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".