Reuters Limited
INOPACAN, Philippines, Sept 6 (Reuters) - The mountainous forests of Leyte island in the central Philippines look pristine from the air, but they hide a terrible secret.
Below the canopy of trees, shallow graves with the skeletal remains of 67 people have been unearthed. Up to 300 bodies could be buried in the sticky mud, the military says.
The unidentified victims were murdered in the 1980s, purged by the communist New People's Army (NPA) on suspicion they were government spies or traitors to the Maoist cause, said Colonel Allan Ragpala, a brigade commander on Leyte island.
"We discovered these graves by accident," he told dozens of generals, local officials and journalists during an Aug. 31 visit to the site, about 400 km (250 miles) southeast of Manila.
"This was like the killing fields in Cambodia on a much smaller scale."
Marcelina Tronoyba said she was 12 years old when her mother answered the door one night in 1985. Several armed men burst in and took the woman away for what they said was a brief chat.
That was the last time Tronoyba saw her mother.
"We're not sure yet whether she was among those buried here," said Tronoyba, who now has eight children of her own. "We're still hoping and praying she is still alive somewhere."
TATTERED SHIRT
The NPA leadership has admitted killing and torturing thousands of its members in the late 1980s during a split over ideology in an insurgency that has raged across the developing and largely rural Southeast Asian country since the late 1960s.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has declared "all-out war" against the communist rebels to try to end a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people and kept investors wary.
The government says the NPA is in the midst of a fresh purge and has murdered dozens of left-wing activists this year.
The communists deny the allegation. Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, are concerned that the military and police are behind the shootings. Many of the recent victims were members of groups viewed by the military as NPA fronts.
The mass graves were discovered in the Sapang Daku mountains amid these accusations -- and after an alleged coup plot in February against Arroyo by rogue soldiers, political foes and communists.
Ragpala said several residents and former communist rebels told the military about the graves after hundreds of soldiers began combing the area in a major push against the NPA.
After a week of digging at the end of August, soldiers and villagers had exhumed 67 skeletons from mountain slopes reached by a five-hour trek on narrow jungle trails.
A forensics team from the local police has helped to gather bones to establish identities, which could take months through DNA testing in the Philippines or the United States.
"Based on our initial findings, these graves were more than 20 years old," said Angel Cordero, head of the forensics team. "Most of these skulls were men, three were women and one was from a minor. They died from either hack or stab wounds."
To journalists flown to the site in army helicopters, Cordero pointed out some fractured skulls showing signs they were hit by blunt objects, sharp knives or razors. Some of the victims were blindfolded.
"We found nine skulls wrapped by tattered cotton cloth and nylon material," Cordero said. "In some of the graves, only 2 to 3 feet deep, we found as many as five or six skeletal remains."
Domingo Eras, a 43-year-old farmer from nearby Baybay town, was shocked to see a tattered shirt that was very similar to the one worn by his older brother, an NPA rebel, the last time the two saw each other in 1985.
"That day when armed men took my brother away flashed back to my mind," said Eras, who acknowledged having sympathised with the rebels in the 1980s.
Eras, who claimed he lost a younger brother in a battle with soldiers in the 1990s, said people in the area had heard about the graves, known among the rebels as "The Garden", but were not sure whether it was army propaganda.
LOOKING FOR CLOSURE
General Hermogenes Esperon, the military's chief of staff, said the mass graves he saw on Leyte were similar to those found in the 1990s in the provinces of Quezon and Laguna, south of Manila, and on the southern island of Mindanao.
Rebels, sympathisers and ordinary civilians were kidnapped, tortured and killed by special teams of NPA guerrillas when leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines launched the purge in the 1980s.
"We can only make estimates but we believe nearly 2,000 people were killed in the most animalistic, barbaric and gruesome methods by these godless rebels," Esperon said.
The discovery of the graves was helping people see through the rebel deceptions and boosting efforts to defeat the communist insurgency by 2010, he said.
Peace talks, brokered by Norway, stalled in 2004 when Manila refused to help persuade the United States and some European nations to remove the NPA from terrorism blacklists.
"We grieve with those who continue to search for their missing loved ones," Esperon said. "We hope they could find the closure they've been looking for in the unmarked graves here."
In the 1990s, Zacarias Piedad rose to lead a 40-member NPA squad in the area but turned himself in to soldiers when his comrades tried to kill him three times.
"This area we used to call 'The Garden' was off-limits to all rebels except the most senior cadres," said Piedad, who now works for the local government.
Between sobs, Virginia Baron told of her father being taken when armed men rounded up residents in her village in 1985.
"We were told he would return to us in just three days," she told the gathering of local and military officials inspecting the graves. "We're still waiting for him to come home." (With reporting by Carmel Crimmins)
