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MILF chief: MOA-AD signing will end hostilities

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abs-cbnNEWS.com | 08/22/2008 5:03 AM

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Hostilities in parts of Mindanao will stop only after the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) sign the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), the separatist group's chief said.

"We sign it (MOA-AD) and everything will calm down," MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim said in an exclusive interview with ABS-CBN Chief Correspondent Korina Sanchez on Wednedsay.

Murad said the Bangsamoro people see the MOA-AD as a symbol of hope for a fruitful peace process with the government.

The same day Murad was interviewed by Sanchez, Malacañang decided not to sign the MOA-AD even as the Supreme Court has yet to decide on the petitions against the Bangsamoro homeland accord.

Press Secretary Jesus Dureza told radio dzMM Thursday that because of the eruption of hostilities in Mindanao, Malacañang realized that the government has to take a second look at the MOA-AD.

Dureza said the government will not sign any agreement with the MILF if Murad fails to surrender rebel commanders Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo to the government.

The two rebel commanders led MILF fighters in attacks in Lanao del Norte and North Cotabato, which displaced thousands of villagers.

Dureza said the attacks led by the two radical Moro commanders shows that the MILF leadership has no control over its commanders.

"If we sign [the MOA-AD] and the MILF leadership fails to control its forces, the agreement's purpose would not be achieved, which is to restore peace," the press secretary said.

'In control'

Murad, however, said the MILF leadership is "very confident" that it has control over its members.

"Ours is an Islamic organization and the leadership has authority over the followers, not merely on organization aspect, but it is a religious duty of all the members to follow the leader. This is enshrined in our ideology so we are in control," the MILF chief said.

He, however, admitted that the MILF leadership is in "a very difficult situation."

With the failure of the MOA-AD's signing, he said the leadership was stripped of its "moral ascendancy" to control its own people.

Murad also partly blamed the government for the reemergence of hostilities in Mindanao as he said their counterpart in the peace panel failed to implement its own obligation of informing their constituents.

"I think they were not able to implement the obligations, their responsibility to inform their side, their constituents. Many say that it is only now that they heard about this MOA, this ancestral domain when in fact we have been talking for more than four years," he said.

He said he had warned government negotiators that the delay in the peace talks was causing restlessness among MILF ground commanders. He said the ground commanders "practically lost hope in the peace process" after the Supreme Court stopped the MOA-AD's signing on August 5.

'Fighting could lead to all-out war'

In the earlier part of Sanchez's interview with Murad, the MILF chief warned the current fighting in Mindanao can develop into an all-out war.

"This can be a beginning of the war if not properly handled but it can also, as I have said, there is still a chance in going back to peace as long as both parties -- for us and for the side of the government -- will implement utmost restraint in order to hold back the situation," he told Sanchez.

"We are trying our best to restrain our commanders in order to save the situation," he added.

Ebrahim said the government's decision to put up a P10 million bounty for the capture of the two MILF leaders could aggravate the situation. He said the MILF leadership has already talked to both commanders to withdraw and both complied. 

"In fact, Commander Bravo already has made his commitment. Unless he is attacked, he will no longer make another attack. Likewise with Commander Kato," he said.

He said the recent fighting in parts of North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur, Lanao del Norte and Sarangani provinces was the result of frustration of MILF ground commanders with the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) earlier this month.

The MOA-AD would have expanded the autonomous region for Muslims in Mindanao, subject to a law and voters' approval in a plebiscite. It would also have granted Muslims wider economic and political powers, including 75:25 sharing of wealth from exploitation of natural resources.
 
Ebrahim said the aborted signing of the MOA-AD and inflammatory statements of politicians in the media became a source of outrage for MILF ground commanders.

"There were so many delays in the negotiations. There has been actuations by the GRP that they were trying to renege on what had been agreed on already," he said.
 

as of 08/22/2008 5:03 AM

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