MILF announces end of 2 clan wars

COTABATO CITY – The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) announced that it has successfully resolved two cases of “rido” or family feuds in Maguindanao as it continued to mediate in similar cases.

Murad Ebrahim, the MILF chief, acknowledged that feuds – especially those involving MILF men – tend to drag the peace process down.

Jack Abbas, head of the MILF’s Task Force Islah (Reconciliation), said the feuding clans from Pandag and Datu Paglas towns agreed to bury the hatchet and end their long-running conflict.

“It has been a long standing feud and started years back,” Abbas said.

He said the reconciled parties acknowledged that “it may take time for the wounds to heal.”

“But what is important is both sides can now see eye to eye and embrace peace,” Abbas said without elaborating on the identities of the warring clans.

Brigadier General Ariel Bernardo, chain of the government’s ceasefire panel, said it took more or less 100 days for the MILF task force and government representatives to bring the two warning clans to peace.

But Ebrahim said time was not a concern and what was important was that the feuds had been settled.

Ebrahim said resolution of family feuds has become one of the MILF’s goals because past experience showed that they could cause serious problems to the peace process.

Ebrahim said other convergence efforts were being undertaken to settle similar problems in Mlang, North Cotabato, where MILF men were also involved.

Police authorities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao said there were about 42 feuding families in the five-province region.

In some cases, political clans were involved.