Massacre reprisals

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32774, 26 November 1971, Page 9

Massacre reprisals

MANILA, Nov. 25. A Filipino Moslem poli-tician-Senator Mamintal Tamano, said today that a massacre of 42 Moslem voters last Monday was worse than the My Lai incident in Vietnam.

As indignation mounted among political and religious leaders over the massacre, military authorities reported that Moslem armed men struck in two places in the southern Philippines yesterday, killing three Christians. A military spokesman said intelligence officials feared

(N.z. Press Assn.-Copyright) t h at attacks, one of which

was directed against an Army camp in Lanao Del Norte province, might be the start of a wave of reprisal killings. It was in Lanao province that Army troopers on Monday night stopped a fourtruck convoy' ferrying Moslem voters and opened fire with machine-guns and automatic weapons. Survivors said they were mowed down without warning; and that Christian civilians armed with jungle knives charged in later, hacking to death some of the wounded victims. COURT MARTIAL President Ferdinand Marcos has ordered the court martial of one officer and 19 other ranks involved in the incident, which occurred on

the day that special elections were held in Lanao, 450 miles south of Manila.

Senator Tamano, the lone Moslem in the 24-member Philippine Senate, said: “The incident is worse than the My Lai massacre. There the victims were suspected Viet Cong combatants or supporters, whereas in the Lanao Del Norte carnage the Moslem victims were merely exercising their right of suffrage. "They were unarmed and innocent when they were gunned down in cold blood.” Mr Tamano said that the situation in Lanao Del Norte and other southern Philippine provinces with a mixed Mos-lem-Christian population was very grave as a result of the massacre. CALL FOR ARMS The Union of Islamic Forces and Organisations in the Philippines has demanded that all senior military officials resign and that all Moslem civilians be armed as self-protection. Local Christian organisations also condemned the killings. The Christian Social movement said that President Marcos should resign if his Government could not assure Filipino Moslems “equal protection of life, liberty and property.” A pastoral conference of Roman Catholic bishops urged Government leaders to "stop exploiting the growing mistrust between Christians and Moslems” to de-fuse violence in the Southern Philippines.