MILF weak, incapable of waging war against govt – Misuari

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front cannot anymore engage the government in armed combat because of massive defection, Chairman Nur Misuari of the Moro National Liberation Front said on Friday.

Misuari claimed that thousands of combatants under the Islamic liberation front jumped to his group because of mistreatment and the leadership’s connivance with Malaysian government masquerading as peace broker.

“They have no capability to launch any war because their full force, including their mass base, is fewer than 5,000,” he told reporters during the weekly forum Balitaan sa Hotel Rembrandt in Quezon City.

Misuari said that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front under Murad Ebrahim is pushing “bogus pace talks” with the Aquino administration, using Malaysia as the broker despite supposedly common knowledge that Kuala Lumpur’s goal is to divert the attention of the Philippines from this issue.
Manila has been claiming Sabah, a part of Malaysia.

Misuari pointed to an Islamic liberation front commander, Ameril Umbra Kato, who has established his own group, Bangsa Moro Islamic Movement.

Joining Kato, he said, were thousands of fighters from the mass base and an elite group of more than 2,000 heavily armed fighters.

Misuari also claimed that his group has one million followers all over the country.

“[We are] the only Muslim organization recognized by the Organization of Islamic Conference because in their own set of rules, they cannot accommodate more than one organization that will represent [the Philippines],” he said.

But when asked to comment about Vice Mayor Muslimin Sema of Cotabato City saying that he is now the recognized chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front, Misuari replied that Sema was lying.

Sema survived an ambush on January 10 by the group of the slain gunman, Zermin Abdulla.
Before he was wheeled to a nearby hospital, he told investigators that Abdulla is the chairman of the most dominant faction in Misuari’s group.

The Organization of Islamic Conference, a bloc of more than 50 Muslim countries, including petroleum-exporting states in the Middle East and North Africa, earlier condemned the attack on Sema.

Its special envoy to southern Mindanao, Sayeed Al-Masry, said in a statement that they were confident the Philippine government would exhaust all means to get Sema’s attackers. –Sammy Martin, Reporter, Manila Times