ZAMBOANGA CITY, 10 September 2006 — An official of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) yesterday said President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has to muster the political will if she wants to be remembered as the Philippine leader who has solved decades-old problems in Mindanao.
Mohager Iqbal, the MILF’s chief peace negotiator, urged Arroyo to do more to ensure the success of the peace talks after talks between the two sides last Tuesday failed over the ancestral domain issue. Ancestral domain refers to the territory that will constitute a Muslim homeland.
“GMA lacks the political will to resolve the Mindanao problems,” he said, Iqbal told Arab News by phone yesterday from the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur, where the negotiators met. Malaysia is brokering the peace talks. GMA refers to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Iqbal said the peace talks “ended with nothing, but conditional offers from the Philippine government which we cannot accept.”
Manila is currently negotiating peace with the MILF, which is fighting the past three decades for the establishment of a strict Islamic state on the southern island, home to more than 4 million Filipino Muslims.
“They offered the MILF the whole of the Muslim autonomous region (ARMM) and 613 other Muslim villages scattered all over Mindanao Island, but all these are subject to Philippine legislation. The offer is just like a leopard skin and we did not agree with it.”
The ARMM is composed of five provinces — Basilan, Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi — which are among the poorest in the country torn by strife and clan wars since its creation in 1989. It also includes the cities of Marawi and Cotabato.
Many of the 613 villages are in Zamboanga del Norte, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga Sibugay, North Cotabato, Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani provinces.
The MILF previously proposed that the Muslims be given an option to choose in a referendum whether they wanted Mindanao to be an independent state or not. “Peace cannot be unilaterally imposed on the MILF and the Muslim people,” Iqbal said.
The official Philippine News Agency said Ignacio Bunye, the presidential spokesman, confirmed there was an impasse in the peace talks, but Manila will present to the MILF a new proposal aimed at resolving the ancestral domain issue hounding peace talks between both camps.
Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita earlier said the peace talks are far from totally collapsing since negotiators will discuss what communities with Muslim-dominated population can be included in the so-called Bangsamoro homeland. But for the MILF, the quest for peace is important to all Muslims in Mindanao.
“There is no template for peace and what we need is a political settlement in Mindanao to bring development to the land we call home,” Iqbal said.
Federal States
A Filipino Muslim lawmaker, Hussin Amin of Sulu, said he would propose to divide Mindanao at least in three Federal states to resolve the MILF problems and bring peace in the southern region.
“The proposal to divide Mindanao into three federal states has the support of many Muslims and Christians, but we need to amend the constitution to realize this aspiration,” said Amin, who is also chairman of the House Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity.
Manila previously announced that it was to sign a peace deal with the MILF this month before the start of Ramadan, Islam’s holiest month, but Iqbal said this is unlikely after both sides failed to agree on issues on the most contentious portion, the ancestral domain, and how the government and the rebel group would share natural resources in Mindanao.
Iqbal said the peace panels are likely to resume peace talks again before end of this month to discuss the ancestral domain.
“The peace panels are likely to meet again before Sept. 30 in Malaysia to discuss again the contentious issue of ancestral land. We don’t expect a peace deal soon unless the Philippine government settle the issue of ancestral domain,” he said.
In September, government and rebel peace negotiators have signed several agreements centered on the ancestral domain — its concept, territories and resources, and how the MILF shall govern the places to be covered by the agreement.
The MILF has said it is willing to compromise if only to arrive at an acceptable, reasonable and comprehensive agreement that would include not only the Muslims, but all 18 ethnic tribal groups in Mindanao.
Once an agreement is reached on how the MILF can govern these areas, government and rebel peace negotiators would finally discuss the political settlement of the country’s longest-running Muslim insurgency problem.
Cease-fire Observers
Iqbal warned that Malaysia may pull out its cease-fire observers in Mindanao if the talks collapse. “That is the implication if the peace talks fail and Malaysia has implied this clearly to the MILF and the Philippine peace negotiators,” he said.
The 60-man Malaysian-led international truce observers are deployed in Mindanao since last year to monitor the truce between MILF rebels and government forces.
Peace talks between the government and MILF started in January 1997 but the absence of a neutral third party bogged down the initiative. It was only on March 24, 2001, after the all-out war against the MILF declared by former President Joseph Estrada that Malaysia, at the behest of the Philippine government, facilitated the talks.
However, in February 2003, despite the avowed all-peace policy of President Arroyo, an all-out war was again declared against the rebels, but both sides later agreed to resume peace talks. Just this year, Arroyo said that 80 percent of the talking pointshave been completed and that permanent peace in Mindanao is within reach.
Many Filipino Muslims said they were supporting the MILF and the proposal to put up the Bangsamoro government, but majority of them wanted an independent Islamic state, similar to Iran.
“We want our own homeland. We support the MILF. I am a Muslim and Mindanao is our land and it should be independent,” said Akeem Susulan, a fisherman in Zamboanga City.
Arab countries, including the influential Organization of Islamic Conference, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the United States, including Japan and Sweden, are strongly supporting the peace talks.
Washington has offered as much as $30 million in financial assistance to help develop Mindanao should the MILF seal a peace agreement with Manila. The money would be used to help the rebels get back to the mainstream of society.
