MNLF group backs ARMM abolition

COTABATO CITY—A faction of the Moro rebel group that struck a peace deal with government in 1996 has expressed support for the abolition of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, a product of the pact, and its replacement by a new autonomous entity with a different name and set of Moro leaders.

The Moro National Liberation Front faction, belonging to the group led by Muslimin Sema, met on Sunday here for a reunion which also became a forum for the MNLF leaders to express support for the ongoing talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that could lead to a new autonomous setup in Mindanao.

[Sema, now city vice mayor, had been ambushed yesterday, two days after his faction met here. Sema survived the attack which Malacañang condemned. Police said Sema suffered multiple bullet wounds but is now out of danger.

Edwin Lacierda, one of several Palace spokespersons, said Mr. Aquino had ordered police to hunt the perpetrators of the attack on Sema.]

One of the MNLF leaders who met here, Mohammad Ali, said it was time for government to “help facilitate the establishment of genuine Muslim autonomy.”

Ali, once head of an armed unit of the MNLF, and some of his men are now engaged in corn and rubber production in Buldon, Maguindanao, under a government-sponsored program.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chair for political affairs who was at the meeting, said the MNLF leaders were gathered by Sema.

Some of those who were at the meeting were Moro rebel leaders who had trained in Libya in the 1970s and who had rejected the concept of autonomy as an alternative to self-rule that had been accepted by the MNLF when it signed the 1996 peace deal.

The MILF broke off with the MNLF in 1978 when Salamat Hashim, the late MILF founder, rejected an offer by the Marcos dictatorship to set up an autonomous government. Hashim pursued the guerrilla warfare for an independent Moro state.

According to Jaafar, some local government officials were also at the reunion of the MNLF. He did not identify them, however.

Jaafar said that since 1975 Moro leaders had signed two accords with the Philippine government—the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and the 1996 agreement with the Ramos administration—but autonomy has barely improved the lives of Moros.

“As of now, we are still poor, if not the poorest, region in the country and, as a result, some people resort to crimes and other unlawful acts in order to survive,” Jaafar said.

The MNLF group said ARMM has become a tool of Malacañang because the region didn’t have sufficient powers to exercise real autonomy.

He said the MILF panel negotiating with its government counterpart is demanding that a new autonomous setup be provided with full authority to explore the region’s resources and stop being a “milking cow” of the national government.

“We are rich in natural resources and yet poor. This is the irony that we want the Aquino administration to resolve,” said Jaafar.

Dissension is also rocking the MILF as a result of its negotiations with government. Ameril Umra Kato, who once headed an armed unit of the MILF, had broken off with the main Moro group to form his own Bangsamoro Islamic Liberation Front and its armed wing Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Charlie C. Señase, Inquirer Mindanao