Misuari and his MNLF claim the new deal is a betrayal of a 1996 agreement between the government and MNLF, has left his organization shortchanged, and granted Muslims in the region lesser autonomy. It was an order through which Misuari was determined to illustrate his animosity toward the MILF's "Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro" that - on being signed on March 27 this year - brought to a close 17 years of negotiations and ended a decades-old armed conflict in the southern area of Mindanao - the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines - while granting Muslim areas greater political autonomy. In one, they set up a command post on a two-level concrete commercial building and demanded the flag of the self-proclaimed "Bangsamoro Republik" be raised over City Hall. Residents told AA that over the first hours there was no gunfire or explosions, only the sight of hundreds of policemen and soldiers in armored vehicles scrambling to the perimeter of the affected villages and the main commercial district that was already deserted.Īround 8 a.m., live streams from local television stations showed the MNLF gunmen - under the leadership of chairman Nur Misuari - taking over the villages.
The invasion sparked a massive hostage scenario which resulted in the death of more than 300 people - including most of the attackers, government troops, policemen and civilians - and the destruction of some 1,000 houses, most of which were populated by Muslims, leading to the displacement of over 100,000. She said that even today - one year on - she still remembers the loud boom from mortar shells exploding within the compound as the rebels engaged the soldiers nearby.Īll over this majority Christian city, residents and dignitaries are this Tuesday remembering those they lost, and the fear they felt Septemwhen some 500 gunmen from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) arrived from the neighboring Muslim provinces of Sulu and Basilan to occupy six coastal villages just more than two kilometers from the main commercial district and City Hall. "I thought it was the end," Cheng Elumbra, a 30-year-old computer layout-artist, who was caught inside the city's biggest government hospital some 200 meters from where the first major gun battle broke out, told the Anadolu Agency. It was early morning when the news broke, residents glued to their radios as reports revealed that rebels had attacked the southern Philippines city of Zamboanga.įor the next 20 days, the population cowered in their homes as government troops fought a fierce gun battle with members of a Muslim separatist group opposed to a peace deal between the ruling powers and their breakaway group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).