Kato seeks peaceful dialogue with MILF

Renegade leader Ameril Umra Kato is nurturing hopes for a peaceful dialogue as “still his best option” to resolve political differences between him and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

“I still prefer to talk with Hadji Murad,” Kato said in Filipino by phone on Friday after the MILF stated that it might consider force in subduing him. He was referring to Murad Ebrahim, the chair of the MILF.

Kato now heads the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM) and its armed wing, the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).

He said his group had no plans of slugging it out with MILF forces. “We will not initiate attacks,” he said, but added that it would be a different story if they were attacked.

“We will welcome them in any form, whether through force or negotiation,” Kato said.

In a post on its official website, the MILF viewed the Kato issue as “the most contentious agenda” during its exploratory peace talks with government representatives in Kuala Lumpur last month.

In the plenary session on Aug. 22, the MILF negotiating panel explained that the it was not a simple matter of declaring Kato’s group a “lost command” for that “would create a much bigger problem.”

The issue “is multidimensional: it has the ingredients of the social, political, religious, military, psychological and personal, and, therefore, it requires a multidimensional approach,” it said.

The panel said it would resolve it as “an internal problem.”

Although the government panel wanted a timeframe for the resolution of the Kato issue, the MILF did not promise anything. Jeoffrey Maitem, Inquirer Mindanao