Govt agencies act on South Upi land dispute
Local News • 15:22 PM Fri Sep 5, 2014
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By:
John Unson, The Mindanao Cross
COTABATO CITY (Sept. 5/NDBC) – Address the root cause, and stop killings.
With this in
mind, military, religious and local officials in Maguindanao and the autonomous
region have stepped in to address the cause of the bloody land dispute in South
Upi, Maguindanao.
Interviewed by DXMS Radyo Bida,Kahal Kedtag, environment
and natural resources regional secretary for the Autonomous Region in Muslim
Mindanao, said the warring clans have agreed to stop armed conflict and allow
government agencies like the DENR-ARMM and Department of Agrarian Reform to
resolve land dispute.
Earlier,
Muslim and Christian rival groups also agreed to let traditional leaders, the
police and the military to jointly set the demarcations that would separate
their respective territories to prevent misunderstanding that can lead to
shooting war.
Marine Colonel
Emmanuel Salamat, chief of 1st Marine Brigade, initiated the
dialogue between warring clans in Sitios Bahar and Pomogoyon in Barangay Pandan
after both sides traded bullets last week that claimed at least two lives.
Maguindanaons,
the people of Maguindanao involved in the conflict are either member of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and National Liberation Front (MNLF).
Earlier, Brig.
Carlito Galvez, chair of the government ceasefire panel with the MILF, urged
the warring clans to sit down in a negotiating table and settle their misunderstanding
peacefully.
Police and
Marines were deployed in the village to prevent skirmishes.
The village
had been quite the past four days, Salamat said. (NDBC)