The Philippines said yesterday it had imposed martial law in a southern province to quell a rebellion by the region’s ruling clan accused of being behind the massacre of 57 people.
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo placed Maguindanao Province under military control late on Friday in an effort to contain heavily armed militias belonging to the provincial governor and other members of his Muslim clan, authorities said.
“There’s a rebellion in the area,” Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera told a nationally televised news conference as she outlined the reasons for the imposition of martial law.
“It was practically an overthrow of government.”
Martial law was also implemented to make it easier to bring members of the powerful Ampatuan clan into custody, presidential spokesman Cerge Remonde told reporters.
“President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has taken this bold step in answer to the cry for justice of the [relatives of the] victims of the now infamous Maguindanao massacre,” Remonde said.
It was the first time martial law had been declared anywhere in the Philippines since the reign of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. He had the whole of the country under martial law from 1972 to 1981.
Within hours of martial law being declared, special forces detained the province’s governor and patriarch of the clan, Andal Ampatuan Sr, who since 2001 had ruled Maguindanao with the backing of a private army.
More than 4,000 soldiers were deployed across Maguindanao, and a photographer on the outskirts of Shariff Aguak, the provincial capital, witnessed army checkpoints checking all vehicles traveling on the roads.
One of the clan chief’s sons, Zaldy Ampatuan, the governor of an autonomous Muslim area in the southern Philippines, was also taken into custody yesterday morning, along with two other relatives, the military said.
Andal Ampatuan Jr, another son of the clan patriarch, is already in a Manila detention center after being charged with 25 counts of murder for the Nov. 23 massacre that took place in a remote area of Maguindanao.
Police allege Ampatuan Jr and 100 of his gunmen shot dead the occupants of a convoy that included relatives of his rival for the post of Maguindanao governor in next year’s elections, as well as a group of journalists.
The rival, Esmael Mangudadatu, said the killings were carried out to stop him from running for office. The armed forces chief of staff, General Victor Ibrado, and other military chiefs said martial law was imposed because members of the Ampatuans’ private armies had threatened to attack civilians and government installations.
“By their sheer number they are really a threat to the peace and order in the province,” Ibrado said.
The military said one of the triggers for martial law was the discovery on Thursday of a huge cache of weapons buried just a few hundred meters from the Ampatuans’ family compound in Shariff Aguak.
The weapons inventory included three anti-tank recoilless rifles, mortars, machine guns, rifles and pistols, and thousands of rounds of ammunition — enough to arm two battalions or about 1,000 soldiers.
Presidential spokesman Remonde insisted that martial law would be lifted as soon as possible, with a maximum limit of 60 days.
But Arroyo critics immediately hit out at the move, warning it may be a prelude to her seizing similar control of other parts of the country or even a bid to remain in power after the Constitution requires her to step down.
“We believe there’s no basis for the implementation of martial law,” said opposition Senator Benigno Aquino, who is the front-runner to win next year’s presidential elections.
Muslim rebels fighting for an independent homeland have been waging a rebellion on Maguindanao and other parts of Mindanao island since the late 1970s. The conflict has claimed more than 150,000 lives, the military says.
Arroyo’s government has used Muslim clans such as the Ampatuans to rule these areas, and allowed them to build up their own armies as part of a containment strategy against the insurgents.
However critics have said the strategy has allowed these regional rulers to become warlords who believe they can act with impunity.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to