Manila: Foreign experts will oversee the disarming of Moro rebels while efforts to come up with a new law on the Bangsamoro region are taking place, a Philippine government representative has said.
Representatives of the government and rebels signed a peace settlement in March this year.
Professor Miriam Coronel-Ferrer, government peace panel chair in talks with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), said they expect the total decommissioning of the weapons and combatants to be in progress once Congress finishes deliberations on the proposed law constituting the Bangsamoro.
“The decommissioning of the MILF is part of the Annex on Normalisation of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro,” Coronel-Ferrer said, referring to a cluster of accords aimed at addressing concerns of the country’s minority Muslim population in the South.
“The MILF signed this document (Annex on Normalisation) and so they are obliged to see this through with the help of the government and the Independent Decommissioning Body (IDB) that we will set up very soon,” she added.
While efforts are progressing on the creation of a Bangsamoro Basic Law that would provide legal personality to the existence of a self-rule area in Muslim Mindanao, a police force for the region will also be formed.
According to Coronel-Ferrer, the IDB will be comprised of seven members — three foreign experts and four Filipinos.
During the course of the three-decade long conflict by the MILF with the government, tens of thousands of weapons had been brought into the country.
The presence of these unregistered firearms are a major cause of concern for both the government, the international body helping out in the peace process, as well as the MILF. It is an important factor in the peace and order situation on the planned Bangsamoro.
It had been estimated that the MILF has at least 10,000 fighters but not all of them are armed. Nevertheless, if these huge amount weapons fall in the wrong hands, experts said efforts towards achieving peace in Mindanao the southern main island, would be in vain.
According to Coronel-Ferrer, the IBD’s task would be to verify the inventory of weapons and combatants that the MILF will submit and institute the needed procedures for turning in the weapons.
“Norway, Turkey and Brunei have been invited by the government and MILF panels to nominate the foreign experts who would sit in the IDB,” she said.
The March 25 agreement to decommission rebel firearms is part of a bigger accord, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, which aims to put an end to nearly three decades of conflict in Southern Philippines involving the government and the MILF.
The Annex on Normalisation states that the decommissioning of MILF forces “shall be parallel and commensurate to the implementation of all the agreements of the Parties.”
“The MILF shall undertake a gradual programme for decommissioning of its forces so that they are put beyond use. The decommissioning process includes activities aimed at achieving a smooth transition for the members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) of the MILF to productive civilian life,” Coronel-Ferrer said.
