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Saturday, July 08, 2006
Moro groups blame Arroyo for Maguindanao conflict
MUSLIM groups have lambasted the Arroyo administration for the recent fighting in Maguindanao between government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which they say has put the peace talks in jeopardy.
Lawyer Nasser Marohomsalic, also the head of the Union of Muslims for Morality (Ummat), said once again the Arroyo government has proven its shameful record in maintaining peace and security in Mindanao.
"Arroyo is shaming the country in the international community for its inutility in maintaining peace. At this point of the supposed level attained in the peace talks, it should been able to contain the conflict, unless there is a deliberate attempt to once again bungle the peace talks," Marohomsalic said.
"The on-and-off war in Mindanao, marked by state-perpetrated violence, proves all the more that the Arroyo government has no moral nor political ascendancy to rule this country," he added.
The government's incapacity to clear its bad record in adhering to the peace talks gives the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) reason to bypass anew the Arroyo government's bid for observer status, the lawyer said.
An estimated 20,000 civilians have reportedly been displaced because of the fighting, which started last week. In 2003, the government also initiated an all-out-war against the MILF, which resulted not only to the displacement of thousands of civilians but also the death of a number of children and elderly in the evacuation centers.
Ren Jalaluddin Ropeta, vice chairperson of the Moro-Christian Peoples Alliance (MCPA), said the recent armed conflict only reflects the "feeble" ground on which the peace negotiations are founded.
"With the recent surge of violence, and its disastrous effects on the people, we have no reason to believe the Arroyo government's pronouncement that the peace negotiations had progressed at all. This mars then again the sincerity of the government in pursuing peace with its supposed peace-pact partner," Ropeta said.
Ropeta said that they could only expect that the conflict in Maguindanao will ultimately jeopardize the peace negotiations.
"Why is it that every time the peace talks is about to resume, the military always finds ways to derail it at the expense of the people? Most of the victims of evacuation and displacement now have been displaced 5 to 6 times in over five years. Such vicious cycle of war and ceasefire that the Arroyo government has to offer is far from what the Moro people aspire for," Ropeta said.
Ropeta's group estimated around 600,000 people in Mindanao displaced because of the war-policy of the Arroyo government.
"The figure sums up the number of internally displaced persons from the most devastating all-out-wars in Mindanao -- the war in Sulu in 2005 which displaced nearly 80, 000; the war in Northern and Central Mindanao in 2003 which displaced more or less 450,000; and the State of Lawlessness in Basilan in 2001 which displaced nearly 80,000," he said.
Earlier, another Moro group Suara Bangsamoro already warned about a looming war in Mindanao this year -- an apprehension solely based on the tract-record of the government to launch war in the region every other three years.
"We have already sounded the alarm and true enough what we have been so concerned about has arrived. The recent fighting only proves that indeed the government is up to something which could only lead into the displacement, of not the death, of many civilians," said Zaynab Ampatuan, Suara Bangsamoro deputy secretary general of Suara Bangsamoro.
Ampatuan's statement stemmed from the history of conflict in Mindanao, which according to her were all government-initiated.
Ampatuan cited the 2003 war in Pikit, North Cotabato, which came while the peace process was being worked out.
"Who else has the capacity to start a war but the government?" she said. (JMT)
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (July 8, 2006 issue)
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