ZAMBOANGA CITY, 12 November 2005 — Filipino Muslim separatist rebels negotiating peace with Manila yesterday urged President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to release a detained ex-guerrilla leader Nur Misuari for humanitarian reasons.
Officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said they were preparing a letter to the president seeking freedom for Misuari, former leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) which signed a peace agreement with the government in September 1996.
“Nur Misuari is one of the recognized leaders of the Bangsamoro (Filipino Muslim) people. He’s been jailed long enough without any liberty. Nur Misuari has suffered enough, so for humanitarian reasons, we urge President Arroyo to set him free,” said MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu.
Misuari has been detained at a police camp in Sta. Rosa town of Laguna province, outside Manila, on rebellion charges since late 2001.
Misuari became governor of the five-province Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in 1996 after he signed a peace pact with the government ending his group’s rebellion.
The agreement went sour, however, with Misuari accusing the government of reneging on the peace agreement, which he claimed was supposed to lead to the expansion of the ARMM to include most of the southern provinces plus Palawan.
In November 2001, on the eve of the ARMM elections, Misuari’s followers launched a new rebellion in Jolo Island by attacking a military camp. In the ensuing battle, more than 100 people were killed, mostly from the rebel side.
As the rebellion was quelled, Misuari fled to nearby Sabah, but was arrested by the Malaysian government and sent back to the Philippines.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said the imprisonment is long enough and that Misuari is suffering from acute arthritis and heart problems, among other diseases.
“Nur Misuari was not allowed, even for once, to leave his detention place and go to the hospital or see his private doctors, unlike disgraced President Joseph Estrada,” Kabalu said.
Estrada, who is facing plunder charges, is currently under house arrest and in many occasions allowed by courts to either visit his family or even seek medication abroad for his arthritis.
A senior army intelligence official said the MILF’s intercession in Misuari’s behalf was apparently meant to win the support of his followers. He said the MILF wanted to expand its influence ahead of a possible peace deal with the government.
“We see the effort to free Misuari as part of the MILF’s consolidation process,” said the official. “The MILF used to be part of Misuari’s secessionist guerrilla forces. They could be working for a merger.”
The MNLF split in 1978 and the MILF was formed in 1984 from dissident members led by Salamat Hashim, a cleric who died in 2003.
House Speaker Jose de Venecia had been encouraging the MILF and MNLF to get their act together and speak with one voice so as to come up with a lasting political settlement of the decades-long strife in Mindanao.
Many of Misuari’s former guerrillas have threatened to abandon the 1996 peace agreement and renew hostilities in the southern Philippines if their leader is not freed.
MNLF leaders are also worried that they would be side-lined once the MILF signs an agreement with the government.
Under the 1996 accord, Manila was to provide a mini-”Marshal Plan” to spur economic development in Muslim areas in the south and livelihood and housing assistance to tens of thousands of former rebels to uplift their poor living standards.
MNLF members accused the government of failing to develop the areas, which remain mired in poverty, heavily militarized and dependent financially on Manila, and a huge number of disgruntled former fighters have either joined either the MILF or the smaller but notorious Abu Sayyaf group, which is tied to the Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah networks.
Misuari was also removed as MNLF chairman after disgruntled senior members led by Muslimin Sema, the front’s secretary-general, accused him of being incompetent as ARMM governor. Misuari’s deputy, Hatimil Hassan, is now chairman of the MNLF.
