Estrada to meet rebel chief

Estrada to meet rebel chief

MANILA (Reuters): President Joseph Estrada said on Saturday he
will meet the head of a Moslem rebel group this month to try to
bring peace to the southern Philippines.

"We have agreed to meet to once and for all end the conflict
for the sake of the welfare of Mindanao," Estrada said in his
weekly radio program, referring to the chairman of the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Hashim Salamat.

He said the meeting would probably take place this month.

The government signed a cease fire with the MILF earlier this
week, part of the preparations for formal peace talks later this
month. The cease fire ended days of fighting that has killed
dozens and displaced thousands of families in the southern
Philippines.

The MILF is a breakaway faction of a larger Moslem rebel group
that signed a peace accord with the government in 1996. Moslem
rebels have been fighting for an independent Islamic state in the
southern Philippines since the early 1970s. Some 120,000 people
have died in the conflict.