Muslim separatist rebels attacked a village in the southern Philippines, killing a pro-government militiaman and triggering heavy military reprisals, officials said yesterday.
Some 100 members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) raided the village of Rangaban in Midsayap town on Mindanao island and robbed farmers of their livestock and harvest, the military said.
They also killed a militiaman deputized by the military and hurt another, forcing hundreds of civilians to evacuate and troops to retaliate with artillery and air strikes, regional army spokesman Colonel Julieto Ando said.
Sporadic clashes were continuing early yesterday in several villages, and government and MILF negotiators were working to prevent a further escalation of violence that could affect peace talks.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo's adviser on the peace process, Jesus Dureza, said the "situation has started to normalize" with social workers and disaster relief agencies alerted to the evacuations.
"The unfortunate incident in Midsayap is now being handled by the joint ceasefire committee of the government and MILF," Dureza said.
"We are now moving to assist the evacuees," Dureza said, adding that he would personally visit the area as soon as possible.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu denied that the MILF had started the fighting, and accused government forces of touching off the conflict by encroaching on villages occupied by rebel units and their families.
"But we are working on preventing the clashes from escalating," Kabalu said by phone from his base in Mindanao.
"Our ceasefire mechanism is being put to the test," Dureza said.
The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a separatist rebellion in Mindanao since 1978. It however signed a truce with Manila in 1993 and denounced all links to foreign terrorist groups to pave the way for formal peace talks.
Negotiations have been repeatedly bogged down by MILF demands for economic control of areas they claim as their "ancestral domain."
The Midsayap incident came just days after the presidential palace said that a final agreement with the MILF could be reached within the year.
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