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Military rejects calls for pullout from Lianga, Surigao del Sur

by Alden Pantaleon/MindaNews  
Tuesday, 11 August 2009 00:18

TANDAG, Surigao del Sur (MindaNewas/06 August) -- Lumad evacuees in Surigao del Sur especially the children may not be able to return home soon as the local Army command has refused to heed calls for the military to pull out its forces from the mountainous areas of Lianga town which are suspected to be havens of the New People’s Army (NPA).

An estimated 1,700 members of the Mandaya and Manobo tribes have been displaced since July 18 when the 58th Infantry Battalion launched an operation in Lianga’s Andap Valley.

The operation drove the Lumads to the official residence of Bishop Nereo Odchimar of the Diocese of Tandag (Surigao del Sur), where they have put up a “tent city”. Hundreds of children were reported to have been stricken with sicknesses and that their number was increasing daily owing to lack of food and medicines.

For two weeks now, the evacuees backed by church people have been demanding for a total military pullout from their villages before they would return to their ancestral homes.

The evacuees alleged that military atrocities and bombings forced them to evacuate.

But 401st Brigade commander Col Danilo Fabian and 58th IB commander Lt. Col Benjamin Pedralvez rejected the demand saying they are only obeying orders from "higher command" to continue their operations and presence in the villages.

Fabian said in yesterday's dialogue that their operations are in line with President Arroyo's order to finish off the rebel movement by 2010.

In her state of the nation address in 2006, Arroyo ordered the armed forces to crush the 40-year-old communist-led rebellion by 2010 and announced an additional budget of P2 billion for the purpose.

But Fabian described the villages of Lianga as havens of NPA rebels.

Last year, the rebels in the area reportedly killed 22 Army soldiers.

Also last year, five other soldiers from Manila were killed in a landmine explosion in Lianga.
Provincial administrator Jhonny Pimentel who held another round of "peace dialogue" yesterday at the capitol said he was worried that an epidemic would soon erupt among the children of the evacuees.

GABRIELA partylist Rep. Luz Ilagan who visited the evacuees for two days was also worried over the children's condition.

Ilagan said she would ask the House of Representatives to summon Colonel Fabian and other military officials to a hearing before the House Committee on Human Rights.      (Alden Pantaleon/MindaNews)