Disarm Christian vigilantes: Fidel Ramos

Disarm Christian vigilantes: Fidel Ramos

MANILA (Agencies): President Fidel Ramos yesterday ordered the
armed forces and police to disarm Christian vigilantes in the
southern Philippines who have vowed to fight a peace deal between
Manila and Moro rebels.

Ramos said in a directive that "more forceful measures" must
be applied if the group resisted government attempts to persuade
them to give up their weapons, a Presidential Palace statement
said.

"Remove the threat, preserve peace and order," Ramos said in a
handwritten note to the military and the police.

Ramos's order was the first official admission that the group,
which the military earlier dismissed as an insignificant force,
posed a possible security problem for the government.

About 35 vigilantes showed reporters an array of weaponry,
ranging from assault rifles to machine guns and grenade
launchers, during a clandestine interview outside Zamboanga city
in the southern Mindanao region last week.

Local officials said the group, which calls itself the
Mindanao Christian Unified Command, had an armed following of
about 3,000 men.

Newspaper reports, quoting some of the group's "commanders,"
said they numbered about 10,000 and included former soldiers and
ex-policemen.

An army spokesman earlier downplayed reports about the group,
saying the military could easily neutralize them.

Mindanao Christians have fiercely opposed the peace accord
between the government and the Moro National Liberation Front
(MNLF), and have accused Manila of a sell-out.

The deal, signed in Manila last week, calls for the
establishment of an administrative council to be led by MNLF
chief Nur Misuari to supervise development in 14 southern
provinces, most of them dominated by Christians.

The council is to be the precursor to a regional autonomous
government to be composed of the 14 provinces that would vote in
a plebiscite to join it.

Although the country's five million Moslem minority regard the
area as their ancestral homeland, they are outnumbered 3-to-1 in
the area by Christian settlers.

Part of the peace deal calls for Misuari to head a semi-
autonomous region comprising four Moslem provinces.

Yesterday, Misuari, a former university professor, won most of
the votes so far counted in uncontested elections for the
regional governor.

Misuari had received 121,492 votes, or 83 percent, with 21
percent cent of the ballots tallied, said the National Movement
for Free Elections (NAMFREL).

The votes were cast in the four-province Autonomous Region for
Moslem Mindanao (ARMM) which held elections on Monday.

The elections also marked the Philippines' first attempt at
computerized polls but "kinks in the system" slowed down the
counting ballots, election officials said yesterday.

Commissioner Regalado Maambong of the Commission on Elections
(Comelec) said in a radio interview from the southern city of
Cotabato that he did not think it could count 150 ballots per
minute as earlier thought.

"As of last night, the machine was counting 100 ballots per
minute," he said, adding "there are some kinks in the system that
we are trying to solve."

However, he said the system was faster than manual tally, of
30 ballots each hour.

Maambong expressed concern that humidity from heavy rain that
had been falling in the south and heat from the lights of
television crews filming the automated system would affect the
machines.

"Our impression is the people like the new voting system very
much," Maambong said.