MILF: It’s official, Kato is renegade

GENERAL SANTOS CITY—The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Monday declared Ameril Umbra Kato as lost command and his Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) as insignificant.

“Until he returns to the fold of the MILF, he is a lost command,” Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, said.

Kato headed the MILF’s 105th Base Command based in Maguindanao but decided to secede from the main rebel group over disagreements on the handling of the peace process.

He also complained that the MILF abandoned him in the aftermath of the 2008 violence that heightened after the government failed to sign the memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain.

In December last year, he formalized his separation from the MILF and announced the formation of the BIFF.

Jaafar said the MILF repeatedly tried but failed to convince Kato to return to its fold.

He said by defying the directive for him to follow the chain of command, Kato had been declared a renegade.

Jaafar said the existence of Kato and his group would not affect the ongoing peace process. “His group is insignificant,” he said.

But Moro National Liberation Front leader Nur Misuari said President Aquino is dealing with a fragmented MILF and any peace agreement reached with it would have virtually no effect.

“A big number of the military component of the MILF has already abandoned the leadership of Murad (Ebrahim),” Misuari said by phone last week.

He said Kato was not the only one who seceded from the MILF. He said others, like the group of Alim Mibantas of Butig in Lanao del Sur, and another group led by a certain Sawab, have also left the MILF.

“Dealing with the MILF … will not solve the problem,” Misuari said.

Jaafar said the violence that recently erupted in Maguindanao, and which has already claimed the lives of more than a dozen combatants, was not MILF-instigated.

He said it was also not an MILF action against BIFF forces.

Jaafar said the fighting, rooted in a land conflict, started when Abunawas, of the BIFF, attacked the area of Adzmie, of the MILF’s 106th Base Command, in Datu Piang town. Aquiles Zonio with a report from Julie Alipala, Inquirer Mindanao