CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — The Sultanate of Sulu and other historic and traditional groups in Mindanao have again been excluded from the newly formed Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), one of their leaders claimed on Sunday.

Abraham Idjirani, the Sultanate’s secretary general and spokesman, told Daily Tribune the Sultanates of Sulu and Lanao and the other indigenous tribal groups within BARMM were never consulted on the creation of the autonomous region.

“Just like during the times of former Presidents Cory Aquino, Fidel Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Benigno Aquino, historic and traditional leaders were never invited even as an observer (during the consultations),” Idjirani said.

He clarified that the Sultanate of Sulu was initially included during the initial negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

But he claimed he was disinvited upon the request of Malaysia which brokered the peace accord.

Idjirani claimed Malaysia might have feared the participation of the Sultanate of Sulu would have caused complications on the peace talks as it is leading calls to reclaim Sabah.

He said the MILF could not have been aware that by excluding historic and traditional leaders, it has also neglected the basis of Mindanao’s political struggle which is the historic restitution of their identity as Bangsamoro people.

“The Bangsamoro represents all people in Mindanao. The Sultanates, tribal people and the Christians are now peacefully co-existing with their Muslim brothers. They should be given a voice in a democratic government,” Idjirani said.

The Sultanate, however, is still optimistic that President Rodrigo Duterte will correct the historical errors of past presidents.

As a Mindanaoan, the President fully understands the political landscape of the region, Idjirani said.

The BARMM set off last week following formalities between government and the MILF, led by Al-Hajj Murad Ebrahim.

Murad has been tapped to lead the majority Catholic nation’s brand-new territory in the restive south where Muslims have won new powers and an influx of cash in a push for peace.

After decades as a rebel, Murad will need to become a bureaucrat and complete complex projects as interim Chief Minister of the newly formed BARMM until the elections in 2022.

“We also see the difficult challenge we will be facing ahead. To us, the struggle is not yet over,” the 70-year-old Murad told Agence France Presse. “This is only another level of the struggle.”

Once a feared commander, Murad is chairman of the MILF which signed a landmark pact with the government in 2014 to end a separatist insurgency that killed some 150,000 people since the 1970s.

That deal led to the creation of the Bangsamoro which is based on the southern island of Mindanao and was overwhelmingly approved in a January vote.

The MILF is the largest of several rebel groups fighting for independence or autonomy in Mindanao, the ancestral homeland of the nation’s roughly six million-strong Muslim minority.

Rebels and the government hope the new region, which is getting an influx of cash, will be able to bring sorely needed development to the violence-plagued area.

The son of an Islamic preacher, Murad was orphaned early on as he lost his mother when he was only one and his father at 13.

He studied civil engineering at the Catholic-run Notre Dame University in southern Cotabato City where he learned fluent English.

But in his senior year, he dropped out to join an underground movement that he said defended Muslims targeted by Christian paramilitary groups and security forces under former dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

He joined the armed struggle first with the rebel group Moro National Liberation Front, but internal differences led him and Cairo-trained scholar Hashim Salamat to split and form the MILF.

In the 1980s Murad said he was in Afghanistan to visit Filipino rebels who joined anti-Soviet forces but he denied fighting alongside them. It was there where he met future al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

“Osama bin Laden was very soft spoken. I did not think he would eventually be declared a world enemy because he was a very refined person,” Murad told AFP.

Murad became MILF’s military chief, known as a calm but sharp tactician. He led a difficult life in jungles and marshlands, with his two sons born at the height of the fighting.

During his years as commander, Murad led battles not from afar but joined his men at the frontlines, said presidential peace adviser and former military chief Carlito Galvez.

“We did not see him committing any abuses,” Galvez told AFP. “He fought not because of an urge to kill. He saw that fighting is not between people but between ideologies, to correct an injustice.”

After Salamat’s death in 2003, Murad took over as leader and earned the respect of colleagues for building consensus, observers said.