Monday, February 05, 2007
Moro rebels release gov't negotiators
MANILA -- A marine general and 19 companions were released Sunday from a rebel camp where they were held for two days by guerrillas demanding more benefits under a 1996 peace accord, officials said.
Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesman Bartolome Bacarro said the group of Marine Major General Ben Dolorfino left the MNLF camp in Panamao town at 4:4O p.m. Sunday aboard military vehicles.
A few minutes later, Dolorfino's group arrived at the headquarters of the 11th Marine Battalion Landing Team in Lake Seit, also in Panamao. From there, they took helicopters that brought them to the headquarters of the military's Joint Task Force Comet at Camp Bautista in Busbos, Jolo.
"We are happy that the crisis is over," Dolorfino said, smiling broadly before a throng of government officials and journalists after alighting from a helicopter.
Rebel commander Habier Malik allowed Dolorfino and his group to leave his camp after being assured that a meeting would be hosted by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Saudi Arabia next month to discuss the full enforcement of the 1996 accord, he said.
Aside from Dolorfino, also let go by the MNLF were Undersecretary Ramon Santos of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), four other Opapp personnel, Joint Task Force Comet chief and military liaison to the MNLF Demetrio Ramon, and four Marine soldiers acting as security to the group.
The tense standoff underscored the fragility of peace in the volatile south-the home of minority Muslims in the majority Roman Catholic nation and site of a decades-long separatist insurgency.
The MNLF was the largest Muslim separatist group in southern Mindanao region until it decided to go for autonomy and signed a historic peace accord with the government in 1996.
Many of its members, however, refused to disarm over the years and maintained strongholds on Jolo and nearby islands. The guerrillas later accused the government of reneging on promises to deliver political and economic concessions to predominantly Muslim areas under the deal.
Dolorfino said he and his group had traveled to the guerrilla stronghold Friday to discuss with Malik two accidental clashes between MNLF guerrillas and army troops pursuing an al Qaida-linked group, the Abu Sayyaf, as well as Indonesian militants on Jolo.
But the talks strayed toward the touchy issue of the 1996 peace accord.
When Dolorfino bade farewell to Malik after two hours of talks on Friday, Malik told him they could not leave until there was assurance the OIC and the Philippine government would push through the long-delayed plan to meet with the MNLF to discuss the 1996 agreement, Dolorfino said.
The 57-member OIC is the Islamic world's largest political grouping.
"We told them we were going, then suddenly he declared that we couldn't leave," Dolorfino told The Associated Press earlier by cell phone from the rebel camp. "It was very tense. Although what they did was against our will, we understood their plight."
"We were virtually held as hostages, but we were treated well," he said. "We were used as leverage."
Philippine officials, led by presidential adviser Jesus Dureza, managed to get a commitment from OIC officials to meet to discuss the 1996 accord in Saudi Arabia next month.
Malik denied that he took Dolorfino's group as hostages, but acknowledged in a phone interview with The AP that the rebels "have to do something to catch the government's attention on the non-implementation of the 1996 peace agreement."
Philippine officials have refused to call the incident a hostage crisis, apparently to avoid antagonizing the MNLF, which has hundreds of armed men on Jolo, Sulu, and complicating a US-backed massive offensive against the Abu Sayyaf and Indonesian militants, who hide in forested mountains near MNLF strongholds.
The MNLF has earlier agreed to help the government hunt the Abu Sayyaf, Malik said.
Dolorfino's entourage included a senior government official involved in the peace process and 11 soldiers who secured him in the MNLF lair manned by about 300 heavily armed guerrillas.
Dolorfino said his soldiers were not disarmed, and were allowed to use their cell phones and given comfortable accommodation. "The joke around here is we were not taken hostage, but we were hosted," he said while still in the rebel camp.
Marine spokesman Ariel Caculitan agreed that Dolorfino and his group could not be considered as having been taken hostage.
The MNLF is Sulu has remained loyal to Misuari, who is being detained and tried for rebellion for allegedly ordering the attack on the headquarters of an Army brigade in Sulu in November 2001. Misuari reportedly ordered the attack shortly after he was dislodged as MNLF chairman.
Dolorfino, a member of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class of 1976, was appointed as chief of the AFP National Capital Region Command in September last year. He was formerly detailed as commander of the military's Southern Command based in Zamboanga City. (AP/With VR of Sunnex)
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Manila. (February 5, 2007 issue)
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