Senior MNLF officials: Nur not in OIC meeting in Guinea

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The group of Nur Misuari again drew flak from local sectors for allegedly lying that he attended the Dec. 9-11 ministerial meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Conakry, Guinea.

Senior Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) officials confirmed that Misuari did not attend the meeting of representatives from different OIC member-states, contrary to the announcement to the media by his spokesman, lawyer Emmanuel Fontanilla.

Fontanilla was quoted early this week in newspaper reports as saying that Misuari, leader of one of three factions in the now fragmented MNLF, was in Conakry, attending the OIC’s 40th ministerial meeting.

The OIC, a bloc of more than 50 Muslim countries, including petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, helped broker the 1996 final peace agreement between the Philippine government and the MNLF.  

“Chairman Misuari wasn’t there. It was a lie. He did not attend the OIC meeting in Conakry. How can he leave when there is a warrant for his arrest in connection with the trouble his group instigated last September in Zamboanga City,” a Meranaw MNLF leader in Lanao del Sur told The Star.

The source, who asked not to be identified, said Fontanilla lied when he announced that Misuari was in Conakry.

“He is Misuari’s spokesman so whatever he says about the MNLF Misuari faction is an official statement of Misuari’s group,” the source pointed out.

A Tausog MNLF official even provided reporters with a photo of the vacant desk for Misuari at the venue of the OIC meeting in Conakry.

The photo showed that even the green folder on top of the table, apparently containing important documents such as an outline of the meeting agenda, and the minutes of last year’s 39th OIC ministerial conference, was virtually untouched.  

Sources from the Department of Foreign Affairs have confirmed that Misuari was nowhere at the venue of the OIC meeting in Conakry, from the day it started until it culminated on Dec. 11.

“The wrong information given by the MNLF spokesperson is a strong indication that he was like firing a gun from the hip when he issued the statement,” a key DFA insider said.

A senior member of the MNLF’s Sema Group, which is led by former Cotabato City Vice-Mayor Muslimin Sema, said the announcement by Misuari’s group, which turned out false, was a serious blunder.

“Revolutionary organizations survive by being credible to the people it claims to fight for, and gets strength from public sympathy and support.What sympathy can you get from the public if you create false scenarios? That was too bad,” the MNLF leader said in Filipino, in heavy Maguindanaon accent.

The MNLF Sema group is the largest and most politically active faction in the once monolithic Moro revolutionary organization that waged a secessionist war in Mindanao for three-decades and signed a peace pact with government on Sept. 2, 1996.