Just before 2006 ended, Rahman Camili, a member of our partylist organization Suara Bangsamoro, was abducted by armed men in bonnets who stormed his house on Dec. 18 in Madaum, Davao del Norte. His wife saw the masked men shot him in the leg and stomach and forcibly took him inside a white van. Camili is missing up to this day.
Had he not been shot, it would have been easy for military and police officers to parade Camili as the one responsible for the blast. However, Camili’s family feels that he is probably dead and would be of no use to the anti-terror parade. His wife has not seen him after a month of searching in different military and police detachments and brigades where they suspect that the armed men in bonnets would have taken him.
According to the Kawagib Human Rights Group, the MILF ceasefire committee complained of a number of their members being abducted, others arrested and detained, blamed for the bombings in Mindanao.
Arrested since October last year were Suaib Idris of Zamboanga del Norte, Cader Malaydan of Compostela Valley, Ustadz Habib Darupo of Davao Oriental, Mohammad Timpoloc, Dats Ulangkaya and Totong DAnnas of Zamboanga del Sur. This year, a certain Surab Anok was reportedly arrested and two more whose names Kawagib was not able to document.
Why is it that it is very easy for the government to lay the blame on the MILF and the Moro people whenever a bomb goes off in the country? As my father would say, we are the favorite whipping boys of the Philippine government.
I remember in 2001, there was a display of a cat-and-mouse play between the AFP and the Abu Sayyaf that resulted in the controversial escape of the Abu Sayyaf in Lamitan. US troops were even called in to train Filipino combatants in Basilan in 2002 to search and destroy the Abu Sayyaf.
It was only when Arroyo ordered an intensive military crackdown in Basilan that the military under the 103rd Brigade chief Hermogenes Esperon produced more than 500 Moro civilians paraded as terrorists. The description of a terrorist included those who fed and were forced to take into their homes the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, Sulu and Zamboanga, never mind if the Moro residents were threatened by the Abu Sayyaf at gunpoint.
Peace Process, Terrorism
