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| Southeast Asia |
| MILF militants eschew gun surrender |
| 2014-03-29 |
| A top leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) on Friday said they would not surrender their firearms despite signing a comprehensive and historic peace agreement with the Philippine government. Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF's chief peace negotiator, said the group would yield their firearms and other weapons to a third party which has yet to be named to be stored. Only as long as they can get new guns from Shrimp Boy... Iqbal said, "There is no surrender of firearms to the government. They will be stored. There is also no destruction of firearms but these will be beyond use." At the same press conference, his government counterpart Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer agreed there would be no surrender of firearms as she pointed out the accord, officially called the Comprehensive Agreement on Bangsamoro (CAB) was based on dignity. She explained, "That is the risk they (MILF) undertook. The firearms will be under lock and key and put beyond use." At the same conference, Professor Abud Sayid Lingga, a member of the MILF peace panel, disclosed the front would not be disbanded and would no longer exist as an armed group but as a "social movement." |
| Posted by:ryuge |