Philippines Revolts

A final agreement ending a 24-year Muslim revolt in the southern Philippines is expected to be signed in Indonesia in two weeks, government officials said. The deal, which calls for the creation of a rebel-led council to supervise development in 14 southern provinces, has provoked widespread protests from Christians in the southern islands.

The Philippine president and a rebel leader embraced Monday as they announced a settlement of their nation's decades-long Muslim rebellion. "We have agreed to end the war and restore peace," Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari said after the meeting, his first in 10 years with President Fidel V. Ramos. "This is a very momentous, very historic occasion. This will be written in the golden pages of history." A peace agreement will be signed in Manila on Sept. 2, Misuari said.

Muslim rebels and the Philippine government signed a peace agreement formally ending the country's worst insurgency, which killed more than 120,000 people in 26 years. The rebels agreed in the pact to accept increased autonomy in Muslim areas in the southern Philippines, instead of their original demand for a separate Muslim state. More than 1,500 government and rebel officials and representatives of Muslim nations attended the signing ceremony at the presidential palace in Manila.

A band of Muslim rebels managed to evade pursuing Philippine troops after savage fighting that left at least 12 guerrillas and five of their hostages dead, the military said. Three local militiamen were also killed in the confused, four-hour running battle fought over the hills and forests of Mindanao Island between about 100 rebels who used hostages as "human shields" and hundreds of troops backed by helicopters. "They have escaped," a military officer said.

About 200 Islamic separatists attacked a southern Philippine town Tuesday, plundering banks and stores and burning buildings. As many as 100 people died and 30 were injured before soldiers drove the rebels into the forest, military officials said. President Fidel V. Ramos declared a state of emergency in Ipil, a town of 50,000 people on the island of Mindanao about 480 miles south of Manila.

The Philippines' top Muslim rebel leader said that a peace accord with the government is almost complete and that it is time his followers abandon violence in their 23-year-old quest for autonomy. "It is safe to say that we are now on the last and final stage. One last and final dramatic decision on the part of those concerned will suffice to restore peace in Mindanao," said Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari.

The Philippine government moved to put one of the most divisive episodes of its recent history behind it Friday by signing a peace pact with army rebels whose coup attempts nearly ruined the country. "We forge today a peace covenant with neither blame or surrender, with dignity for all concerned," President Fidel V. Ramos said in a statement after the signing ceremony.

Philippine police hunting Communist assassins raided a Manila university Sunday and rounded up 39 peasants, living on campus, who are suspected of having links with the rebels. The raid followed the killing of 14 people, including three Americans, in street ambushes in the Manila area during the last week. Police blamed the killings on Communist death squads, nicknamed "sparrows."

At least five Muslim guerrillas were killed Friday in a battle with Philippine troops on Basilan island, where two Americans and a Philippine nurse are being held hostage, a Philippine military commander said. The firefight came a day after the Philippines and the U.S. opened a training exercise aimed at wiping out the Abu Sayyaf rebel group, which authorities say may have ties to the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Philippine forces bombarded Muslim rebels on a southern island Sunday in retaliation for an ambush of soldiers, killing an unspecified number of guerrillas allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden, the army said. Army spokesman Major Noel Detoyato said troops fired howitzers at Abu Sayyaf positions on Jolo island after a guerrilla ambush Friday in which six Filipino soldiers were killed. "There was an undetermined number killed among the Abu Sayyaf," Detoyato said.