GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Authorities held for questioning on Thursday five foreign activists who participated in a fact-finding mission of the alleged massacre by government troops last December of nine lumads or tribal residents in a remote village in Lake Sebu town in South Cotabato.
South Cotabago Governor Daisy Avance-Fuentes said the foreigners were stopped by police operatives at past 8 a.m. at a checkpoint in Barangay Palian in Tupi, South Cotabato due to the lack of identification and travel documents.
Citing a report from South Cotabato police director, Sr. Supt. Nestor Salcedo, she said the group came from Lake Sebu and was en route to this city aboard a truck.
The governor said the foreigners also claimed to be journalists but their affiliations were not immediately known.
“Some of them were not able to present identification cards and passports so they were brought to the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Bureau of Immigration,” she said in an interview over radio station Bombo Radyo in Koronadal City.
Sources from the local chapters of militant groups Baagong Alyansang Makabayan and Karapatan said the foreigners were from the United States and Zimbabwe, and came to the area for the fact-finding mission.
The group was supposed to present their findings in a press conference here scheduled at 10 a.m.
The foreign activists, who reportedly included members of the Gabriela Network USA, were identified as Julie Jamora, Dina Anderson, Jamy Drapeza, Adam Shaw and Tawanda Chandiwana.
Arlyn Perez, coordinator of Kalumahin Federation of Indigenous People, denounced the holding of the foreign nationals and blamed it on alleged connivance between the military and provincial officials.
But Fuentes debunked such claim and said that police authorities were “just doing their jobs.”
She clarified that the group would not have been held by authorities if they had proper identification and travel documents.
The governor said police were mandated to verify the identities of visiting foreign nationals when necessary, especially for security purposes.
Fuentes said they also expected the result of the fact-finding mission to be “biased” as the group only focused on their own version of the supposed massacre in Sition Bonlangon of Barangay Ned last Dec. 3.
She maintained that the incident was a legitimate encounter between suspected New People’s Army (NPA) rebels and troops from the Army’s 33rd and 27th Infantry Battalions.
Two Army troopers and nine alleged NPA members, including tribal leader Victor Danyan, were killed in the alleged encounter.(PNA)
