MAGUINDANAO, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / September 9, 2008) – Philippine human rights investigators on Tuesday began a probe into the killings of seven civilians during a military air strike in the restive southern region of Mindanao.
Mosib Tan, municipal administrator of Datu Piang town, said members of the Commission on Human Rights are currently investigating the killings of a farming couple and their five children.
“The CHR people are here and have begun their investigations into military air strike that killed innocent civilians. We want justice here and nothing else,” Tan told the Mindanao Examiner.
He said villagers reported that government planes attacked a small civilian boat at the Pawas River in the village of Tee in Datu Piang town on Monday, killing passengers, including a baby and pregnant woman.
The attack on the boat coincided with fresh government offensive against Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels that military claimed fired on a helicopter in the village.
The Philippine military gave conflicting statements about the deaths of civilians and attempted to cover up the killings. Security spokesmen in Mindanao and Manila also issued conflicting statements, saying, those killed were either rebels or civilians killed in the cross-fire.
The military launched offensive during Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month and blamed the MILF for the fighting. It said rebel forces attacked government aircrafts conducting reconnaissance missions in the town.
But Tan said military planes targeted the wooden boat. “They (planes) hit the boat and seven innocent people are dead and that's the report we received,” he said.
A survivor said a Philippine Air Force OV-10 bomber attacked them. “I saw the plane, an OV-10, dropped the bomb,” he said.
Television pictures also showed OV-10 planes targeting supposed MILF positions in the town and ran blurred images of mangled bodies of children hit by the aircraft.
Tan identified those who were killed as Daya Manunggal Mandi and his children Aida, 17; Faiza, 1; Bai Lyn, 10; King, 8; and Dayang, 6 and their mother Vilma, whose body has not been found. He said Jamaludil Mandi, 17, was wounded in the air strike.
Datu Piang Mayor Samir Uy also ordered a separate investigation into the killings of the civilians, he said.
“The Mayor also ordered a separate investigation into this military attack and relatives of those killed are also filing criminal charges against those involved in the attack,” Tan said.
The attack on civilians also drew widespread condemnation from different human rights groups.
The Children’s Rehabilitation Center, a non-government organization helping children in armed conflict cope with trauma, on Tuesday also deplored the military’s aerial attack on civilians.
“Many civilians have already been killed and hundreds of thousands more have been forcibly displaced by the military operations. Every time the government declares war, the civilians are the first to be killed and be displaced rather than be the first to be put to safety,” Maria Esmeralda Macaspac, CRC executive director, said.
The Suarabangsamoro and the Kawagib human rights groups in Mindanao also issued separate statement condemning the killings of civilians.
“We condemn the inhumane actsand indiscriminate aerial bombing by the Armed Forces that killed the innocent civilians. The military should be held accountable for violating human rights and disrespecting the holy month of Ramadan,” said Bai Ali Indayla, Kawagib’s spokesperson.
Amirah Lidasan, of the Suarabangsamoro, said: “There is no justification for the military to attack innocent civilians. The Philippine military must be held responsible for the killings of the civilians.”
Security forces have been pursuing two MILF commanders, Ameril Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar, blamed by the police and military for the series of deadly attacks on civilian villages last month in Mindanao.
Manila demanded the MILF to surrender the two rogue commanders and has suspended the peace talks with the rebel group because of the attacks that left dozens of people dead in North Cotabato, Lanao de Norte, Maguindanao and Sarangani provinces.
The MILF, the country's largest Muslim rebel group, said it would not surrender Kato and Macapaar. The rebels warned that hostilities could erupt in Mindanao if the peace talks fail.
President Gloria Arroyo, which opened peace negotiations with the MILF in 2001, already scrapped the Muslim territorial deal with the rebels and abolished the government team talking peace with the MILF because of the attacks.
Arroyo insisted the rebels to lay down their arms before peace talks could resume, but the MILF flatly rejected this, saying, it should settle first the issue on the ancestral domain deal.
The rebels said it would not return to the negotiating table unless Manila honors it commitment to the accord that would grant about four million Muslims their own homeland in more than 700 villages across the troubled, but mineral-rich region on Mindanao. (Mindanao Examiner)
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