Agence France-PresseFirst Posted 20:43:00 03/11/2008
source: inquirer.net

BUTIG, Philippines -- More than 10,000 armed Moro rebels put on their biggest show of strength since they began talks with the Philippine government in 2003, raising doubts that a peace agreement can be completed this year.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front leadership said Tuesday they doubted a peace deal would be reached this year and blamed President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's ongoing political crisis over alleged corruption as the main reason for constant delays in the negotiations.

The "uncertainty of concluding a peace pact with the government" was causing anxiety among the rebel ranks, said MILF chief Murad Ebrahim, flanked by his top military aide Abdul Aziz Mimbantas and political officer Ghazali Jaafar, at the end of a four-day meeting on Mindanao.

At least one faction headed by Hadji Samir wants an end to the talks and for the MILF to pursue its armed struggle for self-determination.

Samir is overall head of internal security within the MILF and as such wields considerable power.

The MILF has been waging a separatist rebellion on the southern island of Mindanao which has claimed 150,000 lives since 1978.

Manila and the MILF signed a ceasefire in 2001 but peace talks have been at a bitter impasse over the past year on disagreement over territories the rebels claim as ancestral lands.

MILF insiders told Agence France-Presse that the MILF central committee was having trouble dealing with internal squabbling over the direction the talks were taking.

"We have been the government's whipping boys all the time, and some people within the MILF do not want that. They believe they are entitled to fight," one senior commander said.

"Right now, the MILF central committee can still keep those with dissenting opinions in line, but there is a sense of nascent radicalization among the ranks," he added

Murad however denied there were any tensions within the rebel leadership saying: "I would like to declare to everyone that the MILF is as solid as ever."

He said the MILF would push for a lasting peace but warned they were also prepared for a longer struggle if a peace deal was not achieved, without giving a time frame.

Murad, 58, is seen by many as a pragmatic rebel leader who wants to see an end to the bloody conflict before he dies.

He told journalists that he doubted an agreement would be signed with the current administration.

"Given the delays in the resumption of peace talks, whether circumstantial or not, this prospect of signing is already suspect," Murad said at Camp Bushra just outside Butig town in central Mindanao where more than 10,000 MILF fighters had gathered.

Field commanders from 20 rebel fronts across Mindanao "reaffirmed a mandate" to continue with the peace process, Murad said but admitted many remained skeptical.

"This renewal of trust is not without the usual question," Murad said.

"Is the government serious in the peace talks?" he said to shouts of "Allah is great" from rebels sweating in their fatigues and carrying high powered weapons.

He said Arroyo's problems stemming from allegations of corruption involving her husband had affected the peace process, with government negotiators at one time pulling out of scheduled talks in Malaysia to help fix her problems.

The MILF leadership still believes that the "peace process is the most viable" way of solving the conflict on the mineral-rich island.

Both sides were to have met last December but it was cancelled over the thorny issue of ancestral domain, or the areas that the MILF says Muslims have historical rights and whose resources they should be allowed to freely control.

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