Phillipine Christian Church Urges Appeasement of Muslims - Four Christians Killed

When will we learn that appeasing Muslims only brings about even more death and destruction?

From Asia News:


Mindanao: four Christians killed, a fifth missingby Santosh Digal

Yesterday an armed group ambushed a bus in Lanao del Sur, stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The group robbed passengers and then shot the men. The Philippine Church urges an accord between the government and MILF to avoid an escalation in violent attacks.

Cotabato City (AsiaNews) – Armed men stopped a mini-bus and murdered four Christian male passengers execution-style in Mindanao yesterday, while a fifth passenger is still missing.

According to police, the murder took place in an area considered a bastion of rebels from the Moro Islamic Front, where criminal episodes of this nature have occurred in the past. Security officials failed to confirm is if the assassination was of a confessional nature or whether the Muslim militants were responsible. The bus was carrying about 15 people when it was stopped near Malabang, Lanao del Sur, an area under MILF control. The passengers were robbed but the women were allowed to leave unharmed; then four of the five men were dragged into a forest and shot in the head at close range, the fifth abducted.

The signing of a peace accord between the central government and MILF rebels, held responsible for the July 24th attack in Davao del Sur, appears increasingly fragile. Also Yesterday 30 suspected MILF rebels attacked a paramilitary outpost in Dualing, Midsayap, North Cotabato, killing a civilian and wounding four others.

MILF maintains its right to control some of the majority Muslim regions of Mindanao, the theatre of bloody episodes of violence: on the negotiating table the creation of a “federal” state – the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), enlarged by the annexation of a further 72 Muslim majority villages – along with rights to exploit territorial resources. Villages will be able to decide by popular referendum whether to join the ARMM, but the deputy governor of North Nord Cotabato has underlined the uselessness of the vote because of “threats and vote rigging aimed at forcing the villagers to vote for annexation”.

The Philippine Catholic Church, through the bishop’s conference, has urged “the government and the MILF to return to the negotiating table after talks ended again in an impasse”.