HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

AFP Operations Stepped Up in Mines-Rich Abra

Intense militarization is ongoing and human rights violations are mounting in minerals-rich Abra indicating, so say cause-oriented groups and rights watchdogs, that military operations are linked to the anticipated large-scale mining in the region.

By Abigail Taguba Bengwayan
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat

Baguio city – Forest- and mineral-rich Abra province in northern Philippines is attracting mining exploration investors today, a few months after the Supreme Court reversed its own ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Mining Act of 1995. But intense militarization is ongoing and human rights violations are mounting indicating, so say cause-oriented groups and rights watchdogs based in this city, that military operations are linked to the anticipated large-scale mining in the region.

Windel Bolinget, secretary general of the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA), last week said that cases of harassment and intimidation by the 41^st Infantry Battalion continue to pile up in Bangilo, Malibcong, Abra. Bangilo is also the site for this year’s 21^st Cordillera Day commemoration.

In an interview, Bolinget said military operations have intensified in Abra since March 22, with soldiers sowing fear among local residents. Government forces have been combing the province’s uplands supposedly for New People’s Army (NPA) guerrillas who have been operating there since the 1970s.

Bolinget said that the 41^st IB’s claims undergoing “clearing operations” in Abra communities have resulted in the increase of human rights violations. On March 26, he said, soldiers brought five farmers purportedly for interrogation from Lacub town to Camp Villamor in Bangued, the provincial capital. As of press time, one of them still remains in detention.

Lacub

In a dialogue with officers of the 41^st IB on April 2 in Barangay (village) Buanao in Bangilo, Bolinget said, 2^nd Lt. Juju Tovillo admitted he led the operations on March 26, including the March 23 operations where three Lacub locals were indiscriminately fired at. Later, the peasants were reportedly forced to sign a document stating that they were not wounded during the incident.

The CPA secretary general also said that in the early morning of April 1 about 21 soldiers with firearms cocked surrounded the house of a villager in Buanao in the early morning of April 1. The soldiers were reportedly under the command of a certain 1^st Lt. De Mesa (first name unknown as of press time). Emerging from a nearby forest on that day, the soldiers appeared to be taking the community under siege, Bolinget said.

The series of events continue to sow terror among the communities, he said. Army officers refused to reveal their identities until they were pressured during the dialogue, he added.

“It is clear that while the 41^st IB insists that the incidents were part of the military’s clearing operations, the real intent of their actions is to sow terror among the Abra folk and disrupt the preparations of the upcoming Cordillera Day,” Bolinget added.

Cordillera martyrs

The annual event commemorates Cordillera martyrs and the people’s struggles for the defense of land and life. This year’s theme is “Fight Destructive Mining and Intensified Militarization.”

Bolinget said however that militarization has become a part of large-scale mining to keep the operations going and to quell opposition that may arise from affected communities.

Abra has 13 Exploration Permit Applications (EPA), five Mineral Sharing Production Agreements (MPSA), and one Financial and Technical Assistance Agreement (FTAA).   Most of the applications are from foreign companies.

In the Cordillera Mining Conference held last month, the CPA reported that mining giants are increasingly employing the military to protect their operations.

The CPA condemned the 41^st IB for the series of atrocities it allegedly committed. The unit agreed to halt its operations during the Cordillera Day celebrations, Bolinget said. Nordis / Bulatlat

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