COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 5 May — The MILF categorically denied police allegations that it had provided military training to the group of a certain Ahmad Santos from Pangasinan.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the evidence the military and police have shown to prove their claim do not prove at all that Santos had really undergone military training in the Front’s Camp Busrah in Lanao del Sur.
“His visit to Camp Busrah may be true, he being a member of mass media. In fact Busrah had been frequently visited both by the local and foreign media. Just recently a French journalist were reported to have visited the camp where they spent several night in the area.
In fact, Kabalu said, I myself was interviewed by Santos several times over the phone in his radio program in Metro Manila, he recalled.
Earlier on Friday, Kabalu accused the military and police of trying to sabotage the peace process by insisting on linking the MILF with terrorist networks and kidnap-for-ransom syndicates.
Kabalu said such “antagonistic acts” have escalated since the MILF forged an accord with the government to jointly fight kidnap gangs, the so-called “lost commands” and other criminal syndicates operating in Mindanao.
