The Philippine government expressed outrage and vowed justice following the gruesome killings on Monday of 21 people who were among a group of politicians and journalists abducted in the troubled south.
”This is a gruesome massacre of civilians unequalled in recent history,” said Jess Dureza, President Gloria Arroyo’s adviser on the strife-torn southern region of Mindanao where the murders took place.
”There must be a total stop to this senseless violence. I strongly recommend that a state of emergency be imposed in the area and everyone be disarmed. Anything less will not work.”
Arroyo’s adviser on political affairs, Gabriel Claudio, expressed similar sentiments.
”We’re in shock and in total outrage,” Claudio said.
”Justice will be served and the perpetrators punished, whoever they are.”
The killings appeared to be linked to a political rivalry that flared ahead of next year’s national elections, according to the military and relatives of some of those believed killed.
”Our army troopers have reached the area where the vehicles and those held were taken … they were shot by the armed men,” regional military chief Major General Alfredo Cayton said in a radio interview.
”We have recovered 21 bodies. Our men are continuing to scour the area to find the others.”
Cayton said he could not yet confirm who carried out the killings.
But armed forces spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Romeo Brawner said earlier that gunmen linked to a powerful politician had seized 40 people, including his political rivals and 20 local journalists.
He confirmed afterwards that 21 people had been killed — 13 of them women — and that the death toll was likely to rise.
”We believe more bodies are buried in the ground and we are trying to recover them,” he said in an interview with the ABS-CBN television network.
Among those taken were the wife of a mayor in Maguindanao province, Esmael Mangudadatu, his aides and supporters, according to Brawner.
The journalists were accompanying Mangudadatu’s group to a local elections office to file his candidacy for governorship of the predominantly Muslim Maguindanao province in the May 2010 vote when they were seized by the gunmen.
The Mangudadatu clan is known to have a long-running feud with the family of Maguindanao’s incumbent Governor, Andal Ampatuan, who police say is known to control his own private army.
Before the reports of the death, Brawner said there were about 100 gunmen, most of whom were militiamen deputised as government guards by Ampatuan’s family.
Brawner said earlier the leader of the militiamen who staged the kidnapping was one of Ampatuan’s sons. Ampatuan was not immediately reachable for comment.
Esmael Mangudadatu’s brother, Khdadafeh, also blamed Ampatuan.
”We suspect Ampatuan as being behind this,” he told Agence France-Presse.
”His son, Andal Ampatuan Jnr, is supposed to run for governor and he had already made an earlier announcement that we would be killed if [Esmael] filed the candidacy for governor.”
Revenge killings and clashes among rival political families are common in Maguindanao and other parts of Mindanao island, where unlicensed firearms proliferate and parts of which are lawless.
The Philippines is also regarded as one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.
However, the scale of such a slaughter sent immediate shock waves through the country.
— AFP
