CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Feb. 11, 2011—Mohaqher Iqbal, chief peace negotiator of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), has admitted that Ustadz Ameril Umbra Kato, who broke away from the mainstream MILF, is a problem to the peace negotiations which resumed last Wednesday (Feb. 9) after two years of being stalled.
Kato, commander of the 105th Base Command of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF), armed wing of the MILF, formally broke away from the MILF last week over issues that such as the alleged revisionist policy the MILF leadership under Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim and the abandonment of the
Front’s original stance of independence.
Kato, in his early 70s, joined the MILF in 1993 five years after the late MILF Chairman Salamat Hashim returned from Pakistan in 1987. He led the attack in Cotabato in August 2008 after the Supreme Court declared as
unconstitutional the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which the two previous peace panels hammered out after years of negotiations.
He allegedly had organized the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF).
Kato’s departure from under the MILF and organizing another armed group raises serious concerns in the MILF’s ability to deliver on any commitment that it will be able to negotiate with the government, said
government chief peace negotiator Marvic Leonen.
It will also “endanger the ceasefire mechanisms” of both the government and the MILF, he added.
But Iqbal said: “To be frank with all of you here, Kato is indeed a problem, I repeat, but if we are truthful to ourselves and to the facts surrounding why he had been a problem is because of the betrayal of the previous
administration (not its peace panel) in not signing the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) on August 5, 2008.”
Iqbal said in his opening statement in the resumption of peace negotiations in Malaysia last Wednesday (Feb. 9) entitled “Every step brings us closer to our destination,” a copy of which was obtained by this reporter, that Kato was one of the BIAF commanders “who do not believe in negotiation.”
“But we managed to let him toe the line for so long, until the present Philippine dispensation came into power. Ramadan passed, the month of October passed, November passed, December passed, but it was only on January 13 when the two peace panels finally met. This is not blaming anyone, but I am just highlighting here that these delays are giving him more ammunition to prove his thesis that he is right, that negotiation is useless, because the government is not sincere. It is very difficult to argue with those who in the first place take an opposite view right at the start,” he said.
President Aquino had promised at the start of his administration that he will re-start the peace negotiations right after the Ramadan 2010, which started on August 11, 2010 and ended on September 9, 2010. (Bong D. Fabe)
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