PHILIPPINES: Gov’t Urged to Resume Talks With Muslim Rebels

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Stella Gonzales

MANILA, Aug 27 2008 (IPS) - About 100 people have been killed or injured and more than 130,000 others displaced since hostilities resumed this month between government troops and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels, said to be “frustrated” by a new hitch in a peace agreement

The 2003 agreement had sought to end the decades-old insurgency in Mindanao that had cost 120,000 lives and up to 270 billion pesos (5.9 billion US dollars) in losses. Instead, this product of secret negotiations (leaked to the public just days before the scheduled signing of the agreement) created a backlash and is now being blamed for triggering the violence.

Former president Joseph Estrada told the government to pursue an “all-out war” against the MILF, similar to what he tried out during his term in office. But former presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos have advised the two parties to instead return to the negotiating table, a position shared by the human rights group Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights).

Karapatan deplored the attacks on civilians and reminded the separatist MILF that in advancing the interests of the Bangsamoro people, the rebels should also respect the rights of civilians. Karapatan expressed concern for those displaced from their homes as a result of the fighting. “The two sides must stop the hostilities and return to the negotiating table to resolve the thorny issues,” said secretary-general Marie Hilao-Enriquez.

Representatives of the government and the MILF were scheduled to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on ancestral domain last August. The MOA, which took almost five years to craft, had already been “initialled” a week before by peace negotiators from both sides following meetings in Kuala Lumpur. The MOA would have paved the way for the expansion of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) to include about 700 villages. It would have given Muslims wider economic and political powers.

But on Aug. 4, the Supreme Court issued a restraining order stopping the signing of the agreement after local executives from Mindanao filed a petition claiming that the agreement would result in the dismemberment of the country and was unconstitutional. The aborted signing of the MOA was said to have angered some MILF commanders, prompting the attacks on several towns.

The government later said it would not sign the MOA in its present form and would instead renegotiate the agreement. It also wanted the MILF to surrender the MILF commanders who were responsible for the attacks.

But MILF chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim said the MOA was “a final document, a done deal” and was subjected by the government to “legal review by experts for almost four months.”

In the MILF website, Murad said the MOA “is just a framework agreement and not the final compact” and that the necessary public consultations, congressional actions and enactments, and plebiscite would be conducted for the people’s final decision.

Much of the blame for the breakdown of the peace negotiations is being placed at the door of President Gloria Arroyo. Politicians who had petitioned the Supreme Court said the government did not consult them regarding the MOA.

The leftist group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), or New Patriotic Alliance, said Arroyo “negotiated in bad faith and raised the expectations of the MILF and the Moro people.”

“The MOA, while recognising on paper the Moro people’s right to self-determination…was calculated to flounder and fail in the face of legal challenges and the unfounded outcry that it would dismember the Philippine Republic,” said Renato Reyes, Bayan secretary-general. He said the government knew that the agreement would require an amendment to the Constitution – a very unpopular move in the Philippines – and that the Supreme Court was very likely to intervene.

Bayan questioned the involvement of the United States in the peace process and in the forging of agreements. Reyes said that in doing so, Arroyo had “undermined national sovereignty.”

The U.S., which fears that Mindanao could turn into a base militants linked to al-Qaeda, has promised millions of dollars in aid to Mindanao once a final peace agreement is signed. In fact, the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines flew to Malaysia to witness the (now aborted) signing of the MOA.

The involvement of third countries adds to the already “daunting task” of reconciling seemingly clashing interests of the government, the MILF, politicians and local oligarchs, said political analyst Prof. Bobby Tuazon of the Center for People Empowerment in Governance.

Tuazon told IPS that “the peace process, which reveals the craftsmanship of the U.S., purports to offer the MILF a political authority and a degree of ownership over ancestral lands and maritime resources.” But, he pointed out, politicians, landlords and oligarchs cannot be expected to “disengage from power politics to make way for MILF juridical power.”

He said there was a need to re-examine the peace process between the government and the MILF. The peace talks, he said, fall into the “peace process paradigm” of capitalist countries that is similar to the United Nations’ “peace building,” “conflict resolution” or “dispute settlement.”

“The trouble is, not all ‘peace processes’ are success stories,” Tuazon said. He said talks between the two parties should be conducted independently “with no interference by external parties, except to facilitate as in the case of Malaysia and to monitor the truce, as in the case of the International Monitoring Team (IMT).”

The IMT, composed of mostly military officers from Malaysia, Brunei, Libya and Japan, acts as mediator on violations of the ceasefire agreement between the government and the MILF. The IMT, which has maintained a presence in Mindanao since 2004, is ending its tour of duty at the end of the month. There are last-minute negotiations for an extension of its stay, which many parties see as crucial in the peace process.

“I think the core issues of the peace talks should be considered as a national concern,” said Tuazon. “More democratic dialogues, deliberations and forums should have been conducted to distill the dichotomy of diverse positions and competing interests.”