DAVAO CITY, 18 May 2006 — Representatives from the influential Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) are to visit the southern Philippines to assess the status of implementation of the 1996 peace accord between Manila and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), officials said yesterday.
The 16-member delegation will be in Manila today and would meet with local officials before proceeding to a meeting in Marawi City in the southern Philippines tomorrow. The group will also go to the provinces of Maguindanao, North Cotabato and in Jolo island to meet with former Muslim rebel and security leaders.
While in Marawi, the delegation will hold a conference with officials about the Madrasa projects, the Lake Lanao Watershed Protection and Development Council and National Power Corporation on the Integrated Development Plan (IDP) in Lake Lanao.
From Marawi tomorrow, they will proceed to the town of Parang in Maguindanao province to meet with former MNLF rebels-turned-government soldiers.
The delegation will then travel to Cotabato City on Friday where officials would brief them on the current security situation and trade opportunities in the Muslim autonomous region, which comprises the provinces of Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu.
Cotabato City Mayor Muslimen Sema, who is also a senior leader of the MNLF, would meet with the OIC officials and discuss some provisions in the peace agreement that Manila allegedly failed to honor, among them the livelihood programs for former rebels.
“Mayor Sema will raise these issues to the OIC delegation because these are what former rebels are complaining about.
“Many disgruntled former MNLF fighters have demanded that the government should fulfill and fully honor the 1996 peace accord they signed with the Philippine government,” said Abdullah Cusain, the mayor’s spokesman said. Cusain said the MNLF lauded the OIC for sending a mission to the Philippines to assess the implementation of the peace deal.
The OIC mission, dubbed “2006 OIC Field Visit in Mindanao,” has been slated following the 32nd Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICEM)at Sana’a Yemen last year, where the Philippines and the OIC Committee of the Eight agreed to send a mission to the southern Philippines.
The MNLF under Nur Misuari signed the peace accord with then President Fidel Ramos, ending more then three decades of bloody fighting in Mindanao, and accepted a limited autonomy over four Muslim provinces, later expanded to 5 provinces.
Misuari became governor of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao, but later resumed his rebellion in 2001, accusing the government of failing to honor the peace agreement.
Secretary Jesus Dureza, presidential adviser on the peace process, said the visit of the OIC delegation is timely and relevant because it will further boost peace negotiations between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
“The visit is truly another historic event as we continue to keep track of the full implementation of the government’s commitments in the GRP-MNLF peace agreement," he said.
It will also boost the ongoing peace negotiations between the government and the MILF,” Dureza said.
Manila opened peace talks with the MILF — which broke away with the larger MNLF in 1978 — in an effort to end the hostilities in the strife-torn, but mineral-rich region.
