MANILA/COTABATO CITY, 9 March — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaders yesterday reiterated that there is no truth to charges of collusion between their forces and members of the Abu Sayyaf and other kidnap gangs.
They also laughed off news reports that the recent attacks by MILF fighters against government troops, in violation of a standing cease-fire agreement, were ordered by their chairman, Hashim Salamat.
Spokesman Eid Kabalu said the MILF could never be allied with the Abu Sayyaf “because we have a different agenda.”
“We are a legitimate revolutionary organization and not a bunch of money-hungry kidnappers,” he said.
Kabalu was reacting to a statement by Senator Rodolfo Biazon, who said that collusion between the Abu Sayyaf and MILF fighters in Basilan has been confirmed at a congressional hearing.
Former hostages of the Abu Sayyaf from the town of Lamitan in Basilan, the island stronghold of the Abu Sayyaf, testified at a joint hearing of the Senate and the House of Representatives that sometime in the last quarter of 2001 the Abu Sayyaf took them to MILF camps in Basilan after escaping military encirclement in Lamitan.
Biazon, a former military chief, said this was also the time that the military intensified operations that significantly reduced the ranks of the Abu Sayyaf. But because of the ongoing peace process between the government and the MILF, further pursuit of the Abu Sayyaf was hampered.
Black propaganda
The MILF said the military report alleging that Salamat immediately ordered his troops to step up attacks on government targets were part of the military’s black propaganda campaign against the separatist group.
Salamat was supposed to have just returned to Mindanao from a two-year exile from the Middle East.
“There was never an order for such action against the Government of the Republic of the Philippines. The chair does not give orders particularly on any military action,” Murad said in Malaysia,” said Ebrahim Murad, MILF military chief.
He noted that in the MILF’s more than 20 years of existence Salamat never handed down orders, except on matters regarding the practice of Islam.
“We are governed by a central committee, which decides on what actions the MILF will take against any aggressor. If such action is decided, I then hand down the order as vice chair for military affairs and chief-of-staff,” Murad said.
He said the only order he issued since the resumption of the peace talks last year was for MILF guerrillas to stand back and observe the cease-fire agreement signed in Kuala Lumpur.
