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WHAT is Malacañang’s reaction to the announced
Malaysian withdrawal from the International Monitoring Team in
Mindanao? Why have government sources been feeding the media with
anonymous news tips that Libya and Indonesia would willingly replace
the Malaysian soldiers who are leaving next month?
Some have complained that the
Malaysian contingent in the International Monitoring Team in
Mindanao seems to be partial to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front
and negative toward the Moro National Liberation Front.
Has Malacañang decided to be
friends with Nur Misuari again, do something about making the 1996
Final Peace Agreement with the MNLF work with Libya’s blessings
and let the stalled peace process with the MILF hang?
The Government of the Republic of
the Philippines side in the negotiations with the MILF can’t do
much more about the stalled negotiations (in Kuala Lumpur) because
the MILF side is disappointed in the GRP position that everything in
the agreement must conform to the Philippine Constitution.
The MILF does not want that
because its demands will surely violate the
Constitution—especially those that grant “ancestral domains”
to the MILF’s Bangsamoro homeland.
I can’t imagine Celso Lobregat
agreeing to have Zamboanga fall under the MILF’s homeland map. If
the administration’s negotiators will end the government’s
problems with the MILF by granting its “ancestral domain”
demands, it will reap bigger problems from non-Muslim and Lumad
Mindanaoans as well as other Filipinos outside Mindanao. This is
especially true now more than ever because of the food crisis.
Remember that Cotabato and other parts of Mindanao that the MILF
claims as Muslim “ancestral domains” are rice granaries, fishing
grounds and energy-producing regions.
MILF-MNLF unity
Has the administration given up
on reaching a “final agreement” with the MILF?
Is this why the Palace seems to
encourage Libyan efforts to forge MNLF-MILF unity? And why was
Chairman Misuari‘s being allowed to go out of his detention cell
on bail by the court being apparently welcomed by Malacañang.
Has Malaysia decided to wash its
hands off the Mindanao peace process?
Is this why the Arroyo
administration has been giving anonymous media tips that Libya and
Indonesia will augment their own presence to take up the vacancies
created by the Malaysian pullout?
The IMT’s presence has really
helped reduce shootouts between government and Moro separatist
troops. That is why a group of concerned people including our Moro
Times editors (Amina Rasul, who is a Times columnist and the
Convenor of the Philippine Council for Islam and Democracy, and
Samira Gutoc, who is the chairperson of the Young Moro Professionals
Network-Mindanao) have issued an open letter to President Arroyo.
The other signatories are Abdus
Sabur, Secretary General of the Asian Muslim Action Network; Rep.
Rissa Hontiveros- Baraquel (Akbayan); Rep. Mujiv Hataman (ANAK
Mindanao); Pendatun Disimban, Deputy Vice Mayor of the City of
Manila; Dr. Emily Marohombsar, a former member of the GRP panel in
the GRP-MILF Peace Talks and former president of the Mindanao
State University; former congressman Mario Aguja, a professor at the
Mindanao State University-General Santos campus; former Rep.
Loretta Ann Rosales (Akbayan); Dr. Roland Simbulan, former regent,
University of the Philippines; Gus Miclat, convenor of Initiatives
for International Dialogue; Teresita Ang See, chairman of Citizens
Action Against Crime and other prominent citizens.
They worry that the departure of
the Malaysian peacekeepers and of Malaysia itself as a member of the
IMT would have “grave repercussions and dangerous implications to
the peace process and to the lives of thousands of residents in
communities that are still reeling from the impact of decades of
sporadic violence while undergoing rehabilitation efforts.”
They appreciate the Malaysian
government’s “vital contribution to peacekeeping in Southern
Philippines through facilitation of the peace talks” for providing
“the largest contingent in the International Monitoring Team (IMT).”
Apparently, “since the GRP-MILF
peace talks started in 1997 and Malaysia led the IMT in early 2000,
the number of armed incidents between the government (GRP) and the
Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) have dramatically decreased
from an estimated 700 incidents to less than 20.”
The presence of the IMT has not
just minimized violence in the communities. “The monitors have
instituted confidence-building measures such as ceasefire mechanisms
and joint military actions between the GRP and MILF [against other
armed groups], opened lines of communication between the GRP and
MILF and helped bridged differences by backroom channeling.”
They are calling on President
Arroyo to do everything she can to stop the monitors from leaving
and to help keep the peace in Mindanao.
Standing “in solidarity with
the Mindanawans, particularly the Bangsamoro in their quest for
social justice,” the signatories are appealing to the whole
government, “the Office of the President, the security and defense
sector to pursue a genuine resolution to the impasse in the peace
talks.”
Amen.
rqb@manilatimes.net
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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