Government panel won’t raise Sino’s kidnap in talks yet

The government will not yet raise the issue about the abduction of a Chinese engineer allegedly by members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) during ongoing peace talks with the rebel group, chief government negotiator Jesus Dureza said.

Dureza said both sides are still concentrating on drafting the framework on how the negotiations should proceed before any issues are discussed.

"Hopefully, once the mechanics (of the negotiations) are already approved by both sides, then that’s the only time we can begin to bring out issues being raised against them (MILF)," he said.

The Chinese government has requested the Arroyo government to hasten the recovery of Zhang Zhung Quiang, who was abducted last June along the Cotabato-Davao Highway while en route to his company’s irrigation project in Carmen, North Cotabato from Davao City, aboard a chartered passenger van.

Dureza said the government intends to raise many issues with the MILF, including its alleged involvement in criminal activities, but both sides are still fine-tuning the framework for the negotiations.

Dureza said the MILF has officially denied any hand in kidnappings or links with the Abu Sayyaf extremists.

He said the military has yet to furnish the government panel its latest report on Zhang’s abduction.

Zhang, 43, is the operations manager of the China Import-Export Technologies Inc. which is constructing major components of the Japanese-assisted Malitubog-Maridagao irrigation project, designed to irrigate 11,000 hectares of ricefields in North Cotabato.

North Cotabato Gov. Emmanuel Piñol has accused Shamir Salamat, a brother of MILF chairman Hashim Salamat, of coddling Zhang’s captors.

Shamir is known in the MILF as Asim Mutin, who, like Salamat, is a foreign-trained Islamic theologian.

Salamat, Piñol said, has strongly opposed his brother’s reported coddling of Zhang’s kidnappers and immediately ordered the Chinese engineer’s release, but was defied.

The military intelligence community earlier said one of the four notorious kidnappers in Central Mindanao – Mayangkang Saguile, Gani Saligan, Kabilo Saguile and Tahir Alonto – could be holding Zhang in a marshy area in the boundary of North Cotabato and Maguindanao.

Six people, two of them sons of a Maguindanao mayor, have been charged for Zhang’s abduction.

Four of them, including Percival Ceriales, who owned the van Zhang had chartered from Davao City, are now behind bars and have reportedly confessed to their involvement in the kidnapping.