PHILIPPINE REBELS ‘READY TO DISARM’
▶ Autonomy deal for Muslim region is latest attempt by government to end decades of on-and-off fighting
The leader of the largest Muslim rebel group in the Philippines said on Tuesday that between 30,000 and 40,000 armed fighters would be “decommissioned” if an autonomy law expected to be signed by the president this week was fully enforced.
Al Haj Ebrahim, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said six of the largest guerrilla camps in the south were being converted into “productive civilian communities” to help the insurgents return to normal life.
Mr Ebrahim appealed to the international community to contribute to a trust fund to finance the insurgents’ transition.
“We will decommission our forces, the entire forces,” he said in Manila.
Mr Ebrahim said his group told the government how many fighters it has, although he declined to say how many weapons “will be put beyond use”.
The military estimated the Moro rebel group’s size at 11,000 fighters.
Mr Ebrahim welcomed the ratification by the House of Representatives on Tuesday of the Muslim autonomy deal after a day’s delay caused by a leadership change in Congress.
The legislation, which was ratified by the Senate on Monday, is to be sent to President Rodrigo Duterte for signing in a day or two.
It replaces a poor, conflict-racked autonomous region with a larger, better funded and more powerful region named Bangsamoro for minority Muslims in the southern third of the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The autonomy deal is the latest significant attempt by the government to negotiate an end to nearly half a century of on-and-off Muslim fighting that has killed more than 120,000 people.
Mr Ebrahim’s guerrilla force is the second in the south to have dropped a demand for a separate Muslim state in exchange for autonomy.
The Moro National Liberation Front forged a 1996 peace deal with the government that led to the current five-province Muslim autonomous region, which has largely been regarded as a failure.
Western governments have welcomed the autonomy pacts, while worrying that ISIS-linked militants from the Middle East and South-East Asia could forge an alliance with Filipino insurgents.
Mr Ebrahim said it was crucial for the peace agreement to be fully enforced. He said earlier failed attempts forced some guerrillas to break away and form more hardline groups such as Abu Sayyaf, which is listed by the US and the Philippines as a terrorist organisation.
“We can roughly conclude that all these splinter groups are a result of the frustration with the peace process,” he said.
Delays in the peace deal prompted some militants to break off from Mr Ebrahim’s rebel group, he said. Those militants were among the fighters who swore allegiance to ISIS and laid siege to the southern Islamic city of Marawi last year.
Troops backed by US and Australian surveillance aircraft routed the militants after five months of air strikes and ground assaults that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly Muslim fighters, and the city in ruins.
Mr Ebrahim said hardline groups could be weaned back to mainstream society if the peace deal succeeded and was embraced by the people.
If they continued fighting, he said “it would be very difficult for them to exist” without community support.
Moro rebel leader said there was an opportunity for fighters to rejoin the mainstream of society in the Philippines