Tension has once again gripped the MNLF with the election of Cotabato City Mayor Muslimin Sema as its new chair, replacing Prof. Nur Misuari who has been detained since 2002 on rebellion charges.
Reports said many MNLF leaders from Sulu and Tawi-Tawi have refused to recognize Sema as their new chair.
Muhammad Ameen, secretariat of the MILF’s central committee, urged for a peaceful resolution of the conflict within the MNLF through ‘fair play’.
Many ranking officials of the MILF were members of the MNLF, among them MIILF chair Al Hajj Murad Ebrahim.
In 1996, the MNLF signed a Final Peace Agreement with the Philippine government in talks brokered by the Organization of Islamic Conference.
Mayor Isnaji Alvarez of Indanan town in Sulu, a former member of the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, is allegedly leading a group of MNLF leaders to ‘discredit’ Sema.
But the other MNLF faction is saying Alvarez was just trying ‘to attract Malacanang’ to gain political leverage in the ARMM elections in August this year.
During a ‘unity dialogue’ between six provincial governors and the mayors of the six-province ARMM held last week in Cotabato City Alvarez hinted he would run as ARMM governor.
His plans, however, reportedly infuriated other mayors from Sulu who called his actuations ‘childish’ and ‘divisive’.
The ARMM’s provincial governors, mayors and congressional representatives led by Regional Governor Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, belong to the administration’s Lakas-Christian, Muslim Democrats party. (MindaNews)