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Philippine Military Chief Warns MILF Against Future
Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff General Diomedio Villanueva warned Tuesday that government forces are ready to fight back if the Moro Islamic Liberation Front(MILF) violates a new ceasefire pact it signed with the government.
"We have to see to it that our soldiers are safe and are not disadvantaged in the fighting," a Philippine Daily Inquirer online news report quoted Villanueva as saying.
Villanueva issued the warning hours after the signing of the formal ceasefire agreement by government and MILF peace panels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The ceasefire agreement built on a preliminary truce accord signed in Tripoli, Libya, in June when peace negotiators from the two parties resumed formal peace talks. The two sides began a second round of talks in Malaysia on July 24 to hammer out implementing guidelines for the ceasefire.
Villanueva was reacting to an ambush staged by MILF rebels in a town in the southern province of North Cotabato on Monday which left an army officer dead and four soldiers wounded.
The Philippine side and the MILF signed a ceasefire agreement in 1997, but it hardly held, with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce.
Peace talks collapsed last year after former President Joseph Estrada launched an all-out war on the 12,500-strong MILF, which has been fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern island of Mindanao since 1978.
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