19 Troops Killed In Mindanao, NPA Says

DAVAO CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Oct. 6, 2008) – Communist insurgents on Monday said they had killed at least 19 government soldiers in a series of clashes in the southern Philippines.

At least 20 more soldiers were said to have been wounded by New People's Army insurgents in two weeks of fighting in the provinces of Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental.

"Killed in these series of tactical offensives were 19 troops and at least 20 were also wounded," said Roel Agustin II, a spokesman for the New People's Army in Southern Mindanao.

He said only one NPA fighter was killed in the clashes.

"In the last two weeks of September, the Brigade-size military operations by the composite 36th Infantry Battalion, Division Reconnaissance Company, 67th Infantry Battalion, Scout Rangers Company of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police's 1105th Provincial Mobile Force were hit head-on in the series of tactical offensives by the Red fighters under the Conrado Heredia Command of the Front 20 Operations Command of the New People's Army," Agustin said.

He also belied military reports that many NPA fighters were killed in the government offensives in Mindanao.

Army Maj. Armand Rico, spokesman for the military's Eastern Mindanao Command, previously said the insurgents have suffered many casualties in the clashes in the provinces.

"In the comforts of his air-conditioned Davao City Headquarters, Eastern Mindanao Command's Maj. Armand Rico of the AFP is getting paid handsomely to tell lies and issue public statements for a systematic cover-up."

"Maj. Rico and his higher-ups desperately want to project that the AFP soldiers deployed for the militarization in the Surigao del Sur and Davao Oriental border-mountains is not running berserk and not suffering from low morale due to their numerous battle losses," Agustin said.

Rico branded the NPA statement as mere propaganda. "They are nothing, but lies and propaganda," he said.

The insurgents accused the military of violating the rights of the indigenous people and peasants and of protecting foreign mining companies.

"The massive presence of mercenary AFP troops and its show of superior firepower aim to drive the people away from their farms and homes maim those who actively resist the aggressive incursions of big foreign businesses, and to protect the regime's favored sources of blood money," Agustin said.

Insurgents have previously attacked mining firms in the South and accused them of encroaching into ancestral lands and environment destruction, but authorities said failed extortion was likely behind it.

The NPA is the armed wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines which broke off peace talks with Manila in 2004 after accusing President Gloria Arroyo of reneging on a deal that would have freed all political detainees and end extra-judicial killings of activists in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)