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Why is this getting more complicated?
“According to Ghazali Jaafar — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) vice chair for political affairs — only Malaysia, the facilitator of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), will get a copy of their full report of its investigation of the Mamasapano incident,” reports Jerry E. Esplanada in Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Last week, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima had asked the MILF for a copy of the report to balance her agency’s own investigation of the Mamasapano incident.
Referring top the decision not to provide a copy to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Jaafar said, “And that’s final.”
The report noted: “Jaafar declined to disclose details of the report. He said an executive summary of the report would be given to the International Monitoring Team (IMT), which oversees the ceasefire agreement between the government and the MILF.”
The encounter in Mamasapano, Maguindanao on Jan 25 left 44 members of the elite Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Action Force (SAF) dead. The PNP-SAF troopers had been out to capture Malaysian terrorist Zulkifli bin Hir alias “Marwan” and Filipino bomb maker Abdul Basit Usman. Both men had bounties on their heads placed by the U.S. government: US$5 million for Marwan and US$1 million for Usman.
The operation turned bloody when members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they had to fight back because the PNP-SAF had breached their territory. They alleged that they had not been informed about the operation to get Marwan and Usman. The hostile encounter lasted 11 hours. The MILF lost 18 of their fighters.
Both the government and the MILF are currently doing probes on the Mamasapano encounter to determine what went wrong, as the incident threatens the Bangsamoro peace deal. It has since been revealed that the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and even some armed civilians were also involved in the clash.
