COTABATO CITY, 3 July — The separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday agreed yesterday to step aside to allow government forces to pursue Abu Sayyaf gunmen holding 23 US and Filipino hostages.

Military field commanders have complained that units of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) were hampering the five-week-old operation to rescue the hostages on the southern island of Basilan.

“The MILF has never interfered in the military operations against the Abu Sayyaf,” MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said over DZBB radio.

“It’s not true they (Abu Sayyaf rebels) are sheltering in our areas. If we see them we will arrest them.”

Army batteries opened up on an MILF position near Tuburan town in Basilan on Sunday, with military spokesmen accusing the group of sheltering Abu Sayyaf gunmen holding US Christian missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and 21 Filipinos.

The shelling shattered the cease-fire signed between the Philippine government and the MILF in Libya on June 22. No casualties have been reported.

Col. Danilo Servando, a military spokesman, said troops were under instructions to engage any suspicious groups bearing firearms, including the MILF.

Peace talks

Kabalu told Radio Mindanao Network that Abu Sayyaf units themselves were actually steering clear of MILF areas.

He said the MILF units on the island would not leave, however. “We don’t see that happening because our men there are natives in the area,” he said.

He charged that the military were merely “blowing up the issue to justify their failure and to damage the integrity of the MILF.”

Bur Basilan provincial governor Wahab Akbar insisted that both members of the MILF and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), another separatist group which signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1996, are hampering military operations.

“They were all former comrades, so they cannot shoot at each other,” he told Radio Mindanao Network.

The MILF has said it does not share ideological links with the Abu Sayyaf, a smaller group of a few hundred self-styled Islamic freedom fighters, described by Manila as plain bandits and terrorists.

Kabalu said, however, that the mutual suspicions should not affect the peace talks between the MILF and Manila, which is expected to continue shortly in Malaysia and Indonesia.

But he added they could “erode confidence-building measures.”

Monitoring

Kabalu said the MILF will also continue to monitor and gather information “on the actual and true situation” of the Abu Sayyaf hostages.

The Abu Sayyaf snatched 17 Filipino and three American hostages from a resort in the western Philippines on May 27.  Eleven of them have been freed or rescued, while the rebels have killed two and claimed to have also executed American Guillermo Sobero, who is now officially presumed dead.

They also snatched four hospital staff and 15 plantation workers during two raids in Basilan, two of whom were found beheaded last week.

Asked about his claim on Sunday that Sobero was alive, contrary to reports that he was executed, Kabalu yesterday said they were trying to validate his statement.

Kabalu said the MILF was monitoring developments “for our own consumption only.”

“Aside from this, we need to be informed of what is happening around us as we are in one way or the other affected by the ongoing conflict between the Abu Sayyaf and the government,” he said.

Kabalu, however, reiterated that “the MILF is neither siding with the Abu Sayyaf in their unlawful conduct nor supporting the government...”

 

Peace talks

An intermediary, meanwhile, claimed Abu Sayyaf gunmen were forced to abort a plan to release two Filipino hostages because of advancing troops. The intermediary said the presence of troops near the area where the bandits had planned to release 15-year-old Lalaine Chua and Luis Bautista, 32, compelled the guerrillas to hold onto the pair.

Rebel spokesman Abu Sabaya also called local radio RMN and said the group had intended to release Chua and Bautista as early as last week but the presence of “so many soldiers and another armed group” near where the hostages were kept derailed the plan, the radio station said.

“They (the rebels) were worried that the hostages might not reach their relatives and the government safely,” RMN said.

The intermediary, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters the guerrillas still planned to release the pair but gave no specific date.