Maute rebuffs gov’t 2 times

BALO-I, Lanao del Norte—The government has tried to bring the violent Maute group to dialogue but has been rebuffed, according to a government emissary.

The first attempt was days before President Duterte visited late last November government troops who had overrun the Maute group’s lairs in several villages in Butig town, the emissary said.

Two other attempts came early into the Maute siege of Marawi City, carried out by the government to spare the city from destruction from fighting and win the release of Catholic priest Teresito “Chito” Suganob, who was taken captive, together with more than 200 other civilians, by the marauders.

Gov’t emissary

The government emissary in those talks was former Marawi Mayor Omar Ali, better known as Solitario, the nom de guerre he uses as a commander of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the Lanao provinces.

Ali told the Inquirer in an interview on Wednesday night that he took orders from Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza.

“I am sure the President knew about my going to Butig,” Ali said.

It was more of “an exploratory discussion, trying to define possible avenues for a political dialogue,” he said.

“We were in a convoy of seven vehicles as I brought with me relatives and people with close familial ties” to the Maute brothers Omarkhayam and Abdullah, the leaders of the group, Ali said.

The Butig talks were held in the group’s jungle lair amid a military offensive against the terrorists, he said.

“We could hear the sound of artillery fire as we talked,”  he added.

Close-minded

Ali said he presented to the Mautes the peace and development plan of the Duterte administration, pointing to the “federalization project” as an opportunity for establishment of a government sensitive to the cultural and religious moorings of Muslims.

Ali said Omarkhayam and Abdullah failed to appreciate his  presentation on federalism “because they were never schooled in the underpinnings of the Bangsamoro political struggle.”

That disproved reports that the Maute brothers were either members of the MNLF or the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) before setting out on their own, he said.

“Their political ideals are based on radicalism masquerading as Islamic but which are not,” Ali said.

“That is why my talks with them was more of an exchange of arguments. They were close-minded,” he added.

Omarkhayam and Abdullah are Muslim preachers, which puts them in a position to recruit members from the local Islamic faithful, he said.

Maute relatives

“After that, I thought maybe that was just my initial impression as I got to meet them only for the first time. But I tried my best to give them good counsel, as a father would to his children,” Ali said.

A week after his meeting with the Mautes, Ali said several local Muslim clerics approached him and told him they had convinced the brothers to give political dialogue a chance, although he had received no orders to talk to the Mautes again.

A consultant to the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), Ali is the  older brother of former Marawi Mayor Fahad Salic, who married Rasmia Romato, first-degree cousin of Omarkhayam and Abdullah.

Rasmia’s mother is a sister of the brothers’ mother, Farhana.

Another sister married the late Aleem Abdulazis Mimbantas, MILF vice chair, and still another married Ibrahim Macadato, a former mayor of Butig where the group has its main base.

“I deal with the Mautes through this web of relationships. That is how it is in clannish Maranao society. But that should not make me or others connected by affinity to the Romato clan as among the radicals,” Ali said.

Hapilon in control

The second attempt at talks with the Mautes was on May 24, the day after they started to lay siege to Marawi, Ali said.

He said he received a call from Dureza to contact the terrorists’ leaders and talk them out of holing up in the city to save it from destruction.

“I then called their relatives as I am personally disturbed by the thought of my city becoming a battlefield and eventually laid to ruins. I was later told the brothers begged for time as they would have to consult first with Isnilon Hapilon, whom they referred to as their ameer (emir),” Ali said.

“That only shows that Hapilon was in control, in command of the forces fighting government soldiers in Marawi. And I have no way of knowing whether the suggestion for dialogue was ever elevated to Hapilon,” he said.

According to a 2016 report of the Jakarta-based Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict, Hapilon, leader of the Basilan-based faction of the Abu Sayyaf, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group in 2014 and was ordained the group’s emir in the Philippines.

Hapilon sneaked into mainland Mindanao early this year as part of his effort to consolidate the groups pledging allegiance to IS.

Before the Marawi siege, a big religious gathering was held in a mosque in Basak Malutlut, in the vicinity where Hapilon was believed hiding in an apartment.

Those who attended the gathering were foreigners and participants from Sulu and Basilan.

“That could have been the ploy to assemble the Abu Sayyaf and Asian fighters in Lanao del Sur,” one source, a local security monitor, said.

In a press briefing in Manila, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana confirmed that those involved in the siege were Maute group and Abu Sayyaf members and several foreign fighters.

Release of Suganob

The third attempt to talk to the Mautes was on May 25, the day after the evacuation of Marawi residents to nearby towns.

Ali said he inquired about the condition of Suganob, the vicar general of Marawi, and  chided the Mautes for targeting a priest.

In reply, he said, the Maute brothers offered to see him and discuss the matter in a barangay in Marawi.

“I then informed Secretary Dureza about this window for dialogue. I asked that I be given a military pass to enter the city [but it] never came,” he said.

Ali said Dureza told him the military had already set a plan to flush out the terrorists and may no longer be able to factor in talks with the Mautes.