MNLF hits MILF, denies helping Kato group

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) has cautioned the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on the implications of its insinuation that it aided the group of renegade Moro rebel leader Ameril Umbra Kato in its violent incursions in five Maguindanao towns early this month.

“Those imputations, obviously not supported by evidence, are not good for the Bangsamoro people, to where these two fronts belong,” the general secretariat of the largest of three MNLF factions said in a statement.

It said it could not understand why the MILF has dragged the MNLF into the “dirty foray” ins-tigated by Kato’s Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement (BIFM).

The issue on its supposed “cooperation” with the BIFM, according to the MNLF faction, cropped up after an unnamed MILF source alleged to media that certain politicians, including Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu, were helping Kato’s group.

Mangudadatu has denied any links with the BIFM, even dismissing as “unfounded and an absolute fiction” a news report (not in The STAR) alleging that he was coddling Kato’s group for political objectives.

Mangudadatu said he is even ready to offer a reward for information that would lead to the arrest of all BIFM members, including Kato and spokesman Abu Misry Mama, so they could be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The MNLF said the allegations cropped up as it was trying to reaffirm its religious compliance with its final peace pact with the national government, signed on Sept. 2, 1996.

It gave assurance that it would not be a stumbling block to the peace negotiations with the MILF.

“It is not a wise move on the part of the MNLF to cooperate with the BIFM/BIFF (Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters),” the MILF said in an article posted on its website luwaran.com.

But the MNLF said it is “not at war with the MILF” and that most of its members in Maguindanao are now peacefully thriving as farmers in government-acknowledged camps and in the 3,000-hectare enclave in Bago Inged in Datu Odin Sinsuat town where they are operating a rubber tree seedling facility and orchards.

“What logic is there in helping the BIFM perpetrate violent attacks in Maguindanao when we in the MNLF are busy strengthening our peace agreement with the national government through a peaceful tripartite initiative? That would be too counter-productive,” the MNLF said.