June 19, 2018
Kahugpungan sa Lumadnong Oraganisasyon sa Caraga (Kasalo-Caraga) strongly condemn the escalating persecution and dislocation of Lumad and peasant communities. These communities are attacked, yet again, by the criminal and mercenary 29th IBPA of the Armed Forces of the Philippines operating in Sitio Zapanta Valley, Brgy. Bangayan, Kitcharao, Agusan del Norte. The repression and harassment of innocent civilians in communities, accusing them of being NPA and forcing them to surrender are intensifying. Fearing death, driven to surrender under threat of being arrested and jailed by soldiers, Lumad and farmers are forced to leave their communities to escape such tyranny.
Last June 6, 2018 not less than a hundred soldiers belonging to the 29th IBPA arrived in Sitio Zapanta Valley and stayed in the houses with residents. While soldiers lived with civilians, they continued interrogating and pressuring them to admit to being supporters of the NPA. In the evening of June 7, an encounter between soldiers and those believed to be NPA, ensued. It was the start of a series of encounters in the mountain areas and an increase of soldiers deployed in the community as part of active combat operations in Zapanta.
June 12, 2018 at around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, 122 Lumad-Mamanwa and peasant families with 542 individuals, including children, the elderly, pregnant women and those with infants were forced to evacuate as they were restricted from going to their farms and bringing food to their community. They then walked to safety for 9 kilometers from Sitio Zapanta to the barangay hall in Brgy. Bangayan. While they were in the evacuation center to get respite from fear and trauma, they were followed by not less than 20 armed members of the 29th IBPA who treated them like prisoners, their movements inside the evacuation controlled and guarded.
June 14, 2018 at around 10 o’clock in the morning, several members of a church people organization, farmers and Lumad visited and delivered food relief to the evacuees. They were prevented from directly distributing the food relief that they brought and to give comfort to the evacuees, and were told that only the government have the right to give relief goods to the evacuees. This is a lie! While the relief team wrote their names in the military logbook at the barangay office, their pictures were taken by a soldier in civilian clothes who introduced himself as Sgt. Acosta. This is a clear attempt to intimidate and drive away those delivering assistance. The soldiers are utterly cruel in depriving evacuees of food and even the opportunity to express their sentiments and fears! The suffering and starvation of evacuees are too much!
Last June 17 at around 8:30 in the morning, soldiers took the evacuees in a dumptruck from Bangayan and brought them to Little Baguio, Brgy. San Roque in Kitcharao, where, according to the soldiers, a community assembly of the evacuees will be held. This is another tactic of the AFP to make the evacuees surrender and force them to declare to being NPA. The same thing happened to the Lumad Mamanwa and farmers in Purok 3 and 4, Brgy. Mahaba, Cabadbaran City last June 15, 2018. Not less than 70 families were forced to surrender and declare that they were active supporters of the NPA. They were forced to pledge allegiance in front of the 29th IBPA. It is very clear and obvious that they were innocent civilians, not NPA combatants and thus, there was no cause for them to surrender.
This is what Martial Law in Mindanao have been carrying out – attacking communities, persecuting, terrorizing and forcing ordinary civilians from living and defending their lands which has been sold to big business for the construction of electric plants, crisscrossing it with massive and wide road networks for the transport of products of foreign mines and plantations.
We call on the Duterte government for the GRP to seriously talk peace with the NDFP, to put an end to the growing problems the Filipino people are facing, especially the Lumad, who are victims of militarization. We the Lumad, along with the Filipino people who dream of genuine and lasting peace based on justice, are dismayed with the recent derailment of the peace talks.
Stop attacking Lumad communities!
Resist the fascist US-Duterte regime!
End Martial Law sa Mindanao!
Stop the fake surrender of innocent civilians!
Stop the militarization of Lumad communities!
Defend ancestral lands!
Uphold the right to self-determination!
