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MILF confident probe will clear group on Basilan clash


Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) officials on Sunday expressed confidence that an International Monitoring Team (IMT) investigation will clear them on the Basilan clash that left more than 20 people dead, most of them soldiers. MILF’s chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal and its vice-chairman for political affairs Ghadzali Jaafar maintained that the soldiers who encroached on their area triggered the problem. “[We are] very, very confident that the MILF has no liability. They [government troops] were the ones who attacked, they violated the ceasefire," said Iqbal, who led the MILF peace panel in informal talks with the government in Kuala Lumpur last Thursday. During the meeting, the two panels agreed to allow the Malaysian-led IMT to investigate the incident that also claimed the lives of five MILF fighters and wounded three of their members. Brig. Gen. Ariel Bernardo, chief of the government’s Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH), said they would conduct a board meeting conference on Tuesday to prepare for the investigation. Earlier, the military said the clash was triggered by the soldiers’ serving of arrest warrants on Dan Laksaw Asnawi, deputy commander of the MILF’s 114th base command, Long Malat, and Abu Sayyaf leader Nurhasam Jamiri at Cambug village in Al Barka last Oct. 18 Investigation to start Monday Based on the agreement between the MILF and the government peace panels in Kuala Lumpur, the IMT investigation will begin Monday. Meanwhile, Iqbal said the government should halt any military plan in running after the supposed MILF perpetrators before the investigation results come out. “That’s supposed to be the case. Otherwise it will further complicate the issue," he said. He also defended Asnawi, saying the joint government-MILF investigation showed that the MILF had nothing to do with the beheading of the Marines. It was the Abu Sayyaf that carried out the beheading, he said. “Why was Asnawi charged when the MILF was not behind it?" Iqbal said. Hopeful Jaafar, for his part, expressed hope in the IMT investigation, saying this was fruit of the established mechanisms in the 14-year-old peace process and was agreed upon by both sides. “We expect that the investigation will lead to the resolution of the problem… because in the first place, we are not guilty… It will settle all the controversies behind the Oct. 18 incident in Al Barka," Jaafar said. The MILF is bound to respect the investigators’ findings “because these are the mechanisms agreed upon by both parties and we should respect and recognize the mandate given to them by the MILF and the GPH," he added. The military also welcomes the investigation, said AFP Peace Process Office chief Col. Dickson Hermoso, adding that it will establish ceasefire violations, and identify those responsible for the killings and those who violated international humanitarian law. - PE/KBK, GMA News

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