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CAMP DARAPANAN—The leader of the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has welcomed
the arrival of Malaysian cease-fire monitors in a
bid to end a bitter and lengthy conflict with
government forces.
But MILF chief Murad Ebrahim hit
out at what he said were elements in the military
and the government who were out to “sabotage” the
peace talks by painting his group as terrorists.
The Malaysian team arrived in
the Philippines Saturday and traveled Sunday to
Mindanao, the center of the MILF’s 26-year
insurgency to set up an Islamic state.
In an interview with Agence
France-Presse in the MILF’s Camp Darapanan, Ebrahim
said hostilities have dropped significantly because
an advance team of monitors came early this month.
Malaysia and fellow Muslim
nation Brunei will monitor the progress of a 2002
truce signed by the MILF and the Philippines, paving
the way for peace negotiations expected to resume
this month in Kuala Lumpur.
Ebrahim said, however, that
there would be no peace with the government if
sections in the military remained intent on fanning
allegations that the MILF sheltered militants from
the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI).
“Frankly, we feel there are
people in the government who don’t want peace in
Mindanao,” Ebrahim said, stressing that although
President Arroyo appeared sincere in negotiating,
unnamed officials could be “manipulating the
situation.”
“This kind of position ruins the
confidence-building process and disrupts the
negotiations,” said Ebrahim, a battle-scarred
54-year-old who rose to become MILF chair last year
when the influential Islamic scholar Salamat Hashim
died of natural causes.
He charged that some corrupt
officials within the military were selling automatic
rifles to the insurgents while others were
continuing to link them to the JI.
The JI has been blamed for the
October 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, and the
recent car bomb outside the Australian Embassy in
Jakarta.
Continuing allegations about the
JI may be designed to get the US military involved
in Mindanao, a scenario that could cause further
bloodshed, he warned.
Ebrahim said that after the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the US, the
MILF closed all its camps in Mindanao to foreigners.
He admitted, however, that
before that, Islamic scholars from the Middle East
and even Europe and the United States were “ordinary
visitors” to the MILF’s Camp Abubakar.
The sprawling camp was once the
MILF’s main stronghold in Mindanao, but it was
overrun by the military in 1998 in a major offensive
that left hundreds dead and tens of thousands
displaced.
The MILF is willing to sign a
peace accord with Manila to end one of Asia’s
longest-running insurgencies if the government deals
with its demands for self-governance and recognition
of its ancestral lands in mineral-rich Mindanao,
Ebrahim said.
“We will not go for a piecemeal
solution to the problem, which we feel will not
work,” Ebrahim added, stressing that the next round
of negotiations would likely focus on the political
issues he raised.
The Malaysian Armed Forces
chief, Gen. Mohamed Zahidi Zainuddin, had told the
Bernama news agency that the Malaysian team was
expected to be in the southern Philippines for about
a year.
“It is an honor for Malaysia to
be part of the peace process and it reflects the
mutual trust and confidence by both parties toward
Malaysia,” said Mahinder Singh, the Malaysian
Embassy charge d’Affaires, as he met the monitors. |