By Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Authorities on Monday tagged former members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) as being behind the abduction of a Korean national in the southern Philippine province of Zamboanga.
A police statement said that witnesses to Saturday’s abduction had identified former MILF members Abral Abdulsalam and Munib Enriques, and an Abu Sayyaf group member as taking part.
The announcement comes in the wake of news that MILF members were involved in fighting in which 50 police officers died Sunday - an incident that caused the suspension of the peace process between the two parties.
In March, the MILF signed up to a peace deal to establish a Bangsamoro entity in Mindanao, the country’s southernmost major island, to replace the current autonomous region and implement Bangsamoro Basic Law in return for the country's one-time largest rebel group renouncing violence and decommissioning its arms.
Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr, chairman of the Senate committee on local government, said Monday that he was halting discussions with the MILF until further notice.
Abdulsalam is a younger brother of the MILF's Waning Abdusalam, who was named in 2011 as being behind a series of kidnappings and other crimes in Zamboanga. He died of health complications after being wounded in the government's Payao offensive against the MILF that November.
Enriques - and his cousin Ayub Enriquez - meanwhile, both belong to the "MILF-Lawless Elements" group, who are also responsible for kidnappings in Zamboanga, according to police.
Monday's identification of the three men underlines the difficulties that the MILF face in reining in members and ex-members of its organization who have sidelines in kidnapping and other criminal activities, often with family members belonging to the Abu Sayyaf.
In April last year, four MILF members were among 18 gunmen killed by the Philippines army. They were suspected of aiding the Abu Sayyaf - an al-Qaeda-linked militant group responsible for a string of kidnappings - on the remote southern island of Basilan.
Teresita Deles, the Philippines presidential adviser on the peace process, told The Anadolu Agency at the time that if the gunmen were aiding the Abu Sayyaf they had done so "without their top leadership's permission."
Meanwhile, MILF splinter groups the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the Moro National Liberation Front have vowed to sabotage the peace process - the latter laying siege to the predominantly Christian city of Zamboanga in 2013 in protest. The siege left 300 people dead and thousands displaced.
Saturday's incident marked the second abduction of a South Korean national in six months.
On Sept. 11 last year, Korean-Chinese businessman Li Pei Zhei was kidnapped in Kabasalan town - also in Zamboanga province – by a suspected Abu Sayyaf-linked gang.
After eight weeks in captivity, he was released on the outskirts of the town of Alicia.
Kidnapping has become a burgeoning business enterprise in the southern Philippines, where groups seize victims and hand them over to the Abu Sayyaf, which keeps them hostage while the gang negotiates for a ransom. If paid, the money is shared by all involved.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf - armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles - has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an independent Islamic province in the Philippines.
It is notorious for beheading victims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.
