MILF ready for settlement of Maguindanao conflict

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Responding to the clamor for a ceasefire by religious groups, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday expressed support for a negotiated settlement of the strife in Shariff Aguak, Maguindanao.

The skirmishes between radical MILF forces and militiamen in Shariff Aguak was sparked by the June 23 bombing which killed seven people, two of whom were relatives of Maguindanao Gov. Datu Andal Ampatuan.

Police and military investigators were certain Ampatuan was the target of the roadside bombing.

Suspected Moro militants blasted a parked multicab packed with explosives and jagged metal fragments just as the governor’s convoy was passing through.

The MILF’s news website luwaran.com quoted yesterday the front’s chief secretariat, Muhammad Ameen, as offering a "four-point framework" for a peaceful solution of the raging hostilities in at least five barangays in Shariff Aguak and adjoining towns.

Ameen said the MILF is ready to help defuse the tension in the affected areas under the context that the front does not consider Ampatuan as an enemy.

He also emphasized the readiness of the MILF to cooperate with the government, through a joint investigation under one of the security mechanisms of the ceasefire that will determine the identities of the June 23 bombers and the real motive for the attack.

Ameen said MILF forces in Maguindanao’s neighboring Shariff Aguak, Datu Unsay and Mamasapano towns can readily disengage for the sake of the immediate return of civilians driven from their homes by gunbattles that started Thursday.

He described the clashes as unfortunate and should not happen, especially among Muslims.

The fighting had already claimed 29 lives and wounded dozens according to leaders of both the MILF and paramilitary forces under the Maguindanao provincial government.

The Southern Command said troops have been deployed to contain the hostility from escalating even if there was no order to conduct an offensive.

Maguindanao’s police director Senior Superintendent Lomala Gunting said the hostilities erupted after the rebels opened fire at policemen on their way to arrest the masterminds in the bombing identified as Commanders Said Pakiladatu and Amiril Kato Ombra.

Followers and relatives of the two commanders have since been fighting militiamen and civilian volunteers in at least five barangays in a spate of encounters that forced thousands of villagers to evacuate to neutral grounds.

Among those who had called for a halt in the fighting was Cotabato’s auxiliary bishop Monsigñor Jose Collin Bagaforo.

Bagaforo said it is the innocent civilians who would suffer the brunt of the hostilities.

"We are praying that the parties involved in the conflict in Shariff Aguak can discuss and forge peaceful remedies to the security problems there," Bagaforo told radio station dxMS in Cotabato City.

Muslim clerics had earlier appealed to the MILF to rein in Pakiladatu and Ombra so they can be questioned by the police on their reported involvement in the June 23 bombing in Shariff Aguak. — With Roel Pareño