Cops ready sedition rap vs Misuari

Moro leader Nur Misuari (sulu.gov.ph photo)

COTABATO CITY—Police are readying a sedition complaint against Nur Misuari, founding chair of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), for declaring a Bangsamoro independent state contrary to the enhanced set-up of autonomy being worked out by its breakaway group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the government.

“I have directed my PPO (provincial police office) in Sulu to prepare filing a sedition case against the MNLF leader for issuing a seditious statement,” said Chief Supt. Noel Delos Reyes, police director of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

Delos Reyes gave Sulu police director, Senior Supt. Abraham Orbita, until today to comply with the directive. Orbita, he said, should look into Misuari’s statement as seditious and unconstitutional at a time when the government and the MILF are in the crucial and final stage of the nearly four decades of the peace negotiation.

If the case is filed in court, the MNLF leader could be arrested and arraigned for the charges, the official said.

Misuari was nabbed by authorities in Malaysia and presented to the Philippine government to face rebellion charges when he reportedly led an MNLF armed assault in Sulu.

ARMM Executive Secretary Laisa Masuhud-Alamia has appealed for understanding and sobriety amid Misuari’s challenge to revolt for an independent

Moro state, the original cause of the MNLF struggle in the ’70s.

“Peace is paramount at this stage of world chaos and violence,” said Alamia as she cited the spate of explosions and bomb threats in Mindanao and elsewhere, notwithstanding the frequent occurrence of natural calamities.

“We are for peace and coexistence, and the best way to settle differences is through peace dialogue, not through violent means that left mostly innocent civilians as collateral damages,” she said.

The region celebrated on Monday the United Nations’ World Humanitarian Day.

Misuari’s softening stance to opt for autonomy instead of total independence came in 1976 when it signed the Tripoli Peace Agreement in Libya with the government under then President Ferdinand Marcos.

The signing of the accord gave birth, two years later, to the formation of the MILF, an MNLF breakaway group, led by a Maguindanaoan, Hashim Salamat.

In 1996, the government under then President Fidel Ramos convinced the Misuari-led MNLF to ink a Final Peace Agreement.