Another attack on mining interests in the Philippines

MANILA : Sus­pect­ed com­mu­nist rebels in the Philip­pines attacked a min­ing com­pa­ny com­pound, while in anoth­er inci­dent the rebels clashed with sol­diers, the mil­i­tary said on Thurs­day.

MANILA : Sus­pect­ed com­mu­nist rebels in the Philip­pines attacked a min­ing com­pa­ny com­pound, while in anoth­er inci­dent the rebels clashed with sol­diers, the mil­i­tary said on Thurs­day.

GMA News report­ed that Major John Andra­da, spokesman for the Army’s 3rd Infantry Divi­sion, said about 40 New People’s Army (NPA) rebels on Wednes­day attacked the com­pound of Drill Corp., a sub-con­trac­tor of Philex Min­ing Corp., in Nab­u­lao vil­lage in Sipalay City in the cen­tral island of Negros. He said the rebels dis­armed a secu­ri­ty guard and burned the work­ers’ quar­ters as well as the per­son­nel car­ri­er truck.
Accord­ing to Andra­da, the rebels fled using a company’s vehi­cle, which was lat­er found burned.
The Visayan Dai­ly Star report­ed that the attack was an attempt to force the min­ing com­pa­ny to pay rev­o­lu­tion­ary tax­es. Priest-turned-rebel Frank Fer­nan­dez said in an ear­li­er state­ment that the rev­o­lu­tion­ary move­ment has been ordered to launch mil­i­tary and polit­i­cal strug­gles, aimed at stop­ping the ongo­ing min­ing explo­rations and oper­a­tions of sev­er­al min­ing com­pa­nies that have pend­ing min­ing rights appli­ca­tions in Negros.
He claimed that mas­sive min­ing oper­a­tions in the moun­tains of Negros Occi­den­tal and Ori­en­tal have already cov­ered 40 per­cent of the total land area of the island, or 80 per­cent of the total agri­cul­tur­al land, adding that there is a pos­si­bil­i­ty that Negros may soon be trans­formed into a desert.….

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