|
No Arroyo-Salamat Meeting As Nur Misuari Appointed OIC Special Envoy
by Kazi Mahmood
KUALA LUMPUR, March 13 (IslamOnline) - There will be no meeting between Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Chairman Hashim Salamat, Presidential Assistant for Southern Mindanao Jesus Dureza said on Tuesday.
In the meantime, the Philippines government announced it has nominated Nur Misuari, the governor of the Autonomous region of Mindanao and leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) as the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) special envoy for the peace drives in Mindanao.
Arroyo is scheduled to travel to Cotabato on Wednesday to hold talks with the head of the largest Muslim separatist group in Mindanao, unconfirmed reports say.
"There is no meeting between the President and Hashim Salamat. There is no intention [to hold the meeting]. The President is going to Cotabato tomorrow not to meet anyone, but to attend to the evacuees there," Dureza said.
The MILF however, said there might be a meeting between the two leaders but rejected the possibility that Dureza would meet with Salamat in the course of peace negotiations.
It said that Dureza might be held responsible if there were no meetings, having been denied the request to meet with Salamat personally. Dureza has been accused by the MILF of distorting facts in backdoor negotiations with the Philippine government.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu earlier announced that the Arroyo would meet Salamat in an effort to jumpstart stalled peace talks.
"He must be joking," asked Dureza. "Do you still believe Kabalu?" he added.
Instead, Dureza challenged the MILF to quickly assemble its panel "so we can start the process of peace negotiation."
"Certainly a meeting between the President and...Salamat, at this point in time, is not part of that agenda," he stressed.
The MILF is one of the two Moro movements fighting to carve out an independent Islamic state in MIndanao and nearby islands. The other group is the Abu Sayyaf, which is a smaller but more radical group reportedly backed by Osama bin Laden.
A third group, the MNLF, entered into a peace settlement with the government in 1996. Its founding chairman, Nur Misuari, is the elected governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, consisting of four provinces in the far south of the country.
The MILF said it is willing to resume peace talks if the OIC or its member-states would act as mediator.
Arroyo designated Nur Misuari as the government's special envoy to the OIC member-countries.
Arroyo said Misuari has "graciously accepted" the designation. "This would allow [Misuari] to serve his constituents with wider latitude," Macapagal said.
MNLF founder Misuari, 60, ends his term as governor of the autonomous Muslim region in the southern Philippines this year.
The MNLF in 1996 ended a campaign lasting more than 20 years to set up a separate Islamic state in the southern third of the archipelago when it signed a peace treaty with the government.
The settlement was forged under the guidance of the OIC, a block of more than 50 Islamic states that include Philippine neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Misuari was later elected governor of a Muslim self-rule area granted to the Muslim minority following the armistice.
Arroyo has declared a unilateral truce with a second Muslim separatist faction, the MILF, and freed a number of Muslim and communist guerrillas to entice their leaders to come to the negotiating table.
The ceasefire, however, was disrupted after a number of firefights broke between the military and MILF members.
|
