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Camp Darapanan: Rebels urged the Philippine government yesterday to halt a military offensive that they say threatens the collapse of a year-long peace process and an escalation of violence in the archipelago's troubled south.
The military launched ground and air attacks on rebel positions in response to a guerrilla rampage Monday that left 37 people shot or hacked to death in several villages.
Al Haj Murad, chairman of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), told a news conference at a rebel base near southern Cotabato city that the military has started indiscriminate attacks while pursuing rebel commanders blamed for leading the rampage.
Rebels' regret
The rebels, who have been fighting for Muslim self-rule in the predominantly Roman Catholic nation's south for decades, have said that they regret a recent upsurge in violence and that the commanders responsible acted on their own. Murad said peace talks should resume, but he repeated earlier rejections of a government demand that the rebel commanders who led the attacks be turned over to face the criminal justice system.
"We cannot subject our members to the laws of the government," Murad said. "We are a revolutionary force." He suggested that the correct forum to deal with the rebel commanders should be a cease-fire committee involving the government, the rebels and an international truce monitoring group led by Malaysia.
Defence Secretary Gilberto Teodoro repeated the government's demand. He accused rebel leaders of engaging in "extortion ... intransigence and arrogance" in their statements since the rampage when they should be showing "good faith to try to stop the conflict from escalating" by turning over the commanders.
"The law of the Republic of the Philippines should prevail ... and it will be under the law that we will prosecute them and judge them," Teodoro said yesterday in Manila. "We hope [the rebels are] reasonable enough to see that it does them no good to coddle these criminals." Murad said a deadline of sorts looms because the truce group's mandate is set to expire August 31.
Changed circumstances
Solicitor General Agnes Devanadera told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that "circumstances have changed" after the recent attacks and the government will no longer sign the agreement.
Murad rejected any review of the agreement.
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