‘Malik embarrassed MNLF’

COTABATO CITY – The Moro National Liberation Front was embarrassed by Ustadz Habier Malik’s holding Marine Gen. Mohammad Ben Dolorfino and Presidential Deputy Adviser on the Peace Process Ramon Santos "under duress" for three days in his lair in Panamao, Sulu, an MNLF official said yesterday.

"It was his unilateral move and we did not in any way approve of it. We have a standing peace agreement – the Sept. 2, 1996 final peace pact between the MNLF and the government – so we must not be hostile with our partners in the peace process," said Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, MNLF’s secretary-general.

Another MNLF official, Manila liaison officer Jamasali Abdulrahman, said the government panel’s two-day stay in Malik’s camp was actually a "live-in seminar workshop," and that Dolorfino and Santos were not prevented from leaving but instead volunteered to stay because the "workshop meeting was not yet over."

Dolorfino said Malik did not want them to leave without a comprehensive discussion on an encounter last January between the Marines and MNLF members, and the cancellation of this month’s supposed tripartite meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where members of the separatist group, representatives of the government and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) are to discuss perceived kinks in the final peace agreement.

Sema said Malik acted on his own, unduly projecting that the MNLF has turned its back on the peace accord.

"We have never turned our backs from the peace agreement. We have complains, yes, but we want a peaceful settlement of the misunderstandings of the (government) and the MNLF on the peace agreement," Sema said.

He also said there was no reason for their group to violently object to the postponement of the tripartite meeting to March, adding that the meeting is the right venue for the MNLF to air its grievances.

Abdulrahman said that for the tripartite meeting to proceed, detained MNLF leader Nur Misuari should be present. He said since Misuari has no direct contact with MNLF commanders in Sulu, it is up to the OIC and the government to arrange his attendance at the meeting.

Among the issues the MNLF in Central Mindanao want to discuss with the government and the OIC during the Jeddah tripartite meeting is the still-unresolved Oct. 15, 2003 massacre of MNLF members at Barangay Tampad in Carmen, North Cotabato.

Among those killed in the Carmen incident was a key MNLF leader whose eyes were plucked out and his sex organ cut with a machete by militiamen identified with three barangay chairmen loyal to the town’s incumbent mayor, Roger Taliño.

Taliño and the three village chiefs were recommended for prosecution both by the National Bureau of Investigation and the Commission on Human Rights, which conducted separate inquiries on the atrocity.

Andez Alliuden, a ranking leader of the MNLF in North Cotabato, said they want a dialogue with the government and the OIC on the case, fearing it would only worsen the deep-seated animosity between the front and Taliño’s camp if left unsolved. – With Perseus Echeminada