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RIGHTS-PHILIPPINES: Stalled Talks With Muslim Rebels Hard on Civilians

Prime Sarmiento

MANILA, Dec 22 2008 (IPS) - With the government insisting that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in conflict-ridden Mindanao disarm prior to resumption of peace talks – and the rebels refusing to do so – prospects for quick resettlement of some 300,000 internally displaced people (IDP) seem bleak.

“The situation is worse for people who are in the fifth month of displacement owing to depletion of assets,” said Lan Mercado, country director of the international charity Oxfam. “It’s a misconception that the armed conflict is only confined to a small area of Mindanao,” Mercado told IPS in an interview.

On Dec 11, two people were killed and more than 40 wounded in two bombing attacks that rocked a shopping center in Iligan city, southern Philippines. Officials suggested that rogue members of the MILF may have been responsible, but the rebels leadership denied this and even condemned the bombings.

According Mercado, IDPs in Mindanao live in fear and insecurity. They are worried about the homes and farms they left behind and the loss of their livelihoods. Most are lodged in evacuation centres that are cramped and lack potable water supply.

“The national government and other humanitarian agencies continue to exert all their efforts to address the needs of IDPs but challenges remain,” Mercado said.

Activists say that what is happening in Mindanao is a gross violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions that prohibit not only deliberate violence against civilians, and against what civilians need to survive, but also any military action that has a disproportionate impact on them.

In Mindanao innocent civilians are at serious risk of losing their lives as intense fighting continues between the MILF and government troops.

A report launched last week in Manila noted that civilians were at the receiving end not only in Mindanao but also in other conflict areas around the world.

“The killing of civilians is still the norm, not the exception,” the report said. ”From Sri Lanka to the DRC, government forces and non-state actors simply flout the law, or justify attacks by interpreting the Geneva Conventions in a way their authors would never have recognise,” wrote Ed Cairns of Oxfam and author of the report “For a Safer Tomorrow: Protecting Civilians in a Multipolar World.”

According to Cairns, it is important for everyone to work for the protection of civilians caught in conflict. ”In our globalised world, none of us remain unaffected by the conflicts fuelled by cycles of violence thousands of kilometers away. Protecting civilians is the first step to reduce fear and hostility, and create the long road to peace.”

The ongoing conflict in Mindanao is the offshoot of a stalled peace process that was supposed to end a decades-old rebellion in the south. The government and the MILF were scheduled to sign a memorandum of agreement (MOA) on preserving the ancestral domain of the Moros.

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 MOA was unconstitutional. This triggered renewed fighting between government troops and the MILF, with the civilians caught in between.

Government and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) such as Oxfam and the World Food Programme rushed to Mindanao to provide basic services for affected civilians.

Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral said that, as of November, her department has given P70 million (about 1.5 million US dollars) worth of emergency relief assistance to the IDPs.

Cabral added that her department, in coordination with NGOs and other government agencies, provided supplemental feeding and health services; conducted livelihood training and immunisation and built bunk houses to serve as temporary shelters for the IDPs.

There are now over 300,000 IDPs staying at numerous evacuation centres in Mindanao, according to the National Disaster Coordinating Council. A report issued by the U.N. early this month notes that most of these IDPs live in cramped, makeshift shelters in evacuation sites which are located near or around the town centers, open grounds of public schools, roadside and vacant lots of host communities.

“Conditions in different evacuation sites remain dismal. There is a lack of safe water sources, inadequate excreta and solid waste management and vermin control,” the report said.

It is the children who suffer most, according to the UN report. They become ill due to unsanitary conditions, and already 32 children under five years of age have died of communicable diseases.

In provinces such as Maguindano and Shariff Kabunsuan, schools have had to stay closed owing to the conflict. In areas where classes have resumed, children caught in conflict dropped out after few days of schooling with many suffering from high levels of stress.

Mercado proposed a comprehensive assessment of the IDPs’ needs. She said that providing food and shelter alone are not enough as these IDPs have been living in evacuation sites for so long and thus need more than the basic necessities. These included jobs, education for their children and the assurances of safety.

The global economic crisis may interfere with the provision of services to IDPs, says Umair Hasan, Oxfam’s Humanitarian Programme Coordinator. Donations may dry up as the world economy goes into recession. “Donors would be choosy as to where they will put their money,” Hasan said.

Observers said that a lasting solution to the problem lies in the resumption of dialogue between government and the MILF. But the United Nations noted in its report, that no dialogue may happen in the next few weeks. “The reality appears that both parties have been expecting unrealistic preconditions to be met before peace talks occur,” the report said.

For now the parties cannot even agree on the terms of new negotiations. The government has said that any new negotiations must be based on disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration. The MILF insists that future negotiations should centre on the provisions of the MOA.

This leads to a feeling of uncertainty among IDPs, according to Miriam Coronel Ferrer, associate professor at the University of the Philippines’s political science department. This deepens the insecurity among IDPs who are yearning to return to a more normal life, she said.