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Kawagib Moro Human Rights
Calls for the Release of Basilan Detainees
Cotabato City - The Kawagib Moro Human Rights appeal to the Regional
Trial Court of Pasig City to be fair in deciding the fate of the Free
Basilan73, Moro detainees who were victims of 2001 crackdown in
Basilan, as the kidnapping case against the Abu Sayyaf will have its
final hearing at the sala of a Pasig RTC judge that will be held at the
Camp Bagong Diwa today.
Kawagib has stood for the innocence of Moro detainees who were
illegally arrested, tortured and detained as a consequence of a
intensive military crackdown conducted by the Philippine Army in July
13-15, 2001 in different areas in Basilan.
The crackdown was the response of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
against the rising Abu Sayyaf kidnapping, while the case filed against
Free Basilan 73 was that of the kidnapping of a Claretian priest,
teachers and students in Tumahubong, Sumisip in Basilan in 2000.
Bai Ali Indayla, spokesperson of Kawagib Moro Human Rights, believes
that it is the Arroyo government who has to be held accountable for the
reported human rights violations against those who were arrested during
the crackdown, and as a proof that most of those arrested were innocent
was the release of more than 16 Basilan detainees in year 2003 for lack
of evidence.
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Indayla believes that Atty
Pura Calleja, the lead counsel of the Free
Basilan73, has presented all evidence that will vouch for the innocence
of her clients hence she has freed some of them in 2003. Indayla
hopes, that the rest will be freed next month as the Pasig RTC judge
presiding the case will issue the final verdict on the accused.
Indayla believes that justice has long been overdue to the victims of
crackdown. In 2005 more than 11 of them died in an overkill operation
lead by then DILG chief Angelo Reyes that aimed to quell the uprising
of some Abu Sayyaf members inside Camp Bagong Diwa. And throughout the
seven years, six of them have already died because of sickness.
Indayla also prays that the Pasig RTC decision in August will be timely
for the Muslim observance of fasting during the month of Ramadhan, and
that their release is a gift that for the first time in seven years of
incarceration, the Free Basilan73 will observe fasting as free men.#
Reference: Bai Ali Indayla
KAWAGIB Spokesperson
#23 Oblates Drive, Rosary Heights 6
Cotabato City
Telefax (064) 4215860; email: kawagib@yahoo.com
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Moro group calls for investigation on the plight of
deportees from
Malaysia |
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Kawagib Moro Human Rights held
a forum on July 14, 2008 calling for the release of Free Basilan73, Moro
detainees who were victims of human rights violations due to a military
crackdown in 2001 and who were incarcerated for seven years at the Camp
Bagong Diwa. The forum was attended by former Moro detainees and speakers
such as former Bayan Muna representative Joel Virador, Kawagib
spokesperson Bai Ali Indayla and ARMM-Regional Legislative counsel Atty.
Bai Israhayda Sinsuat.
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Moro group says GMA should
not railroad peace, BJE should not be up for sale
Cotabato City - Suara Bangsamoro calls for Philippine President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo not to railroad the peace negotiation her government has
with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front by offering a peace package that
does not reflect the "aspirations of the Bangsamoro people," a phrase
agreed upon by the two peace panel in an executive meeting held in Kuala
Lumpur last July 16.
According to Amirah Ali Lidasan, national president of Suara Bangsamoro,
said that there will be no meaningful peace with the Moro people if the
Bangsamoro's right to self-determination will be compromised in the peace
package, especially the right of the Moro people to govern their ancestral
domain.
According to Lidasan, the issue about the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity
should not just be about the numbers of the villages to be included under
the Moro people's ancestral domain, but more so with the vulnerability of
the Moro communities to be piled with the rest of the communities being
sold wholesale by the Arroyo government big foreign businesses.
Lidasan fears that the Arroyo administration is bent on settling with the
MILF in its bid to fast track the wholesale selling of remaining
unexplored and unexploited natural resources found within the Moro
communities.
Lidasan believes that the government contracts with Exxon Mobil for
exploration in the oil-rich Sulu Sea is just a start and soon the natural
gas-filled Liguasan Marsh will be swarming with foreign companies as well.
Lidasan fear that as these resources are up for bidding, more and more
military operations and overwhelming presence of Filipino troops and US
soldiers in the area will force many Moro people to evacuate their
communities.
Lidasan said that in the past, most of the all-out wars against the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front in mainland Mindanao and pursuit operations
against Abu Sayyaf under the pretext of anti-terror policy of the Arroyo
administration have forced hundreds of Moro people to evacuate their
ancestral domain, and not all of them were able to go back in fear of
military reprisal and because government troops have set up detachments in
their communities.
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"The real aspirations of the
Bangsamoro people are that their land will be free from foreign plunder -
where they will not be forced out of their lands to accommodate foreign
businesses and plantations," said Lidasan adding that her organization
also hopes that Moro farmers who were displaced can go back to their
communities and will benefit from the ancestral domain if a genuine land
reform will be implemented in the Bangsamoro areas.
Lidasan also hopes that her organizations hopes that the Moro, Christian
and Indigenous people will finally resolve the issue of ancestral domain
in the confines of their community ways and laws, without the intervention
of the Philippine government that in the past has been instrumental for
fanning local conflicts.
Lidasan further said that the Moro people will be stripped of their rights
to govern the ancestral domain if the signed peace agreement is a repeat
of the 1996 Peace Agreement between the GRP and the Moro National
Liberation Front, where the latter was confined to rule the Bangsamoro
areas under the constitutionally agreed autonomy for the Moro People, the
Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, and was stripped of their rights to
control the natural resources found in the Moro communities.
"President Arroyo has shown no remorse for her administration's record of
highest number of activists, Filipino and Moro people killed under her
watch in her bid to quell critics, dissent and in her implementation of
the anti-terror policy and she has shown no mercy to the thousands of
Filipino farmers and indigenous people who were forced out of their land
to make way for foreign-owned plantations and mining areas," said Lidasan.
"We believe that any peace agreement signed under the Arroyo
administration will only spell further bloodshed and hardship for the Moro
people because President Arroyo has not changed its anti-terror policy and
a pro-foreign economic policy. The two have a big bearing on the outcome
on the peace settlement and the future of the Bangsmoro people," said
Lidasan.#
Reference:
Amirah Ali Lidasan
National President, Suara Bangsamoro
Mobile No.: 0919.6603839; email: suarabm@yahoo.com
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