of military forces in Mindanao will give the rebels opportunities to carry out more “telling tactical offensives.”

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said the deployment of more troops in the southern region was in response to growing NPA attacks in the provinces.

Marco Valbuena, a rebel spokesman, said the NPA forces have launched hundreds of successful tactical offensives since last year. The more recent, he said, was the raid on a drilling site of the Sagittarius Mines in Davao del Sur’s Kiblawan town on July 19 where rebels carted away a dozen firearms from the firm’s arsenal.

But police and military also blamed communist rebels for the killing of a government militia in a landmine attack Thursday that also wounded three others in Makilala town in North Cotabato province where NPA gunmen raided a banana plantation owned by Dole Philippines.

Valbuena said the deployment of additional troops will not affect rebel offensives in Mindanao. “The deployment of troops will in no way hinder the advance of the armed revolutionary movement. On the contrary, by pouring in more fascist troops and brutalizing more and more people in its campaigns of suppression, the AFP succeeds only in teaching the people the need to wage armed revolutionary struggle against the reactionary regime,” he said.

“The redeployment of AFP troops allows the armed revolutionary forces in other guerrilla fronts greater leeway to step up their revolutionary work and continue tactical offensives against small and isolated enemy units.”

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro said the government operations against the NPA are ongoing, despite a proposal by AFP chief Alexander Yano to forge an “indefinite cease-fire” with rebels to pave way for the resumption of suspended peace talks with communist leaders.

Rigoberto Sanchez, another rebel spokesman, downplayed the presence of huge government forces in Mindanao, saying, it is no much to the guerrilla warfare the NPA is campaigning in the south.

“A display of superior armament and troop strength by the AFP is inconsequential to the New People's Army. While tanks and artillery are important weapons in conventional war, they hardly play a significant role against a mass-based army waging guerrilla warfare.”

“For one, the NPA at the current stage of the people's war is basically a mobile politico-military army. Thus, the AFP has no fixed military target to attack. The rugged mountainous terrain of the guerrilla bases and zones render these tanks and artillery nearly useless,” Sanchez said.

He said what the AFP is doing is to “shock and terrorize” civilians caught in the middle of the government’s campaign against the NPA. “Except for bombing purposes, which hit no particular NPA target but rather only pose clear danger to the lives and livelihood of the civilian population, AFP artillery is no match to the superiority of guerrilla warfare,” he said.

The NPA has been fighting the government the past four decades for the establishment of a Maoist state in the country. Rebel leaders broke off peace talk with the Arroyo government in 2004 after accusing Manila of reneging on its commitments to free all political prisoners and to put a stop to political killings, among others.

The United States and the European Union listed the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA, including its political arm, the National Democratic Front, as foreign terrorist organizations on Manila's prodding. (Mindanao Examiner)