Muslim Leaders in Mindanao mourned for Qaddafi

Muslim leaders mourn Qaddafi

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Published : Monday, October 24, 2011 00:00

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Written by : JULMUNIR I. JANNARAL CORRESPONDENT

REFERRING to him as a “champion of the Bangsamoro cause,” Muslim leaders over the weekend paid tribute to the late Libyan strongman Muammar Qaddafi who was killed in an assault last week on his hometown Sirte.

While Libyans considered Qaddafi as a ruthless dictator, Muslim leaders in the country, on the other hand, recall Qaddafi’s support for the struggle for Muslim self-determination.

“We pay tribute to him in helping bring into international level the Moro quest for self-determination. Hence, the Muslims in the Philippines particularly the Bangsamoro people are indebted to Brother Muammar Qaddafi for helping in their struggle for identity,” Nash Pangadapun, secretary general of Maradeka, an umbrella organization of Muslim civil society groups.

Meanwhile, Almarin Centi Tillah, president of Pahimpunan Sin Islam (Islamic Society of the Philippines) said, “We do not pretend to know what the final judgment of history will be on the man Muammar Qaddafi. But we can expect his role in supporting the cause of Muslim autonomy within the Philippine Republic and the enactment of the Tripoli Agreement to stand on the positive side of that ledger.”

According to Pangadapun, Maradeka has joined the Muslim ummah (community) in mourning the death of the Libyan leader.

“It saddened the Moro group that the death of Colonel Qaddafi comes out from a phenomenal Arab spring but yet backed up by United States of America,” Pangadapun emphasized.

He warned that the intervention of the United States in the revolt that led to the downfall of Qaddafi would only reinforce anti-American sentiments throughout the Muslim world.

Supporter of the struggle
Commander Hadji Kairan Suhaili, vice chairman for political affairs of the South Palawan Revolutionary Committee of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), said the organization owed a large debt of gratitude to Qaddafi.

“Sa palagay ko malaki ang utang na loob ng lahat ng liberation front sa buong mundo kay Colonel Qaddafi pati na ang MNLF [In my opinion, all the liberation fronts around the world have so much debt of gratitude to Colonel Qaddafi including the MNLF],” Suhaili said.

He claimed that the late strongman was generous in extending financial assistance as well as armaments to the MNLF when it was actively engaging the government as a secessionist movement.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hadji Mashur Bin-Jundam, a professor of the University of the Philippines Institute for Islamic Studies, said, “Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was the only Muslim world leader instrumental in the internationalization of the Bangsamoro issue.”

“We salute the great leader of the world revolutionaries,” Jun-dam declared.

Tripoli agreement
FORMER Gov. Zacaria Candao of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said in an interview that Qaddafi would not be forgotten in the history of the Bangsamoro people.

Qaddafi persuaded the MNLF to move for the autonomy of 13 provinces in Mindanao that included Palawan instead of completely seceding from the country.

Candao was part of the MNLF Peace Panel which negotiated with the government in Tripoli, Libya. The series of negotiations resulted in the signing of the Tripoli agreement by Carmelo Barbero, then defense undersecretary for civil relations, and former MNLF chairman Nur Misuari.

“It is but proper for the people in the ARMM to offer a prayer or two for the repose soul of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi,” Candao also said.

Meanwhile, Qaddafi’s death also earned the sympathies of the Bangsamoro women sector.

Dr. Radzma Jannaral-Suhaili, executive director of the Institute of Peace and Development at the Mindanao State University in Jolo, Sulu said she cried after viewing the footage which showed angry Libyans bashing Qaddafi’s head.

“Why should we Muslims show to the whole world how ruthless we are and how we ridicule a fallen leader and not give him a due process under the Shari’ah law?” Suhaili asked.

She, however, conceded, “If that is Allah’s will that Khadafy should really meet his violent death to atone for the wrong doings he did for the Libyan people, then so be it.”

On September 1969, while King Idris of Libya was in Turkey for medical treatment, he was deposed in a coup by a group of army officers under the leadership of Qaddafi who was then a 27-year-old Libyan army captain.

Idris was deposed and Qaddafi was named chairman of Libya’s new governing body, the Revolutionary Command Council after the successful military coup.

King Idris was the first and only king of Libya, reigning from 1951 to 1969, and the Chief of the Senussi Muslim sect. The monarchy was abolished and a republic proclaimed. The coup pre-empted Idris’ abdication and the succession of his heir.

Bai Shalimar Amerkhan Candao, vice-president for Mindanao of Noorus Salam, a network of aleemat (Muslim women religious leaders), peace advocates, and women’s organizations, said, “It was some kind of a poetic justice for Khadafy on how he overthrew a monarchy and ruled on the Libyan people with iron fists, and died too in the hands of the Libyan people that he once ruled,”

“However, back here in the Philippines especially in Muslim Mindanao, still we believe that Qaddafi is the champion of the cause of the Bangsamoro people,” she said.