Manila shells rebels ahead of peace talks

Manila shells rebels ahead of peace talks

COTABATO, Philippines (Reuters): Philippine troops pounded a major separatist base with artillery and mortar fire on Monday on the eve of talks aimed at halting the bloodshed on the main southern island of Mindanao.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the army offensive on a camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), but military reports said at least 11 civilians, two rebels and a soldier died in clashes elsewhere in Mindanao over the weekend.

The MILF base, Camp Busra, is the second biggest guerrilla base in Mindanao, an impoverished region 800 kms south of Manila which the country's Muslim minority regards as its ancestral homeland.

Government and MILF negotiating panels are due to meet in Mindanao's Cotabato city on Tuesday to resume peace talks which the rebels unilaterally suspended on April 30 after weeks of fighting between the two sides.

MILF negotiators said they would attend the Cotabato talks despite the military offensive and the weekend arrests in Manila of 26 alleged Muslim militants police said were involved in the recent bombing of two shopping malls in the capital.

"That's the sign of our sincerity," Lanang Ali, legal counsel of the MILF's negotiating team, told Reuters.

MILF military chief Al Hal Murad denounced the army attacks as "clearly big obstacles to the peace and normalization in Mindanao". He urged Manila to stop if it truly wanted a negotiated settlement.

President Joseph Estrada, in a statement in Manila, said his government was determined to preserve the Philippines' "territorial integrity", referring to rebel demands for a separate Islamic state. He urged the MILF "to take this last, best chance at peace".

Ali said the meeting would take up the issue of suspending hostilities and a package of political proposals which the government was expected to present to the guerrillas.

He denied the MILF was involved in the Manila bombings and said those arrested for supposed involvement in the attacks were "paid government agents".

Those arrested have been charged with illegally possessing explosives. Murder charges are still being prepared.

The MILF is the bigger of two rebel groups fighting for an independent Muslim homeland in the south of this mainly Roman Catholic country.

The other group, Abu Sayyaf, has been holding 21 mostly foreign hostages on Jolo island, near Mindanao, for 37 days. The army says more than 300 rebels and 80 soldiers have been killed in nine weeks of fighting in Mindanao that has also left more than 200,000 people homeless.

Government negotiators hope to resume talks with the Abu Sayyaf separatists on Wednesday on the release of 21 mostly foreign hostages held for 37 days, a member of Manila's negotiating team said.

"They are still preparing their detailed counter-proposals," provincial governor Abdusakur Tan, one of the government negotiators, told Reuters by telephone on Monday.

The four-man government team headed by presidential adviser Roberto Aventajado held its first formal talks with the fundamentalist Abu Sayyaf (Father of the Sword) guerrillas last Saturday.

The hostages -- nine Malaysians, three Germans, two French nationals, two South Africans, two Finns, two Filipinos and one Lebanese -- were abducted from a dive resort on April 23 and brought to the Abu Sayyaf lair on Jolo, south of Manila.