Misuari tells Muslims: Fight terrorism

A former Muslim guerrilla leader awaiting trial for rebellion urged his Islamic colleagues yesterday to shun terrorism as a means to advance their separatist struggle, saying it would harm their cause.

Muslims should also not support Islamic extremist groups such as the al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf, former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao governor Nur Misuari said in a letter from his jail cell at the police training Camp Sto. Domingo in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Misuari denounced "any act of terrorism — now and in the future — that may be targeted to kill and cripple our Filipino brothers in Metro Manila and elsewhere and undermine and destabilize the Philippine state."

Authorities announced this month the arrest of six Abu Sayyaf guerrillas who had allegedly planned to bomb trains, embassies and civilian targets in Manila in a manner similar to the March 11 attacks that killed nearly 200 people in Madrid.

Misuari said: "I appeal against giving aid in any form to the Abu Sayyaf or any Islamic terrorist cell out to initiate a Madrid-type bomb attack, or attacks, directed at high-impact targets in Metro Manila."

"I urge Muslim Filipinos, therefore, to help thwart any such attack, should any terrorist plot ever come to your knowledge, by promptly exposing it to (the) authorities," he said.

Misuari, who was arrested in 2002 after leading a rebellion in Zamboanga City in November 2001, said "terrorism can never heal and can only exacerbate the seeming disunity among Christians and Muslims in our country."

"Terrorism will negate everything — and offer nothing," he wrote.

His letter was released to the media by Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr.

Misuari headed the separatist Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) that signed a peace treaty with Manila in 1996 to end its decades-old rebellion.

Two years later he was elected governor of the ARMM, which covered five mainly Muslim provinces in Mindanao.

He mounted an armed rebellion in November 2001 when President Arroyo refused to endorse his re-election bid. More than 100 people were killed in Jolo, Sulu and in Zamboanga City.

Misuari fled to Malaysia, where he was arrested and repatriated to Manila in early 2002. He has been denied bail.

The Philippine government is due to resume formal peace talks with another Muslim separatist rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in Malaysia this month. — AFP, Delon Porcalla