EDITORIAL – Exporting terror

Malacañang was quick to shrug off yesterday reports that one of the two men wanted for the deadly terrorist attack on the Australian embassy in Jakarta last week used to train militants in bomb making in Mindanao. Palace officials appeared nervous over anything that might derail the resumption of peace talks with the se-paratist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, especially with an advance observer team from Malaysia in town in preparation for an expected ceasefire once the negotiations resume in Kuala Lumpur.

Malacañang’s reaction to the terrorist training story: So what else is new? Only that the story validated reports that certain enclaves in Mindanao, protected by the MILF under the aegis of the peace process, are churning out terrorists for deployment around the globe. This is something that cannot be swept under the rug to fast-track peace talks with a group whose leadership could be losing its grip on its men. MILF leaders have admitted that their camps were used for training by Jemaah Islamiyah militants. But MILF commanders insist that the training ended when their camps were overrun by government troops in 2000.

This administration, desperate to forge a peace agreement with at least one rebel group, has taken the MILF’s word for it. Yet the MILF remains an underground group, and continues to maintain enclaves – if the group insists it has no more camps – where government troops cannot enter because of the peace process. In these enclaves JI continues to operate, training recruits in the ways of terror, according to several reports that came out this year. Abu Sayyaf chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani is believed to be hiding in one of these enclaves.

The administration cannot afford to be in denial about the MILF’s connections with JI. If the MILF is truly renouncing violence and terrorism, clearing up this issue should not lead to the scuttling of the peace process. Unless the MILF comes clean on this issue, any peace agreement hammered out will be a farce. The nation can’t afford to turn certain parts of Min-danao into export processing zones for terror.