For the last three decades, the prime target of skillful manipulation of conspiracies, both domestic and international, has been marked: To strike the nerve center as a whole, the central figure for one, of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). This explains the series of attempts to oust Prof. Nur Misuari from chairmanship of the Central Committee, including the latest one, which raped at best, politico-military cleavages and, at worse, fratricidal bloodletting among armed followers. Regrettably, all at the cost of the struggle for self-determination and at the expense of untold sufferings of the Bangsamoro people.

       The recent resolution of the so-called Council of 15 is the sixth serious attempt so far to remove the founding father of the Front. In an eleven-paragraph document they signed in Malate’s Manor Hotel, they manifested their withdrawal of support to Nur Misuari as their leader. The reasons cited are obvious. Among them are loss of trust, confidence, arrogance, dictatorial, nepotism, can’t be reached for consultation, etc.

       Since the MNLF founding in 1968, all three successive vice chairmen of the Central Committee and chiefs of staff, too, had plotted one at a time to wrest power and control of the essential nerve center of authority. Foreign-trained officers had also tried, but failed.

       In the early 1970s, a group of field commanders held a general meeting in Indanan, Sulu, then the epicenter of the liberation struggle, and arrogated unto themselves the authority to forcibly change the national leadership of the revolutionary movement. Vociferous among them was a teacher-turned-revolutionary, who later on surrendered to the Marcos government. In league with seven other cohorts, they persuaded the assembly that starting today Dr. Salih Loong will be the new chairman. Dr. Loong belongs to Batch 300 and worked at that time as a physician in Jeddah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

       Angered by the self-serving imposition, Cmdr. Alvarez Isnaji, then vice chairman for military affairs of the Lupah Sug State Revolutionary Committee, unlocked his FN Belgium-made rifle, and roared: "If I hear one word that Maas is no longer the chairman, something bloody will happen here." His heavily armed troops belonging to the State regular army, fingers in triggers were ready to fire.

       One by one the longhaired, fatigue-clad freedom fighters, progeny of the Tausog black teeth warriors, left. No final decision was taken. The meeting was adjourned.

       That was the first tactless attempt to unseat Misuari, reverently addressed as Maas, or "Old Man", by his followers.

       The next attempt, as claimed by most students of Bangsamoro studies, occurred in the late 1970s. Dispassionate reinterpretation of events reveals that there were, indeed, subtle efforts to undercut the gigantic powers of the chairman, a machination to ease him out in the end.

       The tactical advances put forward by the so-called Committee of 9, many theorists agree, were to under-gird their advantageous strategic posture. Comprising the Committee of 9 were the former chief-of-staff of BAF and eight other ranking officers.

       It was not farfetched, as feared by many insiders, that their immediate demand for the installation of a Standing Committee could bulldoze the way for the inception of a Junta-type leadership minus Misuari, of course. The standing committee in their own political jargon was supposed to be a powerful mechanism substantially akin to Politburo, which must strategically handle and manage the executive workings of the Front.

       Their move, observers believe from the high historical ground of the 21st century, could clip Misuari’s powers and prerogatives. It could even relegate him to a mere ceremonial chairman, which is no better than chairman emeritus. For this reason, the Central Committee did not stamp their approval.

       Pressing their demand, they justified, that the theatre of war during this early decade of the independence struggle was fast expanding from Sulu to Basilan, Lanao to Cotabato, and other parts of Mindanao. Such mechanism, they chorused, was necessary, and they, all nine top brass, must collectively man this.

       Forging a common agenda of their own, the might of this group of military minds was not able to choke the revolutionary brilliancy of the pundit of the revolution, the U.P.-educated Misuari. With this backlash, Dambong Sali, the former chief-of-staff of the BAF, and his fellow generals tendered their irrevocable resignations, resignations of positions, not of memberships, on February 14, 1978 during the Central Committee meeting in Tripoli, Libya. That (resignation) was intended to preserve the solidarity of the rank-and-file of our soldiers, years later he confided. Other officers contended themselves with just lying low profile in a neighboring state of Sabah.

       Ustaz Salamat Hashim’s move to replace Misuari was the third that rocked the MNLF. Formerly the Vice Chairman of the Central Committee, he proclaimed himself as the supreme leader of the MNLF on December 26, 1977 on the basis of a document they called Instrument of Take-Over. Signed by fifty-seven leading officers mostly coming from Central Mindanao, including Ronnie Malaguiok, a Top 90 cadre and Chairman of Kutawato Revolutionary Committee, Ustaz Salamat declared that they have already took over the mantle of leadership of the MNLF.

       The pretensions to power were illusory, as it had not elicited the unqualified support of the top honchos in all levels of authorities. Misuari, enjoying the complete trust, confidence and loyalty of majority of Central Committee members and their patrons abroad, the Islamic world, still calls the shot. With no rational option left, and to distinguish themselves from erstwhile comrade-in-arms, they began calling their revolutionary front Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). This officially started in 1984 after constituting their own Central Committee and holding their Congress.

       With the breaking way of Ustaz Salamat Hashim, Comdr. Dimas Pundato, the Chair of the Ranao Sur State Revolutionary Committee, was promoted to the post of Vice-Chairmanship of the Central Committee. After few years, however, like his predecessor, he led a coterie of coup plotters against their leader.

       In a resolution dated June 10, 1982, Gen. Pundato and forty-four other commanders masterminded the so-called 3rd Session of the National People’s Congress, which they held in Tawi-Tawi. At the end of their Congress, they came out with a decision stating the "Confirmation of the Ouster of Nur Misuari as Chairman of the Central Committee."

        Not contented yet, as all-power grabbers are, they conspired with some traditional politicians and rebel returnees from the south of this country in a last ditch to gain implicit recognition, but to no avail. This, they realized, when they conducted the so-called Peace and Unity Dialogue in Karachi, Pakistan in January 1983, which widened instead the gaps of Mujahideen leaders.

       Thus, in the same year, they formalized their own faction, which they named The Reformist Group, with Dimas Pundato at its helm. Five years later, they all surrendered to the Manila government.

       After the manifest failure of the two former vice chairmen to dislodge Misuari, the fifth attempt to wrest control of the leadership was masterminded, this time, by his former chief-of- staff of the Bangsamoro Armed Forces again. This was in the late 1980s after the collapse of the formal peace negotiations with the government of President Corazon Aquino.

       Factor such as major policy differences among the leaders had contributed, to some extent, to this internal wrangling. Seizing this increasing climate of mistrust, some senior officers took this opportunity to better position themselves.

       To flesh up their scheme, the strategic framework commands that emissaries would have to be sent to equally ambitious MNLF foreign liaison officers. It took them months, without diplomatic finesse, to shuttle between Sandakan, Islamabad and Damascus, just to convince other members of the top hierarchy to sway to them.

       The illusion of ground-swelling commitment from their recruits cannot match the mounting political equation of support to Misuari. Majority of the Central Committee members are with him. The Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC), more importantly its Secretary-General, still recognizes the MNLF leader as the sole and legitimate representative of his people in the Pan-Islamic body.

       So the attempt to squeeze the Sulu-born strongman out of the leadership bungled along the shores of the Sub-continent. As the aborted plan was bared, Chairman Misuari ordered the suspension of his Chief-of-Staff, Melham Alam and his associates.

       Defiant of the decision, together with other seven ranking officers of the Front, Alam secretly formed their own revolutionary movement they called as Islamic Command Council (ICC). The seven, many insiders believe, include former secretary general, his deputy and the deputy foreign minister of the Front.

       Of late, this vicious cycle of squabbling for power in Asia’s well-entrenched mass movement for freedom, justice, self-determination and development was brought to the fore with the cropping up of the so-called Council of 15. As in the previous attempts, involved this time are the interim vice-chairman, foreign affairs committee chief, the secretary-general and two of his three deputies, the chief of the military intelligence service and other senior cadres.

       In their meeting on April 29, 2001, they issued a resolution usurping the powers, functions, duties and prerogatives of Central Committee Chair Nur Misuari. To them, they constitute the Central Committee.

       Known to all MNLF Soldiers and Gausbaogbog (mass-based supporters), however, that eleven senior officers, excluding the junior cadres, do not make a Central Committee. Much less a divided few.

       To date, the real ideologue-members of the Central Committee, a hundred of them, are still intact and one in their solid support to Misuari’s leadership. They had in fact, strongly condemned the malevolent attempt of their former comrades to usurp the powers of the Chairman.

       In the recent past, the eight field Commanders, the Committee of 9, Salamat, Pundato, Alam and other nameless agent saboteurs had tried such strategy of fomenting internal coup d’etat. They did not succeed.

       Misuari, the millennium’s great guru of peacefare, masters the science of revolutionary survival. He is the heart of the MNLF.

       Reference: Bureau of Public Information
                        Office of the Regional Governor Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao
                        Cotabato City, Philippines
                        Tel. 006364-4211742