ZAMBOANGA CITY, 10 April 2008 — The Philippines’ largest Muslim separatist rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), accused Manila yesterday of delaying the peace talks.
Manila is negotiating peace with the MILF, which has an army of about 12,000 rebels with millions of Muslim supporters in the Philippines.
Peace talks were stalled after both sides failed to sign an agreement on the Muslim ancestral domain.
A senior MILF leader, Khaled Musa, accused Manila of deliberately delaying the signing of the agreement on ancestral domain, which he said had been approved by rebel and government peace negotiators in February.
“The peace talks could have resumed immediately after the Holy Week but the government introduced another delaying tactic by creating a legal team to study the draft document on ancestral domain,” he said.
“The only purpose of this is to make a mockery of the peace talks and delay its resumption while the government works to secure as much as it can funding for the rehabilitation of Mindanao, which, however, will fall mainly into the pockets of corrupt government officials.”
Musa said the delay in the peace talks is a government strategy to pass the Muslim insurgency question to the next president of the Philippines.
He also criticized President Gloria Arroyo’s peace adviser, Jesus Dureza, over a statement he made during the recent 4th Asia-Pacific Dialogue in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Musa said Dureza’s statement about the peace talks with the MILF in Cambodia was an empty rhetoric that has no meaning at all, except to deceive the international community and to create a false hope.
Dureza, who previously headed the peace panel negotiating with the MILF, was quoted as saying that Philippine government’s commitment has remained strong in upholding the primacy of the peace process, particularly in Mindanao.
“As a long-term strategy to sustain the gains of the peace process, our government has embarked on various programs and initiatives involving the participation of civil society groups, including the school and media,” Musa, quoting Dureza, said.
“What primacy of the peace process Dureza is referring to?” Musa asked.
Mohagher Iqbal, chief MILF peace negotiator, said the Philippine panel agreed late last year on the scope of the ancestral domain, but later reneged on the accord that will constitute a separate homeland for more than 4 million Muslims and indigenous tribes in Mindanao.
Iqbal said the MILF is consistent in its demand for a Muslim homeland.
The MILF said government peace negotiators headed by Rodolfo Garcia completely disregarded the agreement on the Muslim ancestral domain and insisted again that the granting of homeland to Muslims in Mindanao would solely be through Constitutional process which the rebel group previously opposed.
The Philippine charter prohibits the dismembering of the country. But Dureza previously said there is a proposal to amend the Constitution and introduce a federal system of government.
It is also what many opposition politicians fear because Arroyo’s allies in the House of Representatives might use the peace talks with the MILF as an excuse to amend the Constitution to change the system of government from presidential to parliamentary or federalism to allow the MILF to have a separate state and eventually prolong her into power beyond 2010.
Under the presidential form of government, Arroyo, who deposed President Joseph Estrada in a people power revolution in 2001, is allowed only one six-year term.
In the charter change proposal suggested by her political allies, she can be elected as prime minister should Congress approve a proposal to dissolve the Senate and change the system of government to parliamentary.
Malaysia, which is brokering the seven-year old peace talks warned it would pull out its truce observers deployed in Mindanao if there is no progress in the slow pace of the negotiations.
