Muslim rebels in the southern Philippines started to withdraw from several occupied Christian villages yesterday, avoiding a major confrontation with government troops at a pivotal time in their peace process.
About 800 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas began leaving a dozen farms in the predominantly Christian province of North Cotabato, said Brigadier General Reynaldo Sealana, head of the government’s ceasefire team. The withdrawal heads off a government ultimatum to leave or face attack.
Rebel Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar said an agreement to withdraw was reached in a meeting of a joint cease-fire committee ahead of yesterday morning’s deadline.
Jaafar said the drawdown would be gradual “because these people are armed and the civilians might panic if there is a sudden repositioning.”
On Thursday, police and defense officials in Manila accused the rebels of burning houses, destroying farms, stealing cattle and driving away 6,500 residents from their homes.
The tensions come at a delicate moment in the peace effort. The government and the MILF rebels were set to sign a preliminary accord on Tuesday expanding an autonomous Muslim region in exchange for ending the bloody insurgency, but the Supreme Court, acting on a petition by North Cotabato’s Christian politicians, blocked it on Monday.
Under the agreement, the existing five-province Muslim region would be expanded to add more than 700 villages, provided residents approve the move in a vote.
The agreement would also grant the rebels sweeping powers in running their affairs, a prospect that has prompted angry protests by Christians in the main southern region of Mindanao and by Manila’s political opposition.
National police chief Avelino Razon placed the 125,000-strong force on full alert yesterday, citing intelligence reports that MILF rebels may resort to terror attacks on vital installations in the south if the peace talks fail to resume.
Many of the villages occupied by rebels are located in the marshy border between North Cotabato and Maguindanao, a province of mostly Muslim residents where the MILF has large rural camps.
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