MILF won't retaliate over member's arrest

COTABATO CITY, Philippines --- The Moro Islamic Liberation Front assured authorities on Monday that its forces will not retaliate over Sunday’s arrest here of senior MILF leader Imam Wahid Tundok.

Superintendent Jovit Culaway, regional chief of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, confirmed Sunday night the arrest of Tundok, who is wanted for arson and other criminal offenses.

Tundok, chief of the MILF’s 118th Base Command, was intercepted by CIDG-ARMM operatives, and combatants of the 1st Marine Battalion at a checkpoint here, while on his way home to Datu Saudi town in Maguindanao, from the front’s main headquarters in Darapanan in the first district of the province.

Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF vice chairman for political affairs, said their central committee had ordered members of the 118th Base Command to stand down and keep calm since the incident is now being investigated by the joint ceasefire committee.

The committee is composed of representatives from the MILF, the Armed Forces, and the Philippine National Police.

“We advised them to stay calm because the leadership of the MILF is peacefully addressing this unfortunate incident,” Jaafar said.

Jaafar said they will uphold the primacy of the government-MILF peace process in addressing the plight of Tundok.

The government and the MILF are to mutually cooperate in addressing peace and security problems in flashpoint areas based on the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities. Jaafar said the arrest of Tundok will not affect the GPH-MILF talks.

Culaway said they learned of Tundok’s route from informants, among them MILF insiders. Culaway said the arrest was done based on a warrant issued by a local court.

Culaway and his men recovered unlicensed assault rifles from Tundok’s bodyguards.

Tundok, a radical cleric, is popular for his guerrilla exploits. He had led dozens of attacks on military positions in 2000, 2003 and in 2008.

The arrest of Tundok was preceded by last week’s death of a ranking MILF commander, Yusoph Kusain, also known as “Commander TMX,” in an encounter in Maguindanao’s Datu Paglas town with CIDG operatives that tried to arrest him peacefully.

Armed with an M-16 rifle, Kusain, instead of turning himself in, opened fire at the policemen, forcing them to neutralize him. He died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds. Two policemen were reportedly wounded in the shootout, and one of them died later in a hospital.

Police and Army intelligence sources said many MILF officials long knew of the warrant for the arrest of a Kusain, but none turned him in until he was killed for resisting arrest last week.

Kusain was implicated in deadly bombings in Central Mindanao in recent years.

Von Al-Haq, spokesman of the MILF, announced on Thursday that they are to file a formal protest on the operation that resulted to Kusain's death, as a serious violation of the 1997 government-MILF ceasefire pact.

Al-Haq said the operation was initiated without prior coordination with the MILF ceasefire committee.

The MILF and the government are supposed to cooperate in the interdiction of criminals and terrorists in flashpoint areas in the south as stated in the 1997 ceasefire accord.

The MILF ceasefire committee had never acted on the warrant for the arrest of Kusain, issued in connection with his alleged involvement in bombings.

The MILF also had not turned Tundok in for prosecution despite the criminal cases against him that are pending in a local court. -John Unson