SULTAN KUDARAT/ZAMBOANGA CITY, 19 September 2006 — The head of one of Japan’s largest aid agencies met the leader of the Philippines’ largest Muslim rebel group yesterday and said ending a decades-long fighting in the south is indispensable to Philippine economic takeoff.

Sadako Ogata, president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), met Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leader Ebrahim Murad for an hour in a rebel camp in Sultan Kudarat town of Maguindanao province, officials said. Murad briefed Ogata on progress in Malaysian-brokered peace talks between the guerrillas and the Philippine government.

The talks recently hit a snag and the rebels warned yesterday that the negotiations could possibly collapse over the unresolved issue of rebel territorial demands. JICA has helped fund projects in the rebel-influenced Maguindanao region in southern Mindanao region, including a hospital center that manufactures prosthetic legs for bombing victims.

Ogata pledged to provide funding for other projects that could bolster the peace talks. “I believe that peace and development in Mindanao is indispensable for prosperity and peace in this country,” she said.

Talks Might Collapse

Murad, meanwhile, blamed the government for an impasse in the peace talks and said the negotiations could collapse unless the government takes them seriously.

Murad said the talks are now passing “a turbulent area” and that the Philippine government must take responsibility for the breakdown of the negotiations.

“This signals that we are now on the danger zone of the peace talks,” he said, referring to the failure of the negotiations on Sept. 9 held in Malaysia.

Murad’s comments underscored a precarious turn in attempts by the government and the guerrillas to peacefully settle a bloody, decades-long Muslim insurrection in the impoverished south.

“If the government insists to dilly dally and treat the peace talks as a mere counterinsurgency tool, who can blame Muslim Filipinos if they choose other means to continue their legitimate struggle for freedom and self-determination?” Murad said in a statement.

At the heart of the conflict is the insurgents’ demand for a homeland in Mindanao where minority-Muslim Filipinos could exercise control over a wide expanse of territory and its resources.

During the latest round of talks held Sept. 6-7 in Malaysia’s capital of Kuala Lumpur, rebel negotiators rejected a government offer of some Mindanao areas where Filipino Muslims could exercise a measure of control subject to future “constitutional processes,” Murad said.

Mohager Iqbal, the head of the MILF peace panel, said the government offered them the 5-province Muslim autonomous region and 613 other Muslim villages in exchange for a peace deal. “They offered the MILF the whole of the Muslim autonomous region and 613 other Muslim villages scattered in Mindanao, but all these are subject to Philippine legislation. The offer is just like a leopard skin and we did not agree with it.”

“Peace cannot be unilaterally imposed on the MILF and the Muslim people,” Iqbal said.

The Muslim autonomous region is composed of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi — among the poorest in the country torn by strife and clan wars since its creation in 1989.

Rebel spokesman Eid Kabalu said such processes include the passage of a law allowing Muslim control over certain lands and compliance of any territorial agreement with the Philippine Constitution, which has been under constant threat of revision by President Arroyo and other politicians.

“This is a conditional offer that no real revolutionary group worthy of its name can accept,” Murad said, rejecting a government position that “everything must be tailored fit to the Philippine Constitution.”

Government chief negotiator Silvestre Afable Jr. said last week the rebels’ demand was unconstitutional and unacceptable but the government would continue to propose options to break the impasse.

Afable appealed to Malaysia, Brunei and Libya — which have contributed troops to an international cease-fire monitoring team — to keep that force in Mindanao. He also appealed to Washington, the European Union, Japan and other countries to continue backing the talks and called for vigilance “against those who may exploit the situation to foment conflict.”

Kabalu warned that unless the government makes an unacceptable offer, “the talks might head to its final destiny, which is a collapse.”

The peace talks are regarded as crucial by the Philippine and US governments, which hope to limit the areas where smaller Al-Qaeda-linked groups such as the Abu Sayyaf and an unspecified number of Indonesian militants can operate.

The United States and Australia have been deeply concerned over reports of terrorist training camps run by the Abu Sayyaf and the Indonesians in Mindanao.