MNLF members ready to return to Datu Piang

COTABATO CITY — Members of the Moro National Liberation Front displaced in hostilities between MNLF and military units in Datu Piang, Maguindanao last June have assured a fact-finding team of the Organization of Islamic Conference looking into the conflict that they are now ready to return to their communities to start life anew.

Sources, among them MNLF officials, said Abdurahman Totin, the front’s state chairman in Datu Piang who lost a son and some followers in the skirmishes, is willing to renounce his earlier statement rejecting the MNLF’s Sept. 2, 1996 peace pact with the government because of the military’s bombardment of their camp.

The Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the 301st Infantry Brigade earlier said the series of firefights erupted at the MNLF’s Camp Bulatukan in Datu Piang when Totin’s men refused to allow soldiers to enter the area to search for two notorious leaders of a kidnap-for-ransom gang.

Instead of cooperating, the MNLF members, the 6th ID said, opened fire on the advancing soldiers, triggering gunbattles which left casualties on both sides.

Totin, who has been in hiding since soldiers took over Camp Bulatukan, was said to have relayed to the OIC fact-finding mission, composed of representatives from eight Muslim countries, including Libya and Saudi Arabia, his willingness to peacefully resolve the conflict.

Tension at Camp Bulatukan and surrounding communities waned only after Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema, the MNLF’s secretary-general, and Presidential Assistant for Mindanao Jesus Dureza worked out the repositioning of soldiers and Totin’s followers a day after the hostilities.

The OIC helped broker the Sept. 2, 1996 government-MNLF peace agreement.

Members of the OIC fact-finding team reportedly called on MNLF forces in Datu Piang to be open to a peaceful settlement of their conflict with the military.