Arab News

MANILA, 28 June 2003 — Malaysia wants the Philippines to remove legal obstacles keeping Muslim separatist leaders from traveling to Kuala Lumpur for a possible resumption of peace talks between the insurgents and the Philippine government, a Malaysian official said yesterday.

Malaysia is brokering talks to end decades of Muslim rebellion in the neighboring Philippines. Many Filipinos have fled to Malaysia’s nearby Sabah state to take refuge from the fighting.

Malaysia’s ambassador to Manila, Mohamed Taufik, said the Philippine government’s warrants and bounties on leaders of the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) were an obstacle to the talks, and they should be guaranteed safe passage.

“You cannot have the MILF leaders ... come to Malaysia without any peace of mind,” he said.

Taufik said representatives of the Philippine government and the MILF agreed during recent informal meetings in Kuala Lumpur to resume talks “as soon as possible.”

In a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines, he said the Malaysian government hopes that a peace agreement would be reached in 90 days. He added, however, that Kuala Lumpur would continue to host the talks even for a longer period.

“(The two sides) have reached a stage where there is enough confidence and the conditions are conducive,” he said.

Taufik also expressed the hope that “no Buliok happens next week”— a reference to the military offensive on and subsequent hostilities in the Buliok complex, a marshy area straddling the provinces of North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

“If there are no problems, they should reach (an agreement),” he said. “Because before Buliok, they were very close to reaching a final agreement.”

Foreign Secretary Blas Ople announced on Thursday that the talks might resume on July 1.

Taufik said Kuala Lumpur wanted MILF leader Salamat Hashim to lead the negotiations for the rebels, and requested the Philippine government to recall the warrants of arrest for Salamat and other leaders of the secessionist group.

“I expect that the government is doing something about lifting the warrants of arrest and granting safe passage for people taking part in the talks. It will be meaningless if the main players won’t be there,” he said.

Taufik also said that because Hashim was the “guiding spirit” of the MILF, it would be “so much better” if he would lead the rebel negotiators. But if the MILF decided on someone else, “the final document has to be endorsed and signed by (Hashim),” Taufik said.

Malaca?ang, however, was noncommittal on the envoy’s request. President Gloria Arroyo’s spokesman Ignacio Bunye told reporters that the lifting of the arrest warrants would be tackled at “a later stage.”

He said the warrants were likely to be one of the key issues to be resolved in the first stages of the road to the peace talks, which include back-channel negotiations and a respite to the hostilities.

In a statement, the president said that the law should not be used as a “bargaining chip” at the negotiating table, and that the government would not desist from upholding the law and fighting terrorism even with the start of the talks. “The authority of the government to enforce law and order shall be undiminished at all times and in all places,” she said, adding:

“We have a separate doctrine for peace, for law enforcement, and for fighting terrorism. We shall not sacrifice our vigilance in these matters for the sake of earning illusory gains in the peace negotiations.”

The arrest warrants issued for Hashim and others were for a series of bombings that killed almost 40 people in Mindanao in March and April.

In Cotabato City, MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said his group had “nothing to explain” regarding the military’s discovery of a cache of explosives in Maguindanao on Sunday. “The burden of proof is on the military side,” Kabalu said in reaction to the president’s statement Thursday demanding an explanation from the MILF.

Arroyo had hinted that the peace talks could only resume if the MILF disclosed the sources of the explosives and where these were to be set off. (Inputs from Agencies)

The MILF disowned the cache, consisting of 450 kilogram of C-4 explosives and black gunpowder, which the military said was recovered from Barangay (village) Payan in Kabuntalan.

Kabalu told the Inquirer that the C-4 bombs belonged to the military. “We don’t own them,” he said. “We have no explosives arsenal.”

He said the find could be part of “a grand design” of the “hawks” in the Macapagal Arroyo administration “to pin the MILF down.”

Kabalu said the timing of the announcement of the find was “too obvious.”

“This report (of the cache) came as the 20-day (unilateral cease-fire) ended on June 22,” he said, adding that before then, Hashim issued a statement “clarifying” the MILF position on terrorism.

Kabalu also said it was highly suspicious that the bombs were “just sprawled on the marshland.”

“There was no warehouse, and there were no MILF fighters around,” he pointed out.

But he admitted that the MILF had been manufacturing rocket-propelled grenade shells, some of which were seized by government troops during the recent battles.

MILF information chief Mohagher Iqbal said some of the alleged explosives components were actually fertilizer owned by farmers in the area.

Like Kabalu, Iqbal admitted that the MILF was producing its own munitions. “This only shows that we do not rely on groups, local or international, especially terrorist organizations, to continue with the revolution,” he said.

Former government chief negotiator Jesus Dureza said he was optimistic that peace would soon reign in Mindanao.

Opposition Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said another stumbling block had been removed with the MILF’s willingness to resume the talks and with Hashim’s rejection of terrorism.

Pimentel said he was also happy that the government appeared to be pushing for the resumption of the peace talks. He noted that the president had dispatched Eduardo Ermita, her adviser on the peace process, to the United States to brief US officials on the steps being taken to reopen the talks.

“I hope this will (mean) formal entry of the United States as an honest broker for peace between the government and the MILF,” Pimentel said in a statement.