Carnage In Cotabato
July 6th, 2009 by Ding G. Gagelonia
The morning after that Sunday carnage in Cotabato police are picking up the pieces, figuratively and literally, with two suspects being subjected to intense questioning.
Is it an important political center, being the capital of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, and is generally considered a showpiece of peaceful and productive coexistence of Muslims and Christians, rich in cultural history and cradle of the rich heritage of Filipino Mohammedans.
That the bombers specifically targeted the regal Immaculate Conception Cathedral as influential Archbishop Orlando Quevedo was celebrating mass appears to send a message to both the government of the day, and the Catholic Church.
There has been a marked up surge of clashes between the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the military while anxiety continues further down South in Basilan and Sulu over the fate of kidnapped Italian engineer Eugenio Vagni of the International Red Cross.
Vagni has now been held captive by the Abu Sayyaf for 5 long months and while he’s captors have allowed Eugenio to phone his family in Italy twice last month to give authorities “proof of life,”he runs the danger of becoming the forgotten hostage.
He has diabetes and no one really knows how badly his health has deteriorated.
God forbid that is something worse befalls the Italian one of these troubled days.
All the way from the Vatican Pope Benedict condemned the incident as he said Sunday Angelus:
While praying to God for the victims of this heinous act, I once again condemn the recourse to violence which is never a just way to resolve existing problems. When will people learn that life is sacred and only belongs to God? When will they understand that we are all brothers?
The military is now saying an MILF special operations unit probably staged the horrific attack as “a test mission.”
http://www.gmanews.tv/story/166696/AFP-Cotabato-bombing-has-signs-of-test-mission
If it was that then it was a macabre success having killed 5 and injuring close to 5o people whose only intent was to hear Sunday mass at the Mindanao city’s Cathedral where the region’s own Catholic Archbishop was officiating.
But the emerging details – that the bomb fashioned from a military mortar shell was detonated just as a para-military service van was passing in front of Immaculate Conception church – point to the bomb bearing the signature of experienced rebel-trained ordnance men using the technique perfected by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This gives one a chilling realization: that such elements are either based in Cotabato City or conveniently go in and out of the city center with ready access to bomb-making components.
This is urban terrorism at its most frightful.
Like Vagni, our society is held hostage by such unmitigated terrorism.
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