EDITORIAL - Desperation

As of yesterday afternoon 32 people were dead and scores wounded in Zamboanga City. Clashes erupted at about 3 a.m. between government troops and armed followers of Nur Misuari. By daybreak military aircraft were pounding the lairs of rebels belonging to a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front still loyal to Misuari. As the rebels fled, they grabbed more than 80 hostages, a number of them children, demanding safe passage or they would kill their captives.

Reports said the latest uprising was led by Julhambri Misuari, a nephew of the fallen MNLF leader who is languishing in a Malaysian jail. The violence erupted a day after residents of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao trooped to the polls to pick Nur Misuari’s replacement as governor as well as 25 other officials of the ARMM. Before declaring war, Misuari had tried to stop the elections. When the government refused, he and his followers attacked Army outposts in Sulu, leaving more than 110 people dead, most of them his men.

Misuari’s camp also suffered the greatest casualties in the fighting yesterday, with 30 rebels reported killed. The violence will hardly endear Misuari to the government in Kuala Lumpur, which had brokered the peace agreement he signed with the Ramos administration five years ago. Malaysian officials have announced that Misuari won’t get political asylum in that country, and that he would promptly be repatriated, possibly after the canvassing is over in the ARMM.

Detained in an undisclosed place on an island off Sabah, Misuari would cut a pathetic figure, were it not for the bloodshed that his followers have caused. Although Zamboanga is not part of the ARMM, the violence can only further set back development in the region that he governed like a fiefdom after it was virtually handed to him on a silver platter. His mediocre governance eroded his mass support and eventually made even his own men in the MNLF dump his as their leader.

With the Arroyo administration backing one of his MNLF rivals in the ARMM race, Misuari turned in desperation to something that he used to do well: rebellion. Even in this undertaking, however, Misuari has lost his touch. Give it up, Nur, if only for the sake of the Muslims whose cause you profess to espouse.