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By Al Jacinto Correspondent
First of three parts
SULU ISLAND: The Moro National
Liberation Front (MNLF), in a resolution, has criticized Nur Misuari
and branded him as a dictator and someone no longer effective in
running the group.
“We strive against the divisive
dictatorial leadership, callousness and incorrigibility of Brother
Nur Misuari that keep on weakening the MNLF and giving us the
impediment to attain meaningful peace and development and against
his disposition by repudiating senior MNLF members’ credibility
and barring their participation in the tripartite meeting as members
of the MNLF panel because he enlisted non-MNLF members to replace
them both in domestic and international forums,” it said.
The MNLF said Misuari appointed
Yolanda Stern to represent him in meetings abroad instead of senior
MNLF leaders. A streamer was also put up in Sulu saying: “Misuari
has no right to send Yolanda, a Yahudi [Jew], to head the MNLF
delegation to the OIC summit meeting in Dakar, Senegal.”
Stern, head of an international
foundation that helps the poor in the Philippines, said the sign is
anti-female and an anti-Jewish remark directed at her name and
husband, Dr. Tom Stern who is an American of Norwegian ancestry, but
whose father was of Russian-Jewish heritage.
Misuari, as the official invitee
to the Dakar summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference in
March, was not allowed to go by the Philippine government for fear
that he would never return. So he sent his emissaries, Ustadz Zain
Jali and Abdul Muhaimin, with Stern and her husband as the support
team.
Stern said she is a senior
adviser of the MNLF to the Americas. “My husband and I went as a
support team because he speaks French and I know the Secretariat
Staff. Dakar is a French speaking country.”
“I signed a memorandum of
agreement with the MNLF in 1996 after the [signing of the] peace
agreement [with the Philippine government]. I will continue working
with Chairman Nur Misuari toward peace for Mindanao until the
leadership is determined by the Peoples Congress and not by
underhanded treachery. Our foundation works hard to serve the people
of the Philippines, especially in Mindanao. I am a daughter of
Mindanao, a free woman. Pity those who still resort to medieval
thinking,” she said.
Aishah Fatima, of the MNLF, said
Stern is not a member of the former rebel group and criticized her
for underestimating the current leadership.
“That’s reality and you had
to accept it. Do not underestimate the new leadership now of the
MNLF because without these leaders, Misuari is nothing and neither
you have the right to scrutinize their decisions.”
“Misuari already made a big
blunder by exchanging the struggle of the MNLF for a piece of paper
where implementation never became a reality and where it only made
rich foundations like yours, non-MNLF individuals who grab the
opportunity of being close to Misuari and some government officials
and NGOs,” she said.
Adler Heirman, a blogger who had
followed Misuari’s political career, said the former rebel leader
failed to bring unity to the MNLF.
“The problem with Nur Misuari
is that he never values the efforts of those people who placed him
to the top. The truth is, he is not the only founder of the MNLF,
but just one of them and he now claims he’s the only founder of
the MNLF. He should accept now that his excesses of dictatorial
decisions and arrogance resulted to his situation now.”
“And Misuari’s allowing
Yolanda [Stern] to represent the MNLF is a total betrayal of the
noble cause of the MNLF. If we only follow the Islamic way of
punishing traitors of Jihad, what happened to Misuari now is not
enough punishment for his treachery. Yolanda should call her boss
the one perpetrating “underhanded treachery” not those leaders
who were sincere in their Jihad Fi Sabillillah. Of course, you
can’t understand this because you are not a Muslim and never
became a Muslim,” he said.
(To be continued)
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