PESANTE-USA WARNS AGAINST BUILD-UP OF ARROYO'S BROWN SHIRTS (tags)
The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante)-USA, a Filipino peasant, human rights and environmental advocacy group based in Los Angeles strongly warned of the US-Arroyo regime scheme of taking advantage of the current troubles in Mindanao to build up its local version of Hitler's Brown Shirts. Pesante is one with the Amnesty International (AI) and many religious groups in the Philippines who are warning the public and the whole world at these vigilante groups which are recycled ILAGAS (known as the Ilonggo landgrabbers Association) who are known anti-Moro vigilante groups before martial law was declared will only aggravate the armed conflict in Mindanao.
Gov’t-MILF clashes go on in Cotabato (tags)
Skirmishes between government security forces and a group of Moro rebels in Libungan town in North Cotabato continued Monday, spilling over into the next town. “The fighting involving soldiers and MILF rebels had been ongoing since Sunday and now it escalated into Pigcawayan. The rebels are led by Commander Umbra Kato. The rebels are harvesting the crops of Christian settlers,” North Cotabato Gov. Jesus Sacdalan said. But Eid Kabalu, MILF’s civil military affairs chief, told the Inquirer that they had not received reports that the fighting had escalated into the neighboring town.