World | Philippines
Government and MILF meet covertly
The government and a major Muslim separatist group began back door talks after two months of a disrupted peace process and the resumption of deadly clashes in the south.
- By Barbara Mae Dacanay, Bureau Chief
- Published: 00:00 October 18, 2008
Manila: The government and a major Muslim separatist group began back door talks after two months of a disrupted peace process and the resumption of deadly clashes in the south.
According to Luwaran, the website of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), members of this organisation's peace panel met on October 6 with former Ilocos Norte governor Chavit Singson, now an undersecretary on national security, who is also in charge of the government's peace talks.
"The Philippine government should make the peace process a national agenda, and the executive level, the judiciary, and Congress should adopt the same policy," the website cites as conditions for the resumption of peace talks.
Earlier, President Gloria Arroyo said talks could only resume if MILF surrenders its rogue commanders behind the attacks on 20 villages in the south on August 5. The attacks began after the Supreme Court, in response to Christian local government leaders, prevented negotiators of the government and MILF to sign the agreement allowing wider area and self rule for Muslims in the south.
The intensity of the conflict that ensued in the south, led Arroyo changed her peace policy from talking to armed groups to talking to the affected communities.
She said it involved the "dimilitarisation, demobilisation, and reintegration" of rebel groups, which, in turn, rejected her calls for firearms to be surrendered before negotiations start.
Khalid Mousa, Deputy Chairman of MILF's committee on information, asked Arroyo to prevent various interest groups from scuttling the peace process. She should have "a political will to resist the country's elite from sabotaging the talks," Mousa said.
He added that the president had "zero credibility" after she decided in early October to scrap the signing of the proposed agreement.
"Filipino oligarchs fear an empowered Moro and do not want them to become progressive like the Muslims in Malaysia.
"Ninety-seven percent of the Philippine population want peace to prevail in the south, but the three percent who control the national economy there will do everything to derail the proposed peace settlement with MILF," Mousa said.
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