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.