US embassy cable - 05MANILA682

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 MANILA 000682 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/PMBS, INR/EAP, USIP-SOLOMON 
NSC FOR GREEN 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PTER, PINS, PREL, MOPS, RP 
SUBJECT: MILF DISTANCES SELF FROM JOLO FIGHTING AS 
CASUALTIES MOUNT 
 
REF: MANILA 630 
 
1.  (SBU) Summary.  The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) 
has clearly distanced itself from the ongoing fighting in 
Sulu Province and has now offered to broker a cease-fire. 
The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leadership has also 
called for restraint, as fighting stretched into the fifth 
day, with more than 100 militants and government troops 
reportedly dead.  According to the Armed Forces of the 
Philippines (AFP) and media accounts, an AFP battalion 
commander was killed by mortar attack and the fighting has so 
far displaced around 3,000 people.  Observers have noted that 
Nur Misuari, whose continued incarceration is at the center 
of the fighting, could provide a calming effect on the 
militants.  The AFP has vowed that the enemy forces face 
"surrender or nothing."  End Summary. 
 
MILF not a party to the fight 
----------------------------- 
 
2.  (SBU) The MILF, in a  February 11 press statement, 
offered to broker a cease-fire in the ongoing hostilities in 
Sulu Province (Jolo Island).  Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF,s 
Vice Chairman for Information Affairs, further called for a 
cessation of further offensive actions, while citing the 
MILF,s "modest capacity" to broker a cease-fire by using its 
contacts with the GRP and its "open line with (their) 
brothers in the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF)."  The 
MILF spokesman told the media that all MILF troops in Sulu 
are "under orders . . . to observe the existing cease-fire 
agreement with the government," further clarifying remarks 
earlier this week that the ongoing fighting had nothing to do 
with the MILF. 
 
3.  (SBU) Separately, MNLF Secretary General Istad Mushiri 
has called for self-restraint, while nonetheless rejecting 
the AFP,s call for surrender.  He stressed that the Misuari 
loyalists -- known as the Misuari Renegade Group (MRG) or the 
Misuari Breakaway Group (MBG) -- are fighting for a "just 
cause" (reftel).  However, Mushiri denied publicly that the 
Misuari loyalists are fighting alongside the terrorist Abu 
Sayyaf Group (ASG). 
 
Death Toll Mounts 
----------------- 
 
4.  (SBU) Fighting continued February 10 and 11 in several 
hamlets on Jolo Island, and officials on the ground and in 
the AFP assessed the prospects for an imminent cease-fire as 
bleak.  Over 100 militants and government troops have been 
killed in the fighting so far.  The AFP lost a battalion 
commander (a lieutenant colonel) in a mortar attack on 
February 10.  Embassy contacts in Jolo noted that the 
situation remains "tense."  The AFP continues to soften enemy 
targets with air and artillery strikes, and commanders in the 
field reported the capture of some enemy strongholds.  Chief 
of AFP SouthCom, Lt Gen Alberto Braganza, told the press, 
"It's either surrender or nothing." 
 
5.  (SBU)  Officials and visitors in Jolo have estimated at 
least 3,000 internally displaced persons, all of whom have 
apparently gone to live with relatives or friends outside the 
combat areas.  As far as Embassy can determine, there is so 
far no official GRP or NGO assistance available for these 
IDPs.   Visitors have praised a helpful role played here by 
the Philippine National Police (PNP), most of whom are 
locals.  A small minority of AFP units involved in the 
fighting are from the MNLF forces who joined the AFP after 
the 1996 MNLF/GRP peace accord, but most come from outside 
Sulu province, and few even of the Muslim troops are ethnic 
Tausug (the local majority). 
 
Misuari,s Central Role 
---------------------- 
 
6.  (SBU) The role of detained former MNLF Chairman Nur 
Misuari (controversial one-time governor of the Autonomous 
Region in Muslim Mindanao, arrested in 2002 after trying to 
lead a rebellion against the government) remains shadowy but 
central.  There are no indications that he explicitly incited 
the hostilities, although many of his loyalists under arms 
have specifically demanded his speedy trial or release on 
bail.  The GRP has not indicated when his trial -- still 
subject to vague legal and bureaucratic delays -- will move 
forward.  Current ARMM Governor Parouk Hussin, who visited 
Jolo on February 11, has also called for an expeditious trial 
for Misuari.  Civil society contacts have emphasized that 
Misuari could help rein in his followers, by publicly asking 
his followers to lay down their arms, but that he has so far 
not done so. 
 
7.  (SBU) Comment:  The militants remain a formidable and 
lethal adversary, although but time likely is not on their 
side, given their diminishing stocks of ammunition, superior 
numbers of the AFP forces, and apparent war weariness of the 
local population. 
Ricciardone