FIGHTING CONTINUES AS RAMADAN BEGINS (tags)
The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) Sunday warned of a full-blown war with the peace process “in purgatory” after the government told the Supreme Court on Friday that a Moro homeland deal had been scrapped. MILF chief negotiator Mohaqher Iqbal told Reuters news agency that the MILF was no longer confident it could strike a final peace agreement under President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s administration.
MILF: WE ARE FOR NEW WAR (tags)
Media sources reported that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) said yesterday that it was prepared to return to war should negotiations on territory, the thorniest of issues in ongoing peace talks with the government, lead to results not to its liking. Negotiations on territory, which documents on the peace talks describe as issues of ancestral domain, bogged down in Kuala Lumpur. More than 50,000 people died at the height of the Mindanao War just after Marcos declared martial law in 1972. In 2000, more than a million people were displaced when then President Joseph Estrada declared an “all-out war” policy aimed at dismantling MILF camps in Mindanao.