PRESS RELEASE
Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines

38th Special Forces Company Ambushed by NPA, 3 Dead
October 3, 2004

Kabasalan, Zamboanga Sibuguey Province - A guerilla unit of the Wilson Feliciano Command of the New People's Army ambushed a 13-man squad of the 38th Special Forces Company on foot patrol last September 29, 2004 in a sitio in Barangay Pe�aranda, this municipality. The gun battle commenced at around 8:00 in the morning when the AFP soldiers who were elements of a maneuver force of the 102nd Infantry Brigade walked into the killing zone prepared by the guerillas of the WFC. The ambush site was only a 30-minute walking distance from a nearby detachment of the Philippine Army.

According to the battle report of the NPA unit command who launched the tactical offensive, the firefight lasted for over an hour and resulted into three SFC troops killed and an undetermined number of wounded. Not a single Red fighter of the Wilson Feliciano Command was wounded. The unit disengaged and withdrew from the ambush site at around 9:15 in the morning.

Gravely infuriated by the battlefield casualty of its elite unit, the AFP turned its ire on hapless civilians. Last Friday morning, October 1, the field artillery of the 102nd Brigade deliberately targeted and started shelling the hinterlands they believed to be harbor areas of the NPA. Recklessly and without concern for the civilian populace 105mm howitzer shells were rained on the mountainous portions of barangay Diampak by the artillery unit of the 102nd Brigade.

"This is a shameless reaction to a legitimate encounter", Ka Ismael Marte, Western Mindanao spokesperson of the CPP-NPA said, strongly condemning the mad reaction of the military. According to the spokesperson, the NPA offensive was a legitimate military action against a fascist unit of the AFP, in contrast to the 102nd Brigade's retaliation which was a serious violation and does not in any way conform to established norms and rules of civilized war fighting.

The 102nd Brigade's deliberate targeting of civilian communities in its pursuit operations is a clear violation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law [CARHRIHL] and Protocols of War of the Geneva Conventions.

On the other hand, the 102nd Brigade acknowledged rather hesitantly the casualty it suffered but admitted that only one of its troops was killed and another one as wounded in action. And in order to cover its embarrassing loss in Pe�aranda, Army officers circulated to the local media that the ambushed troops were merely trainees. The brigade's furious reaction, however, belied the blatant lies peddled by Army "information officers". ###

Reference:
Ismael Marte
Spokesperson
CPP-NPA Western Mindanao



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