Representatives of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) met with Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founding chairman Nur Misuari in the hinterlands of Sulu to discuss peace initiatives in
The two sources,
a senior MNLF leader and a government official who both requested anonymity,
said the two camps are scheduled to have at least a second round of meeting
before the end of this month.
Both sources said
Misuari and the MILF representatives discussed peace in Mindanao .
But they declined to provide more details of the November 9-10 meeting.
“They met
somewhere in the hinterlands of Sulu on November 9-10. The MILF leadership sent
representatives to meet with Brother Nur,” the MNLF source said.
He said it is
widely known that Misuari is fiercely opposed to the peace talks between the
government and the MILF and has voiced strong sentiments against the proposed
Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL).
The government
official, on the other hand, welcomed the meeting, saying the government
supports the effort of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to unite
the two Moro Fronts, if not structurally, then at least in unity of purpose.
“It is good for
peace in Mindanao that the MNLF and the MILF
are by themselves holding meetings. I think their meeting falls under their
Bangsamoro Coordination Forum (BCF) for the convergence of the two peace
tracks,” the government source said.
By two tracks, he
meant the peace process between the government and MNLF on one hand, and the
government and MILF on the other.
The convergence,
as initiated by the OIC, is between the 1996 Final Peace Agreement (FPA) and
the 2014 Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro (CAB) to preserve the
dividends of peace, among others.
The MNLF source
said during the meeting in Sulu, the MILF recalled the meeting in 1998 between
its then chairman, the late Salamat Hashim, and Misuari at Camp Abubakar
As-Siddigue in Maguindanao.
In that meeting,
the two leaders made an understanding to collaborate on “talbiya”
(orientation); “da’wah” (Islamic education); and quetar (armed struggle), the
source said.
Under the OIC’s
aegis, Misuari and MILF Chairman Al-Haji Murad Ebrahim agreed during their
meeting in Dushanbe , Tajikistan ,
in May, 2010, to establish the BCF as a mechanism to continue their unity talks
to achive peace in Mindanao and explore issues
of concerns for each group.
Their meeting
came at the sidelines of the OIC’s Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM)
conference.
The two Moro
leaders had said, “unity is indispensable to the success of the Bangsamoro
struggle,” that the two rival Moro Fronts have no basic differences as they are
both seeking peace, justice, and fair solution to problems besetting the
Bangsamoro people.
It was recalled
that the OIC, the voice of the Muslim world, has long enshrined in its various
resolutions since the 1970s the “Question of Muslims in Southern Philippines”
after the MNLF’s war for Mindanao ’s
independence.
The OIC brokered
the 1976 Tripoli Agreement and 1996 FPA.
In the
government-MILF peace talks, the OIC is an observer, while Malaysia
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