Military sow fear to farmers in San Jorge

By JAZMIN BONIFACIO
December 2, 2006

SAN JORGE, Samar  –  Residents, majority of them farmers of a heavily militarized village here decided out of fear to evacuate into safer ground for survival and local officials have initiated moves to investigate the so called terroristic acts of certain government soldiers.

This was spawned after troops of the military were deployed to remote barangays of San Jorge Samar as part of their counter insurgency campaign programs. Similar to what the Basaynon's and other residents of other towns in Samar, residents of San Jorge allegedly experienced from the hands of the military, residents of Brgy. Sinit-an, Mobo-og, Kalundan and Brgy. Bay-ang complained of human rights violations allegedly committed by the Army of the 34th Infantry Battalion.

The residents complained that they were being harassed, tortured, children were allegedly being terrorized, guns were pointed at them during interrogation and some of them were allegedly forced to utilized as guides during military operations and even forced to admit being members of the New People's Army or NPA.

The reports gave rise to the formation of a Fact Finding Mission conducted by the Commission on Human Rights who went to the town of San Jorge recently to look into the farmer's plight.

Residents as far as Brgy. Sinit-an, Bay-ang, Kalundan and Mobo-og evacuated to the town proper and sought refuge to Mayor Joseph Grey and other local officials of said town.

The following were some of the interviews conducted by local media to the evacuees during the Fact Finding Mission with the names withheld for security reasons:

A 26-yrs. old man a resident of a barangay in San Jorge said that at around 11:00 p.m. when he meet soldiers and at gun point asked him where the NPA's were hiding and because of negative response from him soldiers were forcing him to admit that he was also a rebel and because of not saying something, he was allegedly being castigated by the said soldiers.

A 15yr old boy alleged that while in their farm together with his father, they were approached by the soldiers. “Ginpipirit ako pasumaton kun hain iton mga NPA ngan dara han kawaray ko ginsusumat gin hagyo pagtakdula an akon tiil hin sundang han usa nga sundalo.”

A mother of 3 children said, “We were not even able to take care of our rice farm, we were not able to do any seeding.”