MANILA, PHILIPPINES (AP) – Philippine troops forged a ceasefire with guerrillas after 10 combatants were killed in clashes in a southern village and frantic efforts were made to prevent an escalation that could threaten a major peace accord, military commanders and the rebels said yesterday.
The sporadic clashes erupted on Tuesday and Wednesday in Ulitan village on the island province of Basilan, where emergency talks arranged by government and rebel mediators led to an indefinite ceasefire agreement on Thursday between army forces and rebel commanders.
The clashes left three soldiers dead and 15 others wounded, regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Abdurasad Sirajan said. A former rebel commander, Dan Asnawi, told the Associated Press at least seven insurgents were killed and six others were wounded.
The conflict underscored the fragility of law and order in a southern region faced with a surfeit of loose firearms, private armies, crushing poverty and a long history of violence.
Government and rebel mediators were “able to stop the fighting with a dialogue between both sides”, regional military commander Brigadier General Arturo Rojas said. “It was an unfortunate event since both sides incurred casualties.”
Military and rebel commanders at the scene of the fighting accused each other of violating the 2014 peace agreement, which eased years of bloody and extensive fighting between government forces and the rebel front.
Under the 2014 peace pact, the front dropped its secessionist demand in exchange for a more powerful and better-funded autonomous region called Bangsamoro.
The five-province region, which includes Basilan, is now led by former guerrilla leaders under a transition period ending in 2025.
A military crackdown against an armed extortion group in Basilan in September displaced rebels and their families from Ulitan village, where army officers accused the insurgents of providing sanctuary to the extortionists.
The rebels denied the allegation and returned to their village this week with their firearms, which army officials said violated the peace accord because rebel weapons could only be kept in mutually designated rebel encampments, which did not include Ulitan, a civilian village. The rebels accused some soldiers of looting their homes, an allegation the military denied, and the arguments sparked the clashes.
Under the ceasefire pact, the rebels and their families would be allowed to return to Ulitan village but should restrict their firearms in their homes as they await “decommissioning” – a subtle term for the surrender of their firearms in exchange for livelihood packages – under the peace accord.
A security detachment to be manned by the military, police and the rebels would be established in Ulitan village to keep “lawless elements” out, Rojas said in a statement.
Nearly half of about 40,000 guerrillas agreed to lay down their firearms and return to normal life under the peace pact. Thousands of other rebels have kept their firearms while waiting to be subjected to a years-long “decommissioning process”. The process has been delayed amid complaints that former rebels have failed to receive promised cash and other incentives from the government.
Amid this week’s clashes, Interior Minister of the Bangsamoro autonomous region Naguib Sinarimbo and other officials expressed concern that the violence could escalate and asked the rival sides to stand down.
