‘Misuari must pay’

ZAMBOANGA CITY—The people of Zamboanga City support President Duterte’s peace initiative, but Moro leader Nur Misuari “has to be made accountable” for his crimes, Mayor Maria Isabelle Salazar said on Friday.

Salazar, one of the complainants in the Zamboanga siege case, said the local government would press charges in court against Misuari and the fighters from his faction of the Moro National Liberation Front responsible for death and destruction in the city in 2013.

“We trust that justice will eventually be served,” Salazar said.

Misuari is the leader of the MNLF faction that attacked Zamboanga City on Sept. 9, 2013, and fought government forces for three weeks.

The fighting left 220 people dead, 254 others wounded, including 12 civilians, and displaced more than 100,000 people.

More than 10,000 houses in the city were destroyed in the fighting.

Misuari went into hiding after the government brought charges against him. After three years, he came out on Thursday and appeared in Malacañang as a partner of the Duterte administration in peace talks with Moro rebels.

Granting a request from the government last week, a Pasig City court suspended the warrant for Misuari’s arrest for six months to enable him to take part in the peace process.

The military said on Friday that it was leaving it up to the government to raise the Zamboanga siege case with Misuari.

Col. Edgard Arevalo, head of the military’s public affairs office, said the military was not abandoning the victims’ search for justice, but it supported President Duterte’s peace initiative.

Arevalo said the suspension of the warrant for Misuari’s arrest did not mean the charges against him had been dismissed.

Two hundred sixty-six MNLF fighters arrested after the siege also remain detained at the government-run jail in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City, Arevalo said.

Catholic bishops are also worried that Misuari will be able to walk away from justice.

“Joining the peace talks is good, but [there can be] no peace without justice,” Marbel Bishop Dinualdo Gutierrez said on Friday.

For Ozamis Archbishop Martin Sarmiento Jumoad, Misuari being spared arrest to enable him to take part in the peace process is “difficult to accept.”

“[It is] very difficult to accept that in the name of peace, justice can be delayed by not arresting Misuari because he is the MNLF leader with whom the government is having peace talks,” Jumoad said.

He said so many lives were lost in the Zamboanga siege, and the damage to the city was “irreparable.”

Fr. Crisologo Manongas of Zamboanga City said he was sad about the suspension of the warrant for Misuari’s arrest.

“I’m sad because, first, justice has to be served. He has to answer for what his people did to the city and to the people of Zamboanga,” Manongas said.

Sen Leila de Lima cautioned the Duterte administration about dealing with Misuari.

“I presume that the President’s action must be an act of confidence building for peace talks and unification. That is his call,” De Lima said on Friday.

“However, we must remind him that Misuari is almost a recalcitrant peace partner, talking peace when it suits him and waging war when convenient, without regard for civilian lives and the lives of our soldiers,” she said.

De Lima, who was secretary of justice at the time of the siege and the investigation that followed, said the government had “enough evidence to prosecute Misuari for the deaths, injuries and damage to Zamboanga caused by his men.”

Misuari is charged with murder and crimes against humanity over the Zamboanga siege.  —WITH REPORTS FROM JEROME ANING, TARRA QUISMUNDO AND JULIE M. AURELIO