RP government offers Moros cease-fire

RP government offers Moros cease-fire

DAVAO, Philippines (AFP): The Philippine government has
offered a cease-fire to a Moro rebel faction in the south, where
businessmen pledged US$1.5 billion in investments despite
security concerns, a guerrilla leader said yesterday.

Al Haj Murad, vice chairman for military affairs of the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said in the nearby city of
Cotabato the offer was made through presidential Executive
Secretary Ruben Torres in a letter to his group Monday.

Business leaders attending a conference that began here
yesterday welcomed the news, saying it will boost the peace
accord Manila signed with the bigger Moro National Liberation
Front (MNLF) last month that ended the MNLF's 24-year armed
struggle for self-rule.

Defense officials have said that the MILF, which split from
the MNLF in 1977, is considered the most formidable remaining
threat to peace in the region with 10,000 well-armed fighters.

However, fighting continued for the fourth straight day
yesterday in the island of Basilan, where government planes
rocketing an MILF mountain lair to prepare for a ground assault,
the military said.

Manila's offer involved the signing of an interim truce and
the creation of two technical committees, one to discuss ground
rules of the cease-fire and the other to tackle the talking
points in proposed formal talks, Murad said.

It was made following a series of clashes between the military
and the MILF in the southern provinces of Basilan and Cotabato.

Southern Command spokesman Maj. Fredesvindo Covarrubias said
about 20 rebels have been killed in the fighting. The government
suffered several wounded but no deaths, he said.

"We are still studying the proposal," said Murad, interviewed
over Roman Catholic radio station DXMS in Cotabato. He added that
the group wanted the "ground rules" on how the cease-fire will be
conducted to be set first before any signing.

Meanwhile, some 500 foreign and Filipino business leaders
began a three-day business conference in this booming southern
city yesterday, saying they are due to agree to invest 42 billion
pesos ($1.5 billion) in Mindanao.

Federico Pascual, head of the Philippine Chamber of Commerce
and Industry, said the chamber had received commitments that
joint venture and other deals would be signed at the end of the
annual Philippine Business Conference.

Pascual would not name the companies or the areas where they
are investing.

But he said that a substantial amount of the commitments --
aimed at transforming resources-rich Mindanao into an economic
dynamo -- would come from the Philippines' Moslem neighbors
Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Businessmen said they were encouraged to invest here by the
peace agreement, which provided for the creation of a zone of
peace and development in 14 southern provinces and nine cities.

President Fidel Ramos this week named MNLF chieftain Nur
Misuari as head of a council that will coordinate development
projects.

In another development, gunmen kidnapped an 11-year-old boy
from a department store in the town of Esperanza near Cotabato on
Wednesday, highlighting the threats posed by kidnap and other
criminal gangs on potential investors.

Gino Goroy, the son of a petrol dealer, was the 32nd kidnap
victim this year in the central Mindanao region, which the
authorities admit hosts about a million firearms, half of which
are in the hands of rebel groups and crime gangs.

The abduction came a day after suspected Moslem bandits
demanded 30 million pesos ($1.15 million) for the release of a
couple and their three-year-old son they kidnapped on Tuesday.