| OIC to sanction MILF?
By Romy Elusfa, Mindanao News
Bureau
COTABATO CITY—Officials
of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) have started exploring the possibility of
“recognizing the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF),” rebel sources said
yesterday.
OIC officials
reportedly met last Thursday night with MILF deputy chairman for military affairs, Al Haj
Murad, in Camp Abubakar, the rebel headquarters which the military claimed to have
captured last June.
MILF spokesman Eid
Kabalu confirmed the meeting. He refused to give details, except to say that talks
explored “all that really happened in Mindanao.”
Other top officers
of the separatist movement, who requested anonymity, said an OIC official expressed “frustration”
over the leadership of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) chairman Nur Misuari, who is
also governor of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
A rebel source
said OIC members had to “sneak out” of their rooms at the Estosan Garden Hotel
here to elude government “escorts.”
Personnel of the
Estosan Garden Hotel neither confirmed nor denied the report, saying they were not privy
to the itinerary of the OIC. Hotel personnel also claimed they do not usually log guests’
movements.
National
officials, however, had earlier given permission for an OIC-MILF meeting.
Criticism
“You need
three things—money, a good plan and a good leader. I don’t think Misuari is a
good leader,” the rebel source quoted an OIC team member saying.
In Jolo, the
source added, the OIC team expressed disappointment when they saw that the 10-lane highway
claimed by Misuari as a major accomplishment, was “nothing but a two-lane dusty and
rough road,” the source added.
The OIC sent a
team to evaluate the implementation of the 1996 peace agreement between the Philippine
government and the MNLF.
MNLF leaders
earlier opposed the OIC-MILF meeting.
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