600 RP Moro fighters surrender to authorities

600 RP Moro fighters surrender to authorities

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines (Agencies): More than 600 Muslim rebels, including a commander, surrendered on Thursday in a ceremony led by Philippine President Joseph Estrada, who urged the remaining guerrillas to resume peace talks with the government.

"We must resolve our differences through peaceful means because fighting among ourselves will never bring any good to either one of us," Estrada said.

He said the common enemy of both sides was poverty. "I cannot fight poverty alone," he said. "I need the help of Christians, I need the help of Muslims, I need the help of everyone."

Estrada stood on a grandstand as he led the 609 former members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, most still wearing camouflage uniforms with rebel insignias, in pledging allegiance to the government.

In front of the stage was a long table bearing more than 400 firearms that belonged to the rebels. The surrendering guerrillas were led by Malupandi "Commander Lupay" Cosain, a vice mayor from Lanao del Sur province who had joined the Muslim insurgency.

The group was largest to surrender since the military launched a major assault against the MILF early this year. Government troops have seized 39 MILF camps, including 14 major rebel strongholds, Estrada said.

Estrada suspended peace talks with the MILF on June 30 after the guerrillas refused to abandon their secessionist goal, stop rebel attacks and lay down their arms.

MILF chairman Salamat Hashim responded by declaring a jihad, or holy war, against the government and dismantled the rebel peace negotiating team.

More than 200 soldiers have been killed in clashes with the guerrillas since January, the military says. Rebel casualties are not known.

"We ask our Muslim brothers ...to convey to their leaders and their colleagues our earnest desire for them to go back to the negotiating table and rejoin our society," Estrada said.

The MILF is the larger of two groups fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines. The other, the Abu Sayyaf, is holding four foreigners and a Filipino hostage on southern Jolo island.

On Wednesday, Vice President Gloria Arroyo said she favors mediation by a group of Islamic countries in the stalled talks with the MILF.

Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon, head of a Cabinet committee in charge of national security, said he was not ruling out involvement of the group, the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Conference.

Their statements indicated an easing of the government's hard- line stance of not allowing third-party mediation and insisting on holding talks only in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, government troops have widened their search for five hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas to islands on the border with Malaysia and arrested one of the kidnappers, the military said on Thursday.

Burahan Jawad, who took part in the April 23 Abu Sayyaf kidnapping raid of the Malaysian-controlled resort of Sipadan, was detained on Tawi-Tawi island on Monday, police spokesmen said.

A military and police task force later deployed on Sitankai, one of the Tawi-Tawi island group, for a "follow-up operation to neutralize" the Abu Sayyaf members hiding in the area, they added.

Attention shifted to the Tawi-Tawi island group -- the southernmost tip of the Philippines and about 30 minutes by speedboat from the Malaysian state of Sabah -- after the self- styled Muslim separatist rebels reportedly deserted their stronghold in the southern island of Jolo.

There have been no armed clashes between the gunmen and the military rescuers for three days.