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Philippines Autonomy Polls Peaceful Despite Rebellion, Kidnappings
By Kazi Mahmood
JAKARTA, Nov. 27 (IslamOnline) - Polls in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) went peacefully on Monday despite a last stand effort by former governor Nur Misuari to cause disruptions.
At least 65% of the 1.3 million registered voters went to the polls to elect a new governor and other officials of the ARMM. Police and elections officials say polling went on as scheduled with no major outbreaks of violence.
However, in Zamboanga, rebels from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) fled one of their key bases in the southern Philippines on Tuesday, dragging along dozens of roped-together hostages as human shields.
The heavily-armed Muslim rebels were seeking to escape a withering air assault launched by the military in a bid to quell the rebellion.
The military said hours of intense fighting had left 25 guerrillas and one soldier dead and an unknown number of others wounded, including civilians.
Some of the terrified captives, snatched from their homes in the middle of the night before explosions and tracer fire lit up the skies for hours, were sobbing and shouting for troops not to shoot.
The city of Zamboanga, with a population of 750,000 was virtually shut down while the government offered to allow the rebels to go free if they released their hostages.
The fighters, from a splinter group of the MNLF, are loyal to Misuari, a former rebel leader arrested in Malaysia. He is to be charged for rebellion and for allegedly ordering an attack on an army base a week ago in violation of a five-year-old peace deal.
The Philippine government on Tuesday launched talks with the armed rebels who said they would kill all the 50 hostages if they are not allowed to go freely.
Over local television, Abraham Iribani, an official in a Muslim self-rule area in the country's south, said he had met with the leader of the gunmen, Julhambri Misuari, and asked him to free the captives.
Julhambri Misuari is the nephew of Nur Misuari, a Muslim former guerilla leader who last week led a failed revolt in the southern island of Jolo, near Zamboanga, that left more than 100 people dead.
At Malacañang (the presidential palace), President Arroyo expressed relief that minimal violence occurred in yesterday's elections, with isolated incidents reported in three far-flung areas in Maguindanao.
Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao told reporters the Arroyo administration has fulfilled the last phase of the government's 1996 peace agreement with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).
The process would choose an ARMM governor, a vice governor and three district representatives for each of the eight legislative districts of the 24-seat regional assembly for the impoverished and rebel-torn region.
Former ARMM Governor Nur Misuari, who led a brief uprising last week but is now languishing in a Malaysian jail, was serving his last year as governor.
His automatic replacement at the head of the ARMM had sparked an unexpected return to violence during the past few months, leading the Philippines authorities to suspect 60-year-old Misuari was in collusion with the kidnap gang, the Abu Sayyaf group.
Two bands of Misuari partisans reportedly attacked two army detachments in different parts of Barangay Mataya in Buldon, Maguindanao two hours before polling stations opened.
The vote-rich town of Shariff Aguak, also in Maguindanao, was said to have been shelled by mortar fire by another group of MNLF guerrillas loyal to Misuari, and a powerful blast rocked a polling station in Parang, Maguindanao just after midnight Sunday.
The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) was monitoring the process of the elections.
They want to ensure that Manila adhered to its "commitment" to give a political voice to the marginalized 3.5 million strong Muslims in this largely Roman Catholic Southeast Asian archipelago of 78 million people.
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