Nur Misuari Accuses Manila Anew Of Failing To Honor 12-Year Old Peace Deal

Former Moro National Liberation Front rebel chieftain Nur Misuari is flanked by former MNLF rebels-turned-government soldiers and supporters as they marched to a mosque in Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines where he speak to about 200 unarmed followers. Misuari accused the Arroyo government of failing to fully implement the 1996 peace agreement it signed with the MNLF. (Mindanao Examiner Photo)

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / August 6, 2008) – The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has accused Manila on Wednesday of failing to implement the peace agreement it signed with the former Muslim rebel group more than a decade ago.

“We want freedom from the government. We don’t need a limited freedom,” Nur Misuari, leader of the MNLF who signed the peace deal in 1996, said in Zamboanga City where he met with about 200 former rebels and supporters, some from as far as Davao del Sur province.

“I have gone to all of the most dangerous places in Mindanao to tell our people to pray to almighty Allah for freedom. I call on our people to consolidate their unity and solidarity for freedom,” he said.

Misuari also spoke with his loyal MNLF leaders at the Lantaka hotel in downtown Zamboanga before attending a prayer in the nearby village of Santa Barbara.

Misuari, escorted by former rebels-turned-government soldiers, and supporters chanted “Allahu Akbar” or God is great, as they marched to the village. Security was tight for Misuari and Muslims entering the mosque to pray were frisked by soldiers for weapons.

“We really want our freedom back. The government was not really sincere in implementing the peace agreement it signed with us. We want our freedom and we want independence,” one of Misuari’s supporters, Abdulkadil Imdani told the Mindanao Examiner.

Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat also met with Misuari and they held a closed door meeting at the Garden Orchid hotel. Zamboanga was previously being claimed as part of the ancestral domain of the MNLF and residents had voted twice against the inclusion of their villages to the Muslim autonomous region.

Lobregat said he told Misuari that Zamboanga is a peaceful city and that residents had rejected two plebiscites in the past. Thousands of residents on Monday also rallied against attempts by Manila to include eight villages in Zamboanga City in the ancestral domain deal it signed last month with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a breakaway faction of the MNLF.

“I have told the (MNLF) Chairman (Nur Misuari) that in Zamboanga, we always live in harmony and we always live in peace. We have no wall between us, we live in harmony and we are in unity, Christians, Muslims and Lumads (indigenous peoples) alike,” Lobregat told reporters.

The Supreme Court temporarily stopped the formal signing Tuesday in Malaysia of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain after Zamboanga City Rep. Erico Fabian and other lawmakers filed a petition on Monday.

The MILF said the agreement was already approved on July 16 in Kuala Lumpur and that Tuesday’s signing was only a formal ceremony. But Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain, which seeks to expand the five-province Muslim autonomous region, will need enabling laws for it to be implemented.

He said the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain is part of a comprehensive peace agreement that Manila and the MILF will have to negotiate and conclude.

Manila is currently negotiating peace with the MILF, now the country’s largest Muslim rebel group which is fighting for a separate homeland in Mindanao.

Misuari said his group has nothing to do with the peace talks between the government and the MILF. “We are not involved in the peace process between the Government of the Philippines and the MILF. We are not part of any agreement between the government and the MILF,” he said, referring to the ancestral domain deal which would make up the Bangsamoro Juridical Entity that would grant Muslims a separate homeland.

“We are not involved (in the peace process). We are not a party to that. We are not bound by any consequences of any peace agreement,” Misuari said.

The MNLF, under Misuari, signed the peace deal with Manila in September 1996 ending decades of bloody war. After the peace agreement was signed, Misuari became the governor of the Muslim autonomous region. But despite the peace accord, there was a widespread disillusionment with the weak autonomy they were granted.

Under the peace accord, Manila would have 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.

Misuari is now facing rebellion charges after his followers tried, but failed to overrun a major military base in Sulu province and another group held hostage over 100 people in Zamboanga City in 2001 in an attempt to stop the elections in the Muslim autonomous region. He fled to Sabah, his former refuge, but was arrested by the Malaysian authorities and sent back to Manila. Misuari is currently out on bail.

Early this year, the MNLF Central Committee said it removed Misuari as chairman of the former rebel group and installed Muslim Sema, the Front’s Secretary-General. But Misuari insisted that he is still the chieftain of the MNLF and accused Sema, also the mayor of Cotabato City, as traitor and so were those who supported Sema.

Misuari also earned the ire of the Malaysian government after he renewed calls of the claims of the Philippines to Sabah. In retaliation, Sabah Progressive Party President Datuk Yong Teck Lee, furious over the rumblings from Misuari, has called for stricter laws on Filipinos traveling to the oil-rich state.

The Malaysian official also said that the National Security Council should closely watch developments in the southern Philippines. Lee said the NSC and the Sabah State Security Committee should act on the problems brought about by Misuari’s revival of the Sabah claims.

He also urged Kuala Lumpur to suspend the ferry service between Zamboanga and Sandakan and impose bonds on incoming visitors and to require ferry passengers to have return tickets and to step up operations against illegal Filipino immigrants.

The Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo lays claim to Sabah. The Sultanate of Sulu was a Muslim state that ruled over much of the islands off the Sulu Sea. It stretches from a part of the island of Mindanao in the east, to North Borneo, now known as Sabah, in the west and south, and to Palawan, in the north.

The Sultanate of Sulu was founded in 1457 and is believed to exist as a sovereign nation for at least 442 years. The Sultanate of Sulu obtained Sabah from Brunei as a gift for helping put down a rebellion on the Borneo Island.

The British leased Sabah and transferred control over the territory to Malaysia after the end of Second World War. Even after Borneo became part of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur still pays an annual rent of 5,000 ringgit to the heirs of the Sultan of Sulu Ismail Kiram.

Misuari said what Malaysia pays to the Sultanate of Sulu and North Borneo is but a pittance. (Mindanao Examiner)