SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines: Muslim rebels in the mainly Catholic Philippines began handing over their guns to independent foreign monitors on ...
SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines: Muslim rebels in the mainly Catholic Philippines began handing over their guns to independent foreign monitors on Saturday , as part of a peace treaty aimed at ending a decades-long separatist insurgency that has left about 150,000 people dead.
"The war is over ... I have no firearms left," Paisal Abdullah Bagundang, 56, a self-described veteran of more than 100 firefights with government security forces since the 1970s, told AFP. But the disarmament will take time to make an impact in a place where violence is an almost daily threat.A bomb hidden in a parked motorcycle exploded near a public market in Isulan town early on Saturday, just hours before President Rodrigo Duterte was to witness the decommissioning ceremony some 40km away in Sultan Kudarat.
Officials hope putting rebel weapons"beyond use" will nudge the region away from the mindset that gun-ownership is essential to ensuring survival.
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