SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao, 11 March — The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has come out with a tough policy against kidnapping for ransom activities, not only involving its members but other groups as well.
Front spokesman Eid Kabalu said the policy was embodied in a resolution adopted by the MILF Central Committee and signed by Chairman Hashim Salamat on Feb. 26, 2002.
Kabalu said the resolution reiterates a standing MILF policy against all kidnap-for-ransom activities in Mindanao and elsewhere, strengthening it with a vow “to take drastic action against perpetrators of this heinous crime in MILF areas.”
“This evil practice must be stopped once and for all,” Kabalu said, explaining that kidnapping for the purpose of making money is “un-Islamic.”
He said the MILF resolution noted that in recent years, the rampancy of kidnap-for-ransom case in Mindanao, and even in Metro Manila and Sipadan Island in Sabah, Malaysia, has victimized children, women and even foreigners.
“For this reason, the MILF is taking resolute decision unilaterally, believing that the MILF could make the difference,” Kabalu said.
Kabalu’s announcement came a day after President Gloria Arroyo’s national security adviser, Roilo Golez, urged the MILF to crack down on its members who may be in cahoots with kidnap gangs.
Golez said the government believed in the MILF’s renouncement of kidnap-for-ransom activities as a matter of policy. But he said the Front should do something with its members in Basilan who are allegedly giving shelter to Abu Sayyaf kidnappers being hunted by the police and soldiers.
Government officials, on the other hand, say either the MILF top brass do not know what’s going on in the field or they don’t have control over what their men are doing.
Kabalu vehemently denied the charges.
He said that in most cases, the military had always associated in one way or the other these kidnapping incidents with the MILF, despite evidence showing that the perpetrators are non-MILF members.“In fact, they have to invent evidence if only to justify MILF linkages with international terrorist group, such as the Jumaah Islamiya of Indonesia and the Al-Qaeda of Osama Bin Laden,” he added.
Even then, Kabalu yesterday said the MILF Central Committee had directed its Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) to “take necessary steps until these criminal activities are neutralized and stopped in MILF areas.”
Acting BIAF chief of staff Sammy Al-Mansoor has immediately initiated the formation of an “anti-kidnapping task force” consisting of at least one battalion of fighters from every division that would focus on kidnappings, Kabalu said. The MILF is presently holding peace talks with the government and is observing a cease-fire agreement. Kabalu said the MILF has likewise recognized the Geneva call banning the use, production and storage of land mines.
