RP suspects rebels' hand in Ipil

RP suspects rebels' hand in Ipil

MANILA (AFP): The Philippine defense chief yesterday said a
Moro rebel group engaged in a truce with the government was
losing commanders to fundamentalism, and some of them may have
joined the bloody sacking of a town this month.

Defense Secretary Renato de Villa said some field commanders
of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) were being drawn to
a Moslem rebel group behind the April 4 raid on the southern town
of Ipil which left 66 dead.

"We suspect there are active MNLF leaders and members who were
involved" in the sacking of Ipil despite an ongoing cease-fire
between Manila and the MNLF, he told foreign correspondents.

The MNLF, led by the exiled Nur Misuari, has been conducting
peace talks with the Manila government over the past two years
after a failed separatist rebellion in the south in the early
1970s.

He added that the raiders, who numbered about 200, came from
various outlaw Moslem groups, many of them splinter groups of the
MNLF.

They included the Abu Sayyaf, a Moslem fundamentalist
terrorist group that has launched several attacks against
Christians.

De Villa said the Abu Sayyaf and their new recruits wanted to
set up a "fundamentalist Islamic state" in the south, which is
dominated by Christians but has a large and disenchanted Moslem
minority.

The issue of alleged MNLF participation in the Ipil raid was
to be raised by the government panel at a meeting with the group
and cease-fire observers yesterday in the southern city of
Zamboanga.

Earlier, chief government negotiator Manuel Yan said in a
radio interview that the government panel sought the meeting with
the MNLF after President Fidel Ramos ordered a review of the
peace talks due to military allegations that MNLF commanders had
taken part in the Ipil raid.

The Abu Sayyaf and other armed Moslem groups that broke away
from the MNLF however, are not covered by the cease-fire, and it
opposes the peace talks.

De Villa warned that "if significant numbers of the MNLF" join
the Abu Sayyaf, the position of the MNLF and its commander as the
"sole recognized representative" of Moslem Filipinos in the
Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) "will be jeopardized."

He added that this would affect the peace process, which is
being overseen by the OIC.

Misuari has denied that any of his forces were involved in the
Ipil raid and has promised to punish guerrilla leaders found to
have taken part, but the allegations have cast a cloud over the
peace talks.

Yan added that if it were proven that the MNLF was involved,
it would be up to the joint cease-fire committee, which includes
OIC representatives and Indonesian military observers, to decide
what to do.