ZAMBOANGA CITY/COTABATO CITY — A senior leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said yesterday he was splitting from the country’s biggest Muslim armed group to pursue their fight for independence from the Philippine government.
Ustadz Shariff Julabbi said he was disgruntled with the MILF leadership, which he said eased him out from its central committee after signing a cease-fire with President Gloria Arroyo’s government last year.
Julabbi was reprimanded last month by the MILF leadership for claims he made to the press that the Front was continuing to recruit members and had resumed manufacturing weapons despite the peace talks.
“We will not negotiate with the government, but we will pursue the aspirations of the Moro people for an independent homeland,” said Julabbi in a press conference in Zamboanga City.
Julabbi said MILF forces in western Mindanao have also pledged alliance to his breakaway group. He claims to have thousands of armed fighters at his disposal in the Zamboanga peninsula and the nearby islands of Basilan and Jolo.
It was not clear how Julabbi’s split with the MILF would affect peace talks, but the military have previously said that MILF forces under his command had helped Abu Sayyaf bandits evade a manhunt.
The smaller Abu Sayyaf kidnap gang, believed to have links with the Al-Qaeda movement, is the object of joint US-Philippine military operations following a kidnapping spree that ended with the death last month of an American hostage.
The MILF leadership based in Central Mindanao played down Julabbi’s announcement.
“It will not in anyway affect the Front’s internal and external affairs,” said MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu.
For once, Kabalu and Col. Fredesvindo Covarrubias, spokesman of the military’s Southern Command, agreed with each other in casting doubt on Julabbi’s claim that more than 100,000 men were ready to take up arms with him.
Covarrubias wondered where Julabbi could get such a number of people. Kabalu said it will take 20 or more years before Julabbi could muster such a huge number of forces.
“Except for Jolo, Tawi-Tawi and Palawan, the MILF have a complete set of officials, both civil and military. All of them are intact and that there is no indication that they will shift loyalty to Ustadz Julabbi,” Kabalu guaranteed.
Kabalu said the MILF central leadership did direct Julabbi to refrain from giving media interviews in the name of the MILF because he was oftentimes contradicting the official line.
Julabbi is a former member of the secessionist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) led by Nur Misuari but he surrendered to the government in 1975, four years before Hashim Salamat and his followers split to form the MILF.
According to Kabalu, Julabbi was commissioned to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and worked with the Southern Command up to 1987.
He resigned from the military service with the rank of captain before he joined the MILF.
Julabbi never held a position in the MILF, such as regional chairman or co-chairman for Western Mindanao, said Kabalu. “These title has never exist in the MILF structure,” he said.
“In fact, it was Julabbi himself who refused to be given a position, saying he rather chooses to remain a plain member of the MILF,” Kabalu said.
