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MILF chief makes historic visit to Philippine military camp

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AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr. welcomes MILF chair Al Hajj Ebrahim Murad at Camp Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo. (Photo/Supplied)
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Updated 20 November 2018
Ellie Aben
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MILF chief makes historic visit to Philippine military camp

Updated 20 November 2018
Ellie Aben

MANILA: Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Chairman Al Hajj Murad Ebrahim, as a Muslim rebel, once envisioned destroying military camps in the Philippines. 

But on Monday, for the first time ever, he visited Camp Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo — the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) main camp — where he was even accorded military honors. 

MILF is the Philippines’ Muslim rebel group which, for more than 40 years, has sought autonomy for the Moro people in Mindanao.

“More than four decades ago, I walked out of a university without completing my engineering degree. Many of my Bangsamoro colleagues, I know, did the same. Since then, I have avoided military installations and camps,” Ebrahim told reporters after his meeting with AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito Galvez Jr.

“And to be very candid, during those years of war, I have thought only of destroying or neutralizing military camps and I never imagined during those dark days that I would one day step inside a military camp and be feted with this exceptional honor by what used to be our adversary,” Ebrahim added.

As he sat with Galvez during the press briefing, Murad said he “cannot fully express in words” his gratitude for the privilege of being honored at the headquarters of the AFP.

“I came, I saw, I found friends, and I made peace!” said the MILF chair, adding: “I am truly honored to join our partners in peace, from the highest leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, down to the lowest-ranking element of this institution.”

Murad said his trip to the AFP main camp was to reciprocate the visit of Galvez, who also made a historic visit to the MILF’s Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat in October.

“This visit is a concrete manifestation not only of the solid partnership of our institutions, but a testament of an enduring personal friendship built upon the solid foundation of our mutual commitment to work for peace and see through the dawn of a new day — not just for the Bangsamoro but for this country as well,” Murad said.

The MILF chair said that at the age of 19 in 1969, he left the university to join the Moro struggle in the southern Philippines. 

“This happened during the time when there was a series of massacres. We felt there was already a genocidal campaign against the Moro people so we were forced to organize ourselves to defend. Generally it’s a defense,” he said.

The situation, he said, worsened in 1972 when martial law was declared by the late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. 

“The atrocities of the government security forces have worsened. Many Moro people have died so we have to organize already not only a defense but a liberation organization, which is the birth of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF),” said Murad. The MILF would later become a faction of the MNLF.

He pointed out, though, that their policy from the beginning was that they “have never considered the AFP or any soldier of the Republic as (their) enemy.”

“What we have always considered as the enemy is oppression and injustice. This is the teaching of Islam and this is what we have always adhered to in the Code of Conduct of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF). In the pursuit, however, of our struggle for the right to self-determination of our people, we then saw the AFP as the instrument of the injustices committed against our people such as the loss of our homeland, discrimination and prejudices, and massacres, as well as the denial of our freedom to practice our religion,” Murad said.

But over the years, he stressed, they have also seen the gradual transformation of the AFP, which he now calls their “partners in peace.”

Galvez, for his part, said the reciprocal visit of Murad signifies the strong trust and confidence of the MILF leadership in the AFP and the national government, and the same was true of the military’s trust and confidence in the MILF leadership.

He then cited the visit of MILF Vice Chairman Ghazali Jaafar and BIAF Chief of Staff Sammy Al Mansour and colleagues at the Bangsamoro Transition Commission in Camp Aguinaldo to convey their commitment toward the peaceful resolution of all conflict in the Bangsamoro region.

“On Oct. 6, we paid a visit to MILF Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat, and we declared that the war is over between the AFP and the MILF. I was much honored when around 6,000 men and women of the MILF lined up together on the 5 km road from Cotabato City to Simuay to welcome us,” said the AFP chief.

“The visits done by AFP and MILF manifest the strong mutual desire of both parties toward just and lasting peace for the Bangsamoro Region,” Galvez continued.

Murad’s visit to the AFP camp comes two months ahead of the plebiscite for the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), creating the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region (BAR) which will replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The BAR will enjoy fiscal autonomy and be governed by the Bangsamoro Parliament.

Meanwhile, Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Secretary-General Dr. Yousef Al Othaimeen has officially affirmed his support of the ongoing peace process in the Southern Philippines.

Murad told Arab News that the OIC secretary-general gave his commitment during a meeting last Nov. 6 at the OIC office in Jeddah.

During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the latest developments in the peace process in the Mindanao and discussed the forthcoming plebiscite, due to be held in January 2019 to ratify the BOL.

Murad said the secretary-general also assured him that he would try to reach out to the member states of the OIC to support the peace process in Mindanao. 

“He knows there will be many challenges, among them the establishment of the (Bangsamoro) government.” 

“He (the secretary-general) also said he will personally visit the Philippines before the plebiscite,” Murad added.

A statement posted in the OIC website said the secretary-general welcomed developments in the peace process in Mindanao and urged all parties to remain fully committed to the process.

“Talks also focused on the visit by the secretary-general to the region and the importance of the Bangsamoro people to unify, consolidate and converge together toward the advancement of the peace process and the final resolution of the situation in Mindanao,” it added. 

Topics: Philippines

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Police clear pro-Gaza sit-in at top Paris university

Updated 4 sec ago
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Police clear pro-Gaza sit-in at top Paris university

Updated 4 sec ago
PARIS: Police entered Paris’ Sciences Po university on Friday to remove dozens of students staging a pro-Gaza sit-in in the entrance hall, AFP journalists saw, as protests fire political debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One student told reporters “around 50 students were still inside the rue Saint-Guillaume site” when police entered.
Bastien, 22, told AFP he and other protesters had been peacefully brought out in groups of 10 by officers.
Another, Lucas, studying for a master’s degree, said “some students were dragged and others gripped by the head or shoulders.”
Administrators had closed Sciences Po’s main buildings on Friday in response to the sit-in and called for remote classes instead.
They said “around 70 to 80 people” were occupying the foyer of the central Paris building.
Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s office said such protests would be dealt with using “total rigour,” adding that 23 university sites had been “evacuated” on Thursday.
Students from the university’s Palestine Committee had earlier told reporters they faced a “disproportionate” response from police, who had blocked access to the site before moving in.
They also complained of a lack of “medical assistance” for seven students who had started a hunger strike “in solidarity with Palestinian victims.”

Sciences Po, widely considered France’s top political science school, with alumni including President Emmanuel Macron, has seen student action at its at sites across the country in protest against the war in Gaza and the ensuing humanitarian crisis.
Protests have been slow to spread to other prominent universities, unlike in the United States — where demonstrations at around 40 facilities have at times spiralled into clashes with police and mass arrests.
But demonstrations have so far been more peaceful in France, home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the US, and to Europe’s largest Muslim community.
The University of California, Los Angeles, announced that Friday’s classes would be held remotely after police cleared a protest camp there and arrested more than 200 people.
Sciences Po administration took the same step for its Paris student body of between 5,000 and 6,000.
Protesters occupied the entrance hall in a “peaceful sit-in” following a debate on the Middle East with administrators on Thursday morning that their Palestine Committee dubbed “disappointing.”
The university’s interim administrator, Jean Basseres, refused student demands to “investigate” Science Po’s ties with Israeli institutions.

The war in Gaza began after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel estimates that 129 hostages seized by militants during their attack remain in Gaza. The Israeli military says it believes 34 of them are dead.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory offensive on Gaza has killed at least 34,596 people in the Palestinian territory, mostly women and children, according to the besieged enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Outside the Sorbonne University, a few hundred meters (yards) from Sciences Po in central Paris, members of the Union of Jewish Students in France (UEJF) were setting up a “dialogue table” on Friday.
“We want to prove that it’s not true that you can’t talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” UEJF president Samuel Lejoyeux told broadcaster Radio J.
“To do that, we have to sideline those who single out Jewish students as complicit in genocide,” he added.
In the northeastern city of Lille, the ESJ journalism school was blocked off, an AFP reporter saw.
Students at the city’s nearby branch of Sciences Po had their identities checked before they were allowed in via a back entrance to sit exams.
Around 100 students had occupied a lecture hall at Science Po’s Lyon branch late on Thursday, while a blockade at a university site in nearby Saint-Etienne was cleared on Thursday morning by police.

Cockfights still rule the roost in India’s forest villages

Updated 03 May 2024
AFP
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Cockfights still rule the roost in India’s forest villages

  • India is renowned for its fanatical cricket obsession but in the central state of Chhattisgarh, cockfighting draws the crowds
  • When a cockfight is on calendar, hundreds of men walk far across rivers, through dense bushland and over hills for ringside view
Updated 03 May 2024
AFP

KATEKALYAN: The swing of a talon and a flurry of feathers leaves a rooster motionless, a cockfight bout viewed as cruel by many but which binds disparate Indian forest communities together.
India is renowned for its fanatical cricket obsession but in the central state of Chhattisgarh, cockfighting draws the crowds.
“Earlier there was no other entertainment and it helped us meet people from other villages,” Raju, whose skill in raising fighting fowl has made him something of a local celebrity, told AFP.
“Even with all the changes around us today, the sport is still very popular,” the 32-year-old added.
The forests of Bastar district are home to numerous tribal communities living in scattered villages.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development, and new roads and mobile phone towers have brought the forest’s inhabitants somewhat closer to the outside world.
Rugged terrain and the tyranny of distance in remote Bastar district still lend few occasions for these villages to interact with each other.
But when a cockfight is on the calendar, hundreds of men will walk far across rivers, through dense bushland and over hills to get a ringside view.
“I do nothing but organize fights, raise roosters and place bets,” Bhagat, 35, of Katekalyan village told AFP.
Last month was Katekalyan’s turn to host a bout, with men from out of town ringing the fence of the dirt enclosure where roosters spar.
Most cockfights are over in the blink of an eye, with the pre-game pageantry accounting for most of the action.
Bhagat and a rival rooster owner first hold their bird’s beak to beak to gauge whether they have the necessary hostility to battle.
Both men then use twine to fix sharp blades to the claws of their charges as the crowd shouts out their small wagers on the outcome.
Along with much of the rest of the world, cockfighting is banned in numerous Indian states on animal cruelty grounds.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India calls cockfighting “barbaric,” and campaigns to shut it down for good.
But the men living in Bastar’s forests see it as an integral part of their community fabric.
Roosters that survive multiple bouts are lauded alongside their owners.
Raju said the most enduring fighters were locally remembered with the same reverence that the rest of India holds for cricketing greats like former captain Sachin Tendulkar.
“Like you have a field for cricket, this is our field,” he said.
“And the winners get fame and respect, just like Sachin did by scoring all his runs.”
Bhagat said it always grieved him when one of his animals died in combat.
“When we lose a rooster in the fight, our hearts are in pain for a few days,” he said.
“But then we get drunk, and then there will be peace.”

Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger, US official says

Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters
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Russian troops enter base housing US military in Niger, US official says

  • The US and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups
Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters

WASHINGTON: Russian military personnel have entered an air base in Niger that is hosting US troops, a senior US defense official told Reuters, a move that follows a decision by Niger’s junta to expel US forces.
The military officers ruling the West African nation have told the US to withdraw its nearly 1,000 military personnel from the country, which until a coup last year had been a key partner for Washington’s fight against insurgents who have killed thousands of people and displaced millions more.
A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Russian forces were not mingling with US troops but were using a separate hangar at Airbase 101, which is next to Diori Hamani International Airport in Niamey, Niger’s capital.
The move by Russia’s military, which Reuters was the first to report, puts US and Russian troops in close proximity at a time when the nations’ military and diplomatic rivalry is increasingly acrimonious over the conflict in Ukraine.
It also raises questions about the fate of US installations in the country following a withdrawal.
“(The situation) is not great but in the short-term manageable,” the official said.
Asked about the Reuters report, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin played down any risk to American troops or the chance that Russian troops might get close to US military hardware.
“The Russians are in a separate compound and don’t have access to US forces or access to our equipment,” Austin told a press conference in Honolulu.
“I’m always focused on the safety and protection of our troops ... But right now, I don’t see a significant issue here in terms of our force protection.”
The Nigerien and Russian embassies in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The US and its allies have been forced to move troops out of a number of African countries following coups that brought to power groups eager to distance themselves from Western governments. In addition to the impending departure from Niger, US troops have also left Chad in recent days, while French forces have been kicked out of Mali and Burkina Faso.
At the same time, Russia is seeking to strengthen relations with African nations, pitching Moscow as a friendly country with no colonial baggage in the continent.
Mali, for example, has in recent years become one of Russia’s closest African allies, with the Wagner Group mercenary force deploying there to fight jihadist insurgents.
Russia has described relations with the United States as “below zero” because of US military and financial aid for Ukraine in its effort to defend against invading Russian forces.
The US official said Nigerien authorities had told President Joe Biden’s administration that about 60 Russian military personnel would be in Niger, but the official could not verify that number.
After the coup, the US military moved some of its forces in Niger from Airbase 101 to Airbase 201 in the city of Agadez. It was not immediately clear what US military equipment remained at Airbase 101.
The United States built Airbase 201 in central Niger at a cost of more than $100 million. Since 2018 it has been used to target Islamic State and Al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) fighters with armed drones.
Washington is concerned about Islamic militants in the Sahel region, who may be able to expand without the presence of US forces and intelligence capabilities.
Niger’s move to ask for the removal of US troops came after a meeting in Niamey in mid-March, when senior US officials raised concerns including the expected arrival of Russia forces and reports of Iran seeking raw materials in the country, including uranium.
While the US message to Nigerien officials was not an ultimatum, the official said, it was made clear US forces could not be on a base with Russian forces.
“They did not take that well,” the official said.
A two-star US general has been sent to Niger to try and arrange a professional and responsible withdrawal.
While no decisions have been taken on the future of US troops in Niger, the official said the plan was for them to return to US Africa Command’s home bases, located in Germany.

Topics: Niger US Russia

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’Show solidarity’: Pro-Palestinian protesters camp across Australian universities

Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters
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’Show solidarity’: Pro-Palestinian protesters camp across Australian universities

  • Pro-Palestinian activists set up an encampment last week outside the sandstone main hall at University of Sydney
  • Similar camps have sprung up at universities in Melbourne, Canberra and other Australian cities
Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters

SYDNEY: Hundreds of people protesting Israel’s war in Gaza rallied at one of Australia’s top universities on Friday demanding it divest from companies with ties to Israel, in a movement inspired by the student occupations sweeping US campuses.
Pro-Palestinian activists set up an encampment last week outside the sandstone main hall at University of Sydney, one of Australia’s largest tertiary institutions.
Similar camps have sprung up at universities in Melbourne, Canberra and other Australian cities.
Unlike in the US, where police have forcibly removed scores of defiant pro-Palestinian protesters at several colleges, protest sites in Australia have been peaceful with scant police presence.
On Friday, protesters rallied to demand University of Sydney divest from companies with ties to Israel, echoing calls from students in the US, Canada and France.
Standing in the chanting crowd of more than 300 with his two-year old son on his shoulders, Matt, 39, said he came to show it was not just students angry at Israel’s actions in Gaza.
“Once you understand what is going on you have a responsibility to try and get involved and raise awareness and show solidarity,” he told Reuters, declining to give his last name.
Several hundred meters away from the Sydney university protest and separated by lines of security guards, hundreds gathered under Australian and Israeli flags to hear speakers say the pro-Palestinian protests made Jewish students and staff feel unsafe on campus.
“There’s no space for anybody else, walking through campus chanting ‘Intifada’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ it does something, it’s scary,” said Sarah, an academic who declined to give her name for fear of repercussions.
University of Sydney vice chancellor Mark Scott told local media on Thursday the pro-Palestinian encampment could stay on campus in part because there was not the violence seen in the US
While several police cars were parked at the entrance to the university, no police were present at either protest.
Long a stalwart ally of Israel, Australia has become increasingly critical of its conduct in Gaza, where an Australian aid worker was killed in an Israeli attack last month.
Pro-Palestinian protesters said the government had not done enough to push for peace and led the crowd in chants against Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his government.

Topics: War on Gaza Australia

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UK’s Labour claim big early win over PM Sunak’s Conservatives

Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters
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UK’s Labour claim big early win over PM Sunak’s Conservatives

  • Voters cast their ballots on Thursday for more than 2,000 seats on local authorities across England
  • Blackpool South was the only parliamentary seat up for grabs after the incumbent, elected in 2019 as a Conservative candidate, quit over a lobbying scandal
Updated 03 May 2024
Reuters

LONDON: Britain’s opposition Labour Party won a parliamentary seat in northern England on Friday, inflicting a heavy loss on the governing Conservatives at the start of what could be a bruising set of results for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
The thumping victory set the tone for what will be a closely watched two days of results ahead of a full national election this year, which polling shows could put Labour Leader Keir Starmer in power and end 14 years of Conservative government.
Voters cast their ballots on Thursday for more than 2,000 seats on local authorities across England and a handful of high-profile mayoral elections, including in the capital, London.
Blackpool South was the only parliamentary seat up for grabs after the incumbent, elected in 2019 as a Conservative candidate, quit over a lobbying scandal.
Labour candidate Chris Webb won the Blackpool election with 10,825 votes. The Conservative candidate came in second with 3,218.
The defeat in Blackpool and early signs of losses at the council level will boost Labour’s hopes for a sweeping victory over Sunak’s Conservatives in the national election.
“This seismic win in Blackpool South is the most important result today,” Starmer said.
“This is the one contest where voters had the chance to send a message to Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives directly, and that message is an overwhelming vote for change.”
Sunak’s Conservatives are about 20 percentage points behind Labour in most opinion polls for a national election, which Sunak intends to call in the second half of the year.
The first 500 of the more than 2,600 local council results showed Labour making gains at the expense of the Conservatives — in line with finance minister Jeremy Hunt’s pre-vote prediction of significant losses for the governing party.
Although local elections do not always reflect how people will vote in a national contest, a heavy defeat could trigger fresh anger in the Conservative Party over Sunak’s leadership and the prospect of losing power.
The extent of that unrest could hinge on the results of two mayoral elections in which the Conservatives hope to show they can still hold ground in central and northeast England.
The Tees Valley mayoral result is due on Friday, while the West Midlands mayor is to be announced on Saturday. The result in London, where current Labour mayor Sadiq Khan is expected to win another term is also due on Saturday.

Topics: UK Britain Labour Party

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