ZAMBOANGA CITY, 16 February 2004 — A scheduled round of talks between government and Muslim separatist peace negotiators have been deferred, a military official said yesterday.

Lt. Gen. Rodolfo Garcia said Malaysia, which is hosting the talks, sought the postponement, citing “administrative reasons.”

“Definitely, it’s not going to be tomorrow, but we are expecting it to be held any time within a few days,” Garcia said hours after the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) announced the start of the talks in Kuala Lumpur

Garcia heads the government cease-fire panel and he is to take part in the meeting.

Participants in the talks are to discuss the specific role of a team of 25 Malaysian observers which will monitor a shaky cease-fire between Manila and the MILF.

The government of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had expressed hope it could strike peace deals with the Muslims and with communist rebels separately fighting for a Marxist state before presidential elections in May.

Kabalu said that while the discussion is to focus on the deployment of the foreign cease-fire observers, the MILF may demand anew the withdrawal of government troops inside a rebel stronghold in Maguindanao province.

“The MILF may also take up other important issues such as the immediate pull-out of troops in Buliok complex and for the withdrawal of all criminal charges against key MILF personalities falsely linked by the Philippine military to bombings in Mindanao,” Kabalu told the Arab News.

Security forces had captured a major MILF headquarters in Buliok in 2002 and converted this into a military base.

The MILF — the largest separatist rebel group fighting for Muslim independence in the southern Philippines — said the government ignored the truce signed by both sides last year, among which is the withdrawal of troops in Buliok, a mountain complex stretching from North Cotabato province to Maguindanao.

Buliok is a traditional stronghold of the MILF, where ethnic Muslim communities are also encamped, Kabalu said.

The Philippine military earlier said that a seven-man Malaysian cease-fire observers are to arrive in Mindanao in December, but did not push through because of the Christmas holiday and the Hajj.

Kabalu said more than 500 soldiers are currently deployed in the towns of Lambayong in Sultan Kudarat province and in Sultan sa Barongis in Maguindanao, on top of the hundreds of troops in Buliok complex.

Manila has repeatedly linked the MILF to the Jemaah Islamiya, said to be the Southeast Asian arm of the Al-Qaeda terror network blamed for the spate of bombings in the Philippines and Indonesia since 2000. The government implicated the MILF to the 2002 bombings of the Davao airport and the Sasah wharf, also in Davao that left dozens of people dead and wounded.

Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the military has monitored as many as 31 JI militants training Filipino extremists in central Mindanao, where the MILF is known to operate.

Kabalu has strongly denied Ermita’s report. “We have repeatedly denied this allegation. The MILF has no links whatsoever with the Jemaah Islamiya or Al-Qaeda network and all these military reports are false and fictitious,” he said.