MNLF to fight bid of MILF

From the Manila Bulletin (May 18): MNLF to fight bid of MILF

The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) will not be a passive kibitzer regarding the proposal to accredit the “Bangsamoro” as observer at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

MNLF senior leaders Dr. Abdurahman Amin and Habib Mujahab Hashim, who chairs the Islamic Command Council (MNLF-ICC), told the Manila Bulletin they would fight this at the pan-Islamic body.

“They should not take that step,” said Amin, the MNLF’s permanent liaison to the OIC, adding he believes the attempt to replace the MNLF at the OIC would create dissension among the Bangsamoro people, more so the MNLF.

He and Hashim said the MNLF would fight it out the MILF’s proposal to replace the former with the Bangsamoro at the OIC.

Amin said he has an unsolicited advice to MILF Chairman Al-Haji Murad Ebrahim: “Before taking that road to the OIC, concentrate first on the Bangsamoro Basic Law because it is facing obstacles.”

Murad traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, last month where he had a meeting with OIC Secretary General Ameen Iyad Madani.

They discussed many topics, one of them the MILF’s proposal to accredit the Bangsamoro, “as the official observer” to the OIC.

If granted by the 57-member pan-Islamic non-state organization, second biggest to the United Nations, it would entail the replacement of the MNLF.

Murad said the “Bangsamoro is already recognized as the national identity of the native inhabitants of Mindanao and the islands who are majority Muslims.”

Unlike others, the MNLF, Amin said, has an open mind about the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB), which the Philippine government and the MILF signed on March 27.

The term “Bangsamoro” is the name given to a new political entity (NPE) being created as a result of the signing of the CAB. It is being crafted to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

The OIC foreign ministers decided through Resolution No. 1/8-P in May 1977 “to admit as an exceptional measure the (MNLF) as Observer within the Islamic Conference… that the admission of the (MNLF) should not be considered as a precedent.”

Later in another resolution, they recognized the MNLF as the “legal representative of the Muslims in Southern Philippines” and still later described the group as the “sole legitimate representative of the Bangsamoro people.”

Hashim said he does not believe that the MNLF could be replaced that easily at the OIC as observer.

“The Philippine government tried in the past but did not make it, when it applied for an observer status,” he recalled.

Hashim said the OIC granted the MNLF the observer status as a special case and without precedent.

“Now, the OIC’s new Charter makes it even more difficult for political organizations to be granted the status of an observer, which is only by consensus of the 57 member countries,” he stressed.

Amin said what the MILF did would anger the MNLF, saying it was not an encouragement to work together.

http://www.mb.com.ph/mnlf-to-fight-bid-of-milf/