ZAMBOANGA CITY, 8 January 2008 — Thousands of Muslims yesterday joined a huge rally in the southern Philippines and urged Manila to peace negotiations with the country’s largest Muslim separatist armed group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The gathering in Cotabato City was part of a series of peace rallies in Mindanao, according to the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), a network of Muslim non-government and people’s organizations which helped organized the event.

The group said some 50,000 people have signed to join the month-long peace rally which is expected to end in Ipil town in Zamboanga Sibugay province. Many of those who participated in the rally came from Shariff Kabunsuan, Lanao del Sur, North Cotabato and Maguindanao provinces.

The rally was held in response to the “fast changing” peace process in Mindanao that is reshaping the future of the locals, especially the civil society that comprises the greater majority in the grassroots, said Abdulbasit Benito, chairman of the CBCS media committee.

Benito said they were worried about the recurrence of violence because of the continued suspension of talks.

The MILF backed out of the negotiations in protest of what it said was the illegal insertion of the phrase “constitutional process” in the draft of the agreement for territory.

The list of villages to be included in the Moro territory was never made public although the MILF has been demanding the inclusion of some 1,000 predominantly Muslim villages.

The MILF said it would only go back to the negotiating table if the objectionable phrase was removed.

Benito blamed the government for the MILF’s backing out of the peace talks.

He said many people understood it this way because it was government negotiators, who inserted the objectionable phrase in the draft agreement for territory.

Benito said the government must act now to preserve the gains of the peace process by sticking to the agreements reached with the MILF.

He said unless the peace talks got back on track, the lives of innocent civilians would continue to be threatened by hostilities.

“We fear for the resumption of armed conflict in Mindanao now that the peace process appears to be going nowhere,” Benito told reporters.

Prominent Bangsamoro analyst and civil society leader Professor Abhoud Syed M. Lingga also said the government must do something to salvage the peace process.

Lingga, executive director of the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies in Cotabato City, said Arroyo should exercise political will to prevent the sliding back of the situation to violent confrontation between soldiers and Moro fighters.

“The leadership has to initiate the reinterpretation, repeal, or amendment of laws that are obstacles to the political decision,” he said.

Secretary Jesus Dureza, peace process adviser, said the government has been trying to find ways to restart the peace process.

One of these was an offer for the setting up of a federal state for the Moro people, he said.

Dureza said the setting up of a federal state would need constitutional amendment though.

The MILF has rejected the proposal branding it as trickery.