Joint probe on Basilan clash ?gets green light

Saturday, Nov 05, 2011

Gulf News

Manila The Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has agreed to allow an international monitoring team to investigate the killing of 19 government soldiers in Basilan province last October 18, sources told Gulf News.

According to MILF spokesman Von Al Haq, government and the MILF negotiators, who met in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, has given the green light to the joint ceasefire committee, which includes members of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team, to investigate the October 18 clash in Al Barka town which resulted in the death of 19 government soldiers.

Fugitive MILF commander Dan Laksaw Asnawi and his followers clashed with government soldiers who were sent out to serve an arrest warrant against him in connection with the 2007 killing of 23 soldiers in the same town.

Al Haq said MILF representatives insisted that Asnawi was not responsible for the 2007 incident, citing a Ceasefire Watch report that said that both sides violated the truce agreement.

The report allegedly said that it was the Abu Sayyaf bandits and not Asnawi’s forces who mutilated the bodies of 14 of the 23 dead Marines. He said Asnawi’s forces immediately withdrew after the clash. MILF leaders have said they would not surrender Asnawi to the government.

Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin on Thursday vowed to capture Asnawi.

“In coordination with the police, we will get him. We have to serve the warrant in coordination with the police,” Gazmin was quoted by Philippine Star as saying.

Ceasefire mechanism

Gazmin said the military would see to it that the ceasefire mechanism would be respected.

General Eduardo Oban, the military chief-of-staff, said government forces in Basilan have been in place.

By Barbara Mae Dacanay?Bureau Chief