KUALA LUMPUR, 16 November 2007 — The Philippine government and the country’s main Muslim separatist group reached an agreement yesterday on the boundaries for a Muslim homeland in the conflict-ridden south.
The government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front have wrangled for years over the extent of a territory that would fall under Muslim control in the impoverished Mindanao region — the scene of a bloody, decades-long insurrection by guerrilla groups such as the MILF.
“Demarcation (of the homeland’s boundaries) has been agreed,” the chief Philippine government negotiator Rodolfo Garcia told reporters after two days of talks with MILF officials in Kuala Lumpur.
“It is one significant breakthrough we have achieved here,” he said.
The two sides still have to craft the agreement’s exact text next month and sign the deal, likely in January, Garcia said. The breakthrough ends an impasse over the “ancestral domain” agenda that had stalled formal peace negotiations since last year.
The issue has been the biggest hurdle in efforts to forge a permanent peace pact, which would replace a fragile 2003 cease-fire between authorities and the MILF in Mindanao, home to minority Muslims in the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
Both sides have held slow-paced talks in recent years regarding ancestral domain, which pertains to territorial claims and the control Muslims would have over natural resources in Mindanao’s mineral-rich but economically backward areas. Officials declined to give details about the proposed territory’s scope.
However, the chief Malaysian government facilitator, Othman Abdul Razak, said it would be bigger than a current autonomous region of five noncontiguous Muslim-dominated provinces.
Once the ancestral domain agreement is forged, both sides will discuss other issues, such as the type of government for the territory, in order to formulate a comprehensive peace pact, possibly by August 2008, Othman said.
MILF negotiator Mohagher Iqbal said a final peace pact would “bring to a close the centuries-old problems in Mindanao.” However, Garcia said there are “formidable challenges” before that can happen. “We foresee there will be issues that would be quite contentious,” Garcia said.
