July 11, 2000, The Philippine Star, Gov't to pursue peace with MILF, by Marichu Villanueva and Aurea Calica,

July 11, 2000, The Philippine Star, Gov't to pursue peace with MILF, by Marichu Villanueva and Aurea Calica,

The government will continue to tread the path to peace with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) even if the military has just captured the separatist rebels' main camp.

Press Undersecretary Mike Toledo told a press briefing at Malacañang that the government will still offer a "meaningful autonomy" to the rebels, with peace talks expected to resume on July 29.

"The bottom line, of course, is the peace process with the MILF will continue," he said. Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo Siazon Jr. gave a similar assurance.

In Maguindanao, President Estrada and key defense and military officials raised the Philippine flag over Camp Abubakar, the last bastion of the MILF which was overran by the military on Sunday.

"We have won the war," the President announced in Manila after visiting Camp Abubakar. "This may herald the reign of peace in the country."

For his part, Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado said "this long and useless war is finally over."

"After much blood had been spilled, thousands of families dislocated, and a lot of socio-economic opportunities squandered, we have finally come to this phase of rehabilitating this war-torn region," he said.

Siazon said the path to peace was what the Cabinet Cluster E on national security, which he heads, had decided following the government's victory against the rebels.

He said the peace talks were an apparent guarantee against possible sanctions from the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which earlier called for a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Toledo said chief government negotiator retired Gen. Edgardo Batenga had told the Cabinet cluster that his July 29 meeting with MILF representatives has not been rescheduled, so far.

"We don't know if this will change considering Camp Abubakar has fallen. But as it is now, that date is still in their calendars ... Hopefully, before that or on that date, an interim agreement can be entered into and eventually a final peace agreement can be ratified by both parties," Toledo said.

He said the fall of Camp Abubakar would hopefully speed up the peace process. A jubilant Mr. Estrada commended the military commanders and soldiers involved in the several days of fighting to capture Abubakar and brought a truckload of food and beer.

"You are what we call new heroes of the country. We cannot forget what you did this day," he said as heavily armed soldiers, backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers, guarded the site.

The elite Presidential Security Group had dissuaded Mr. Estrada from going to Camp Abubakar as government troops flushed out rebels still hiding in the camp's fringes.

But the Commander-in-Chief insisted that he visit his troops.

As a compromise, Mr. Estrada was advised to wait at the Awang Airport in Cotabato City until the military had secured Abubakar.

A convoy of 50 vans, Army trucks and armored personnel carriers brought Mr. Estrada to the heart of Camp Abubakar for the flag-raising ceremony. Soldiers, some with paper Philippine flags inserted in the barrels of their rifles, lined the road, where a few bodies of guerrillas still lay.

MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said fighting was still raging inside the 10,000-hectare camp, but the military provided documentary evidence that key portions of the camp had fallen.

Kabalu said MILF fighters had destroyed five government armored personnel carriers and "we are still fighting, we are still defending."

"It is not the end of the world. It does not really affect us, we are not fighting for territory, we are fighting for a cause," he said.

"Even if they capture all of Camp Abubakar, that is okay with us, that is just a structure. This will not affect the cause we are fighting for the entire Mindanao island and the Moro people."

The President was able to visit the house of MILF military chief Al Haj Murad, who was last seen by his comrades on May 4, or just before fighter planes dropped their bombs on the camp.

From there, Mr. Estrada went to the Philippine National Police's Camp S.K. Pendatun, passing through the Secretary Narciso Ramos Highway, which the rebels had held for a couple of months until the military cleared it.

Military faced little resistance

The President said the military faced little resistance in seizing facilities at the 10,000-hectare camp, despite the MILF's earlier statement that they would defend their headquarters at all cost.

The military attributed the light resistance to the mass abandonment of the camp by MILF fighters.

"We thought they would defend this camp to their death as what their spokesman had repeatedly announced," said Maj. Gen. Roy Kiamko, assistant division commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division. 

At least 30 rebels and eight soldiers were killed in the battle to take Abubakar.

Maj. Gen. Orlando Buenaventura, commander of the 3rd Marine Brigade, said the rebels who had tried to defend the camp could have been shocked by the rapid deployment of troops as well as the accuracy of the artillery and air attacks. "They did not expect this kind of onslaught," he said.

"Inside their training grounds alone, we have fired 300 rounds from 105 howitzer cannons. That was done with precision," he said.

Most buildings were scarred by gunshots or bomb blasts. Fallen tress lay in many places, surrounded by craters dug by bombs dropped by military aircraft. Government troops deliberately spared mosques and houses, said Maj. Gen. Gregorio Camiling, commander of the Army's 6th Infantry Division.

The accuracy in the military's artillery and air attacks could be attributed to the information provided by rebels, who defected.

Abdullah Sinonggon, 27, a wounded guerrilla who was recovered by the Marines near the rebel training camp, said he and his comrades were surprised by the precision in which the military launched its artillery fire.

"This is the reason why my comrades retreated," said Sinonggon, who is now recuperating in a military hospital.

Maj. Medardo Geslani, commander of the Army's 57th Infantry Battalion who led the offensive on the western portion of the camp, said soldiers had tried to save voluminous documents inside the rebels' headquarters, which the MILF deliberately set on fire.

Mercado said "it is very clear" that the military had overrun key military and other installations inside Camp Abubakar and "this reflected a significant achievement of the Armed Forces."

Among the structures seized was an armory with large amounts of arms and ammunition, including five caliber .50 machineguns, 200 rounds of ammunition for 81 mm. and 60 mm. mortar, a ton of ammonium nitrate and an accessory for a surface-to-air missile.

Mr. Estrada last week gave the go-ahead to the military to capture the camp after the MILF failed to accept his June 30 deadline for a peace agreement, including autonomy.

Government troops had earlier captured about 50 satellite camps and training bases of the MILF, which has constantly refused to give up its fight for an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.

Local military spokesman Maj. Julieto Ando said the military had seized the MILF's weapons arsenal and was establishing defenses inside the camp and searching for land mines and booby traps.

Witnesses said scattered gunfire could still be heard a few kilometers from the heart of Camp Abubakar, in a thickly forested area.

Abubakar's fall came after almost four months of ceaseless air and artillery raids against MILF strong-holds across Mindanao.

Military victory will not solve problems Critics said that military attacks on the MILF will not solve the basic problems, such as poverty and prejudice, that triggered the Muslim rebellion. Senate Minority Leader Teofisto Guingona said the fall of Camp Abubakar does not indicate victory for the government.

Guingona, who is one of the only three senators from Mindanao, said the victory could be achieved only through formal talks.

He said that there can be no military solution to a war that is rooted in political and cultural differences.

"If the problem is political, then only a political solution would work, not a military one," he said.

He warned that the fall of Abubakar would signal not the end of the war but the beginning of a guerrilla warfare.

Already, exiled communist leader Jose Ma. Sison called on the MILF to get even with the government by attacking key installations and foreign establishments.

In a statement, Sison said the MILF can "reduce the Armed Forces ... by attacking and destroying electric power grids, oil depots, communication towers ... transport lines and operations of foreign monopoly and big comprador firms." Rep. Ernesto Herrera (Lakas, Bohol) said the conquest of Abubakar "represents no more than a tactical victory that serves, more than anything else, to boost the morale of government troops that suffered heavy casualties in the last two months."

Herrera warned the government against deluding itself that the MILF had been defeated. "The MILF is in the advanced stage of attrition," he said. "The way we see it, they are basically still engaged in guerrilla warfare, which calls for them to withdraw and disperse when they are under heavy attack."

He noted that the MILF, just like the communist New People's Army, is not engaged in positional warfare, thus it tends to avoid head-on clashes with large military formations.

"This is exactly the reason why they chose to give up Abubakar and their other camps with little or no resistance. If they showed signs of resistance, these were meant primarily to wear down troops," he said.

For his part, Rep. Joker Arroyo (LAMP, Makati) said the capture of Abubakar "does not spell victory for the government."

"If the idea is just to capture Abubakar to gain territory, then it doesn't achieve anything because you have captured a territory but you could have not destroyed MILF forces," he said.

The opposition Lakas-NUCD party said Abubakar's fall is not the end of the war. "Abubakar has fallen. We must congratulate the sagacity and courage of our soldiers ... But the real challenge is not in the battlefront but in the political arena of reconciliation," said Isabela Rep. Heherson Alvarez, who is secretary general of Lakas.

Marine officer gives blood to MILF rebel A badly wounded Muslim rebel got a new lease on life when a Marine general donated his own blood for the guerrilla.

MILF rebel Mimantal Sihayon, who had gunshot wounds in the chest and leg, was gasping for breath when he was found by Marine Brig. Gen. Manuel Teodisio inside Camp Abubakar.

Teodisio, commander of the 1st Marine Brigade, was among the first group of soldiers who stormed the camp.

When he found Sihayon still breathing, the Marine general ordered his men to bring the wounded to a military hospital.

There, military doctors stopped blood from oozing out of the rebel's chest and legs. But so much blood had been lost from Sihayon that doctors ordered a transfusion.

And since the Marine officer was the only soldier who had a similar blood type with that of the rebel, Teodisio immediately volunteered to donate his own blood.

The rebel said he was not a regular fighter of the MILF, and that he went to Camp Abubakar just to study Arabic. He said he was just forced by the rebels to join the armed group.

Brig. Gen. Proceso Torrelavega, deputy commander of the AFP Southern Command, said Sihayon is from Pikit, North Cotabato who was ordered by his superiors to reinforce their comrades in Camp Abubakar.

Meanwhile, at least 17 MILF rebels were wounded when the military stormed the guerrillas' Camp Salajuddin II in Tarragona, Davao Oriental. -- With Paolo Romero, John Unson, Lino dela Cruz, Sandy Araneta, Rey Arquiza, Efren Danao, Liberty Dones, Cecille Suerte Felipe, Sheila Crisostomo, Edith Regalado, wire reports