MANILA: Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has told Malaysian prime minister that her government will not resume peace talks with Moros “with a gun pointed at our head” and pressed for the surrender of three rebel commanders blamed for a deadly rampage, an official said yesterday.
Malaysia has been brokering talks between the government and the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) for seven years and the two sides came close to signing a key accord on a Muslim homeland last month. But the signing was scuttled, sparking fresh fighting and leaving the talks in limbo.
In a letter to Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the Malaysian premier, Arroyo blamed the three rebel commanders, who attacked and pillaged predominantly Christian communities, for the breakdown in the talks. She said the negotiations will resume when peace has returned to the Philippines’ troubled south and the rebel group has regained control over its men.
“We will not negotiate with a gun pointed at our head,” Arroyo told Badawi in her letter, which was delivered by presidential peace process adviser Hermogenes Esperon last Friday. Esperon gave copies to reporters during a news conference in Manila.
Arroyo said “violent elements” within the rebel group had decided to take the law into their own hands. “Our confidence was shaken by the wanton violence” that resulted, she said.
Badawi expressed concern over recent deadly clashes that have displaced large numbers of people in the southern Philippines, but understood the reason for a massive government offensive to capture the three rebel commanders, Esperon said.
The three have been accused of leading attacks against civilians in at least three southern provinces, including an attack on a village in Lanao del Norte province last month in which 37 people were shot or hacked to death.
Arroyo said “those purveyors of violence” must be brought to justice.
Esperon said he explained to Badawi that the military has reduced its use of bomber aircraft and artillery strikes with the onset of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
Badawi gave assurances that Malaysia will continue to broker the peace talks and lead an international contingent of cease-fire monitors in the southern Philippine region of Mindanao, he said.
Although the Malaysian leader expressed his wish that the long-negotiated accord on a Muslim homeland be signed, he understood the Philippine government’s decision not to sign it following the attacks, Esperon said.
The accord called for the expansion of a southern Muslim autonomous region by adding more than 700 new villages.
But Christian politicians challenged the accord at the Supreme Court, scuttling its signing and prompting the three rebel commanders to launch attacks.
