COTABATO CITY, Philippines, 10 May 2003 — President Gloria Arroyo has accepted the resignation of the government’s chief negotiator, whose ouster from the peace panel was being sought by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
Jesus Dureza said he resigned because he could not devote his full attention to sporadic peace talks with the guerrillas amid continued fighting in the southern Philippines.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo told reporters yesterday she has accepted the resignation of Dureza so he could concentrate on his other task as development coordinator for Mindanao, where MILF fighters are active.
“We still have to look for the appropriate replacement for Dureza,” Arroyo said. She noted there was no urgency because the government pulled out of exploratory talks with the MILF scheduled for today in the Malaysian capital.
The government said it will not meet the rebels because of an attack last Sunday on the town of Siocon that left 28 people dead, including 10 civilians, six soldiers, six policemen and six rebels.
The rebels, who have been fighting for an independent Islamic state in the south for more than three decades, said Thursday they committed a “tactical blunder” in attacking civilians.
Dureza told a television interview he was resigning because negotiations with the MILF were “problematic” and “floundering” and would need someone who can work full time. He said he told Arroyo he would like to concentrate on his development and anti-poverty work in the impoverished south.
“I think you need a full-time man, peace negotiator to grapple with this, if possible 24 hours a day,” Dureza said. “We were able to work very progressively over the past year until early this year when we had problems.”
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu welcomed Dureza’s resignation, saying the guerrillas had lost trust in him.
“The MILF welcomes his resignation because he has lost all credibility and is no longer effective as government chief negotiator,” Eid Kabalu said.
The MILF had demanded Dureza’s ouster from the peace panel for making unauthorized marginal notes on a cease-fire agreement signed by the peace panels of both sides in Kuala Lumpur last month.
Ghazali Jaafar, MILF political affairs chief, said Dureza inserted some words in the minutes of the meeting after copies of it had been signed by MILF representatives.
Kabalu said the MILF also suspects Dureza’s resignation had to do with the government’s “penchant” to bypass him on important decisions.
Kabalu said that during the first peace meeting in Kuala Lumpur, it was Secretary Eduardo Ermita who signed the Memorandum of Agreement for the resumption of the peace talks, not Dureza.
“On May 6 and 7, 2002, there were two agreements entered into by the Philippine government and MILF and again the signatory was not him (Dureza) but Secretary (Norberto) Gonzales,” he said.
Arroyo’s recent offer of a 50 million peso ($961,500) reward for information leading to the arrest of MILF leaders and members also “signals that the government has no political formula in addressing the problem,” Kabalu said. “They are still pursuing a military solution.”
Also yesterday, the MILF warned of the resurgence of vigilante groups that could worsen the violence in Midanao after a Muslim father and his two sons were massacred in the province of Bukidnon on Wednesday night.
Kabalu identified the victims as Yusop Dimalen and his sons Ali, 9, and Muhammad, 8 years old,
“They have just finished the meal and were about to go to bed when all of a sudden a burst of gunfire was heard killing them on the spot,” he said, quoting witnesses in the village of Basog in Damulog town, where the killing happened.
Kabalu said the victims were refugees of the fighting between government and MILF forces in the town of Carmen in nearby North Cotabato province.
Witnesses suspected that soldiers from the army’s 4th Infantry Division and members Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units (CAFGUs) were behind the killing he said.
A few weeks ago, militiamen reported executed two teenagers in Damulog but one of the victims “miraculously survived” identified their assailants as CAFGU members, Kabalu said.
There was no immediate response from the military to the charge, which came three days after Christian villagers angered by a spate of MILF attacks on civilian targets raided a Muslim community in Maigo, Lanao del Norte and fired on houses, killing a girl.
Army officials have confirmed that the people behind the Sunday attack were Christian villagers.
Kabalu warned expressed fears that the alleged slicing of the ears of the two teenagers in Bukidnon meant a resurgence of the Ilaga, a vigilante group organized to help fight Muslim rebels in Mindanao in the 70s.
“The Ilaga was organized by the (defunct) Philippine Constabulary not only to sow terror but to eliminate Muslims and occupying their homeland. What makes the Ilaga movement irresistible at that time is because of the open support extended to them by the government,” he warned.
