Some MILF rebels don't want to give up arms despite peace deal with gov't

From InterAksyon (Oct12): Some MILF rebels don't want to give up arms despite peace deal with gov't

After watching two of his brothers die during four decades of fighting in the southern Philippines, Muslim rebel Abdulhamid Ganalan feels a planned peace deal could be surrender. Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaders are set to sign an accord with the government on Monday that will aim to end the rebellion by 2016, but the guerrilla said he and his subordinates did not want to give up their arms. "I will not agree. That is like full surrender," Ganalan told AFP from inside Camp Darapanan, the MILF's administrative headquarters, when asked whether he would lay down his weapons as part of a peace accord. Ganalan, who is a senior member of an MILF elite security detail guarding rebel chief Murad Ebrahim, said he had invested all his life in the rebellion and years of fierce fighting had taught him one lesson. "There is no surrender," said Ganalan, who is in his 50s and whose wiry battle-scarred body is a testament to hard living on the war zone....

.... MILF brigade chief Guiazakallaha Jaafar, 28, who boasts of 3,000 fighters under his command, said he and his men believed their leaders would not order them disarmed without without consensus from key officers. He likened himself to "a fighting cock without spurs" if he no longer had a weapon. Jaafar said they would consent to be transformed into a police force or a special militia unit under the envisioned MILF autonomy. "They can make us into a police force, or village watchers, even militia units. But they can not just take away our guns," he said.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/45385/some-milf-rebels-dont-want-to-give-up-arms-despite-peace-deal-with-govt