World Islamic body begins probe on Muslim
plight in Philippines
MANILA, Oct 16 (AFP) - A
fact-finding team from the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) began a probe Monday
into the plight of Muslims in the southern Philippines, where a rebellion has raged for
three decades.
As the OIC team arrived here
late Sunday, the main Muslim separatist group ambushed government troops and wounded eight
of them in southern Maguindanao province, apparently to highlight the separatist problem,
the military said.
Military spokesman Major
Julieto Ando, speaking from the province's key trading centre in Cotabato City, said the
ambush on soldiers working on a development project could be part of plans by the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to step up attacks during the one-week OIC mission.
Indonesian Foreign Minister
Alwi Shihab, who is leading the OIC probe, held a closed-door meeting with his team
members ahead of talks with President Joseph Estrada later Monday, officials said.
"They will hold a news
conference later today," said an official close to the 22-member mission, whose other
members came from Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
The mission would look into the
progress of a 1996 OIC-brokered peace pact between Manila and the Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF), formerly the Philippines' largest Muslim insurgent group.
MNLF founder Nur Misuari, now a
governor of a Muslim autonomous region in the south, had in June complained to OIC foreign
ministers that Manila had reneged on certain conditions of the agreement, including
funding.
Manila, which has staved off
Muslim secessionist battles in the southern Philippines for more than three decades, has
denied the allegations and agreed to the OIC mission.
Philippine Foreign Affairs
Secretary Domingo Siazon said Manila would keep an open mind on the mission's findings and
accept its recommendations in good faith.
"What is important is to
implement what we agreed to do, because that's the only way you can have peace in
Mindanao," he was reported saying in the local media.
"And what this government
wants is to have peace and development in Mindanao," Sizaon said.
The mission would be split into
two groups, one to visit the central provinces of the main southern island of Mindanao,
where an MNLF splinter group, the MILF is currently engaged in a fierce war with Manila.
The second group would fly to
the the southern city of Zamboanga and nearby islands of Basilan and Jolo, where a third
Muslim rebel group, the Abu Sayyaf operates.
The group would produce a
report and submit it to an OIC summit to be held in Qatar in December, officials said.
The OIC delegation would also
check on infrastructure projects in Jolo, one of the country's poorest Muslim-dominated
areas.
The military is presently
carrying out a massive military operation to rescue five remaining hostages -- an
American, a Filipino and three Malaysians -- from the Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebels in Jolo.
Manila has said it hopes the
OIC will help broker a peace pact with the MILF, which had withdrawn from the negotiating
table after government troops overran its main headquarters in the south early this year.
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