JEDDAH/COTABATO CITY, 18 November 2007 — The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) is protesting a recent agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to define the borders of a Moro homeland in the southern Philippines.

MNLF interim vice chairman Hatimil Hassan told the Inquirer by phone from Jeddah that his group viewed the agreement as a violation of the 1996 peace agreement between the government and the MNLF, which had been the major Islamic group fighting for a separate Moro homeland in the south since 1972 until the MILF broke away from it five years later.

Under the 1996 treaty, the MNLF proposed the inclusion of 14 provinces and six cities in the Moro territory. It eventually ended up having only four provinces and one city — Marawi City and the provinces of Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi — under the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

It currently has six provinces with the addition of Sharif Kabunsuan, which was carved out of a portion of Maguindanao early this year, and Basilan.

MNLF Chairman Nur Misuari earlier told the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) that his group would consider any peace agreement between the MILF and Manila as “illegal.”

The OIC brokered the 1996 peace agreement and is also at the forefront the government-MILF talks.

Asked what the MNLF would do in light of the developments, Hassan said they would propose a meeting with their counterparts in the MILF.

“We and our brothers in the MILF need to talk on that matter. There must be coordination to prevent any future problems,” Hassan said.

Misuari’s Statement

In a 16-page opening speech read for him at the opening of the Nov. 10-12 Tripartite Meeting of the Philippine government, the MNLF and the OIC in Jeddah, Misuari warned that a new peace agreement would present the MNLF Leadership with a ‘do or die’ option.”

“Should that happen, then there will be a complete transformation of the political situation in the Bangsamoro Homeland. The MNLF will be thrown back to square one and left with no other possible option but to return to their original demand for self-determination, decolonization and independence...,” he said.

Misuari blamed not only the Philippine government for reneging on its commitment in implementing the 1996 agreement but also faulted the MILF for “wavering” in its call for independence and Malaysia for pushing for another pact.

He chided MILF leaders for their “abandonment of the legacy of the late Ustadz Salamat Hashim, the MILF’s founding leader and chairman, who was uncompromising in his demand for the establishment of an ‘independent Islamic state in the Bangsamoro homeland, even if it covers only one municipality.’”

Hashim and his followers broke away from the MNLF in 1977 over differences stemming from Misuari’s signing of the 1976 Tripoli Agreement. Under the agreement, the MNLF reduced its demand for independence to one for an autonomous government.

The head of the MNLF delegation, Randolph Parcasio, echoed Misuari’s concern over potential conflicts that would arise as a result of a Manila-MILF pact, but added that the Tripartite Meeting was “one giant step towards resolving the conflicting issues in the implementation of the 1996 Peace agreement.”

“It signals a continuing process to remove the obstacles to the full implementation of the agreement,” he said in an interview.

The head of the Philippine delegation, Undersecretary Nabil Tan of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, said it was not for Misuari to stop the MILF from talking with the government considering that the MILF also represented a big group of Filipinos.

Nonetheless, Tan said they were just “taking note” of Misuari’s statements and not do anything else.

“He is entitled to his personal observation and the Philippine government has the main responsibility of securing peace and development to the areas in the southern Philippines. ... So we leave it as that. We can just take note of that. My delegation’s mandate here is to prepare for the Tripartite Meeting and to adopt mechanisms to move the peace process forward,” he said in an interview.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, who was part of the delegation, said in a separate interview that the government had even been egging on the MNLF and MILF to reconcile their differences so that there would be no need for separate peace agreements.

Ancestral Domain

No details of the agreement reached between Philippine government and MILF representatives in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, last Thursday have been disclosed.

In announcing the agreement in Kuala Lumpur, chief Philippine negotiator Rodolfo Garcia, a retired general who served as government’s chief negotiator, said only that demarcation of the so-called Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) had been agreed on.

Eid Kabalu, the MILF’s civil-military affairs chief, told the Inquirer Saturday that an agreement on the ancestral domain has already been drafted.

“It’s bigger than autonomy that’s why we were delayed in the negotiation on this issue,” he added, but declined to go into detail or say how it compared with the ARMM as currently constituted.

“Let us wait for both panels to issue the full details in due time,” he said.

Meanwhile, North Cotabato Gov. Jesus Sacdalan warned on Saturday that the government’s agreement with the MILF could create more problems instead of solving the existing ones.

“If there are no consultations on that, definitely, it will just create more troubles.

“We should follow the Constitution. We cannot just swallow what they agreed. There are Muslim communities in my province which are against inclusion in the Muslim homeland,” Sacdalan said.

Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said the agreement reached in Kuala Lumpur had set the future of the negotiations.

“We welcome this most recent development in the ongoing peace process between the government and the MILF. The favorable points reached by both panels in the remaining but contentious issues of the talks puts forward the government’s determined effort to seek a just conclusion to the peace process,” Dureza said in statement.

Kabalu also said the MILF was hopeful a final peace pact could be signed next year because the most serious hindrance had already been addressed.

Peace talks between the government and the MILF had been in an impasse for more than a year over the territorial issue, with the Moro group demanding the inclusion of about 1,000 villages and the government insisting on smaller number.

Organized by Misuari, the MNLF first surfaced in 1972 when it clashed with government forces on several fronts in Mindanao, Basilan, Sulu and Tawi Tawi immediately after then President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law. Following talks brokered by the Islamic Conference, the MNLF signed a peace agreement with the government in 1976 but the peace was shortlived and hostilities resumed.