Salamat to lead MILF panel in peace talks in Malaysia

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has told Malaysia it would send its chairman Hashim Salamat to lead peace talks with the Philippine government, Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said yesterday,

"The MILF has given the names of their five negotiators to the Malaysian government for the formal peace talks. Among the five is (MILF chairman) Salamat," Bunye said.

Kuala Lumpur, which has offered to host the proposed negotiations, announced through its ambassador last week that the talks between the Philippine government and the MILF would start in the next few days.

However, Bunye said Salamat and other key leaders of the separatist group are still subjects of a warrant of arrest for their alleged role in two bombings in Davao City earlier this year that left at least 38 people dead and over a hundred others wounded.

"The MILF must initiate legal moves. They have to make representations with the Davao (court), through their lawyers’ support, so the warrant will not be enforced," Bunye added.

Malaysian Ambassador Taufik Mohamed Noor said last week that while the neighbors have no extradition treaty, he hoped the Philippine government would take steps to have the arrest warrants lifted so the MILF leaders would have peace of mind when they travel to Kuala Lumpur for the talks.

President Arroyo, however, has said it was up to the MILF to take steps to have the arrest warrants lifted.

MILF chief information officer Mohaqer Iqbal said the rebels will never ask the government to lift or dismiss the case against Salamat and other senior leaders covered by the warrant.

Iqbal also stressed it will be "absurd" for Salamat to head the rebel negotiating panel, saying it would literally mean the MILF chief will recognize the Philippine Constitution "which no real revolutionary worthy of his name would dare do."

Iqbal stressed that the MILF central committee has decided Salamat will only sit in the final stretch of the peace negotiations.

The MILF has been asserting that there is no need for Salamat to personally attend the peace negotiations as chairman of the rebel peace panel.

But highly placed sources from Central Mindanao’s political community, among them frequent visitors of Salamat in his former residence at the Buliok complex in Pagalungan town of Maguindanao, said the MILF chairman’s health could have deteriorated after he was forced to relocate to a safer area following the government takeover of his well-fortified base last February.

Salamat has been living like a recluse and only showed up in the late 1990s after establishing the MILF’s former main enclave, Camp Abubakar, which showcased his concept of a puritan Muslim community.

Camp Abubakar, now a peace zone, fell to government control on July 9, 2000 after week-long air, artillery and ground offensives.

Salamat, according to sources close to him, has been taking expensive "maintenance medicines" for illnesses common to people of his age. He has reportedly been having problems with his eyesight and is reportedly hypertensive.

After relocating to Buliok following the government takeover of Camp Abubakar in mid-2000, Salamat, according to Muslim religious leaders close to him, has always been complaining of chronic diarrhea.

Evacuees from Buliok complex, who were forced to abandon their homes at the height of last February’s military-MILF hostilities in the area, disclosed seeing Salamat’s personal bodyguards preoccupied in distilling drinking water for him, since supply of safe, potable water in the area is difficult to obtain.

"But even if he (Salamat) has health problems common to old people, he was still very active in meeting people at his former residence and in preaching during congregational prayers," said an MILF insider, who asked not to be identified.

Sources from the Army’s 602nd Brigade said the first Marine and Army troops who set foot on Salamat’s compound in Buliok recovered from his house assorted medicines for hypertension, dysentery and diabetes.

However, no one from among Salamat’s close aides would confirm if he has diabetes, even downplaying insinuations he has serious health problems, made worse by being on the run to evade government forces.

Brig. Gen. Carduzo Luna, the commander of the Army’s 602nd Brigade who helped oversee the government takeover of Buliok, said they had also recovered from Salamat’s residence assorted medical instruments, among them an expensive motor-driven throat suction.

"We are certain that Chairman Salamat was really under tight medical care," Luna said.

Local officials in Maguindanao, some of them relatives of MILF commanders in their respective towns, said it could be for Salamat’s health condition that other members of the front’s central committee are against his involvement in rigorous negotiations in case the peace talks resume. - AFP, John Unson, Bong Fabe