ZAMBOANGA CITY, 20 April — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) officials yesterday welcomed an offer by Indonesian President Abdurahman Wahid to mediate in peace talks with Manila.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu said his group was “very open to that offer,” noting that Indonesia was an influential member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC).
“They will be able to help a lot in the peaceful resolution of the problem in Mindanao,” Kabalu said.
MILF leaders in a meeting with Philippine officials in Malaysia last month agreed to resume peace talks with Manila within two months at a “mutually acceptable foreign venue.”
Manila has earlier said that the talks could be held on a rotating basis between Manila, Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur.
The MILF on Wednesday also announced the composition of its panel, to be headed by its military chief Mohammad Murad and its legal counsel Lanang Ali.
MILF political affairs adviser Ghazali Jaafar said the leadership of the 12,500-strong rebel force was open to holding the talks in Indonesia and Malaysia, but stressed that Manila would have to be the one to formalize the venue.
“We in the MILF accept any of the two countries as the venue of the talks,” he said. “We are just waiting (for the Philippine government) to finalize the venue of the formal talks.”
Wahid, in a speech at a conference of business leaders, analysts and diplomats in Jakarta that he already told “friends in Mindanao that they can use Indonesia to talk, to negotiate.”
Wahid also said he was even offering asylum to Salamat should he choose to go away from the Philippines.
Kabalu noted that Salamat and Wahid had been college friends at the Azhar University in Cairo in the 1960s.
“They could use Manado for that and I would be very glad to preside at the opening of those negotiations,” said he.
Manado is a city on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, near Mindanao, which was used in the past as a venue for meetings between Philippine and Indonesian leaders.
Jaafar said the MILF panel would insist that an OIC-member country officially participate in the negotiations and not just provide the venue.
