Estrada imposes conditions for Marcos' burial

Estrada imposes conditions for Marcos' burial

MANILA (Reuters): Philippine President-elect Joseph Estrada
told the widow of Ferdinand Marcos yesterday he would allow the
late dictator's burial at Heroes Cemetery if only family attended
and there were no political speeches.

Estrada, seeking to calm a political storm after he agreed to
Marcos being buried alongside former presidents and war veterans,
released a copy of his letter to former first lady Imelda Marcos
laying down three conditions for his agreement.

Estrada specified no organized groups would be allowed along
the route to the cemetery, the rites should be strictly religious
and "the funeral shall be limited to the immediate Marcos family
of not more than 50 persons."

Estrada, a long time Marcos supporter, told reporters he might
attend the planned July 11 funeral in the capital.

Human rights groups have attacked the planned burial, saying a
dictator had no place at the national cemetery.

Communist guerrillas, infuriated by Estrada's decision, said
on Sunday they were forming special units to kidnap Imelda
Marcos, her children and Marcos's associates and put them on
trial for "crimes against the people". Outgoing President Fidel
Ramos ordered tighter security for the Marcos family.

Ramos said he had also directed the military and the police to
ensure the rebels did not disrupt Estrada's inauguration as new
president on June 30.

"My motivation is simple," Estrada said in his letter. "I hope
that by finally laying to rest his mortal remains, the decade-
long turmoil over the issue will subside."

Besides targeting the Marcoses, the leftist rebels said they
would also abduct Marcos's top associates, but did not name them.

Communist New People's Army (NPA) spokesman Gregorio Rosal
said in a radio interview the rebels planned to set up a special
court to try the Marcoses.

"We all know they committed high crimes... Let us leave it up
to the court and to the revolutionary movement," Rosal said when
asked if the rebels would impose the death sentence on the
Marcoses.

Marcos was overthrown in a 1986 "people power" revolt,
vilified at home and abroad for plundering the treasury and
jailing tens of thousands of dissidents, many of them leftists.

The row over the planned burial claimed its first casualty
last Saturday when a local businessman who opposed the burial was
stabbed to death by a friend while they were having drinks,
newspapers said. The friend maintained that Estrada was right.

Marcos died in exile in Hawaii in 1989 and his preserved body
has been kept since 1993 in a glass case in the family mausoleum
in his hometown in northern Ilocos Norte province.

A dozen students staged a noisy protest outside the
presidential palace yesterday, carrying signs which read: "No to
Heroes' Burial" and "Remember the victims, the sufferings".