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| Southeast Asia |
| Southern Philippines city objects to Malaysian monitoring team |
| 2004-10-14 |
| An international military team monitoring a ceasefire here between the Philippines and Muslim separatists has been asked by local officials to establish their headquarters elsewhere. The government of this port said Thursday the city council feared the presence of the monitors, who started arriving last weekend, would bring Muslim rebels into the city of more than 600,000 people. Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat also warned that authorities would arrest Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrilla members who entered the city with arms. President Gloria Arroyo asked neighboring Malaysia and other Asian members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference to provide troops to serve as international monitors to a ceasefire with the rebels as part of confidence-building measures ahead of planned peace talks. More than 50 Malaysian security officials deployed in the southern Philippines' Mindanao region last weekend, with more foreign monitors expected. Lobregat said he told the Malaysians he objected to their establishing a base in Zamboanga City because it was not a site of conflict between the government and the rebels. He also said the presence of the monitoring team would hurt the city's image as a peaceful place. Lobregat also cited a provision in the monitoring accord that the rebels should provide armed security along with the military, to the Malaysian monitors. This would violate a city policy allowing only police and soldiers to carry firearms. ``We are going to arrest the MILF. We have been implementing here the gun ban and the law does not excuse and exempt anybody,'' Lobregat told reporters in this city which is about 70 percent Christian and 30 percent Muslim. Lobregat said he asked the monitoring team to establish their offices in the areas affected by fighting. Government peace advisor Teresita Deles said Manila had yet to decide whether to establish the ceasefire monitoring office in Zamboanga, a city which has previously been rocked by bombings and kidnappings carried out by armed Muslim groups. The nearly-12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front has been waging a guerrilla campaign to set up a separate Islamic state in the southern third of this largely-Roman Catholic nation. The rebels signed the ceasefire in 2002 to pave the way for the opening of formal peace talks with the government, hosted by Malaysia, but sporadic and deadly clashes in the south have slowed the progress of the talks. |
| Posted by:TS(vice girl) |