MILF: Disarmament OK but no precondition for talks

COTABATO CITY: The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), in pushing for a resumption of negotiations with the government, yesterday expressed support for the government’s “DDR policy” but did so with some reservations.

Malacañang has stated it will negotiate with the MILF only in the context of disarmament, demobilization, and rehabilitation, or DDR, and that it would also bring the affected communities into the peace process. The government’s “shift in paradigm” and statements on DDR have alarmed peace groups, who fear an escalation of the fighting.

The MILF said it was willing to go back to the negotiating table but Malacañang should not be setting any preconditions.

The DDR “should be tackled as the last item in the stalled government and MILF peace negotiation, in case it resumes,” said Ghadzali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief.

Jaafar said the MILF central committee came up with this response to the government’s DDR demand during a recent meeting.

“For the MILF to lay down their arms, by force, as a precondition for the resumption of the talks would be construed as the government using its military might rather than the political approach that most civilized countries used,” Jaafar said. The MILF also preferred that the last letter in the initials DDR stood for “reintegration” instead of “rehabilitation.”

In a five-point policy statement dubbed as the “MILF Declaration Manifest” that was officially released Friday, the rebel group described President Macapagal-Arroyo’s DDR as “the new government road map to peace” that many countries used in resolving armed conflict with the underground.

Jaafar said they acknowledge that DDR “forms part of the comprehensive peace settlement, but it should be the last item in the talks.”

“When the DDR is taken up ahead of the comprehensive peace settlement, it is interpreted to be a military approach. Not in the way of a political approach that President Arroyo promised in 2001 when she replaced the all-out war policy of President Joseph Estrada to the all-out peace policy,” Jaafar said.