Thursday, September 04, 2008 Editorial: New names, new faces, same conflict
PRESIDENT Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was said to have dissolved the government of the Philippines' (GRP) peace panel Wednesday, Press Secretary Jesus G. Dureza admitted.
The termination of the government's peace panel will pave the way for a fresh start to the peace process for Mindanao, Dureza said.
Government insists it is not giving up the peace negotiations, they have just decided to change the main actors.
But will changing of the guards do anything for the peace process?
What we have seen since the conflict between government and MILF heightened anew soon after foiled signing of the MOA-AD are mere rhetoric of peace; no willingness to achieve it, from both sides.
The government men are saying they will not let up their hunt for MILF leaders who have led the raids on civilian settlements, underlining the fact that these same MILF commanders are now classified as armed and dangerous criminals who have to face up to their criminal act, even if it takes the whole Armed Forces of the Philippines to exact that retribution. The hunt for the rogues includes bombarding known MILF lairs with bombs.
On the other hand, the MILF leadership stand firm on the terms of the MOA, refusing renegotiation, and denying control of their combatants. Washing their hands off any responsibility over their men, the MILF leadership said government cannot blame the likes of Umbra Kato and Kumander Bravo and their combatants because they claim are just reacting in frustration. Although come to think of it, if everyone reacts that way in frustration, then not a single person will be left standing in Mindanao.
Both are claiming they want peace, but both prefer to use the muzzles of their guns to extract what they want.
In a synthesis of presentations of participants in a meeting held in this city on May 24-27, 2005 written by Astrid S. Tuminez for the United States Institute of Peace regarding this same GRP-MILF peace negotiation, what caught our eye was the portion with the heading, "A good agreement keeps the grandchildren in mind."
"A serious approach to ancestral domain and peace must shun the temptation to gain short-term tactical advantages to the detriment of longer term, strategic solutions," the UPIS report said.
It then cited as example the situation then between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam amid the civil war there.
"The Sri Lankan government and LTTE, despite a cease-fire, have each sought tactical advantages and prevented the formation of an effective partnership. The government, for example, wooed the international community and attended aid conferences by itself to talk about reconstructing war-torn Tamil areas. This move, understandably, aggravated the LTTE. For its part, the LTTE killed Tamil political opponents despite the cease-fire, recruited children for its army, killed military intelligence officials, and committed human rights violations. These dynamics help explain why a workable agreement has not yet emerged in Sri Lanka," the report said.
Somehow, this brings to mind similar images, the ones we have been reading on the website of MILF and the government regarding the botched MOA, consequently on the stalled talks.
The tactical advantages that both parties have been gaining to the detriment of the other, and the poor civilians who get caught in the crossfire.
Indeed, there is not much vision of the future here, there is not even dialogue among all those affected; the Mindanao residents kept in the dark until yet another agreement is laid out, leaving them out, and their grandchildren.
In the meantime, after the rhetoric of getting the civil society into the picture, particularly the highly-respected Bishop-Ulama Conference, at the height of rebel attacks on civilian populace, and bombardment of rebel lairs, nothing has been said about it since.
Tactical advantages, pogi points, but no genuine manifestation of a hand extended to make peace; our gift to our grandchildren: more enmity, more gunbattles, more evacuations, more sufferings, more deaths.
