Tuesday, June 06, 2006
No peace pact by September: Moro militants
THE country's largest Moro secessionist group last week said it does not see a peace agreement with the government in September, the start of the traditional Ramadan period observed by Muslims all over the world.
Jun Mantawil, Moro Islamic Liberation Front peace panel secretariat head, said the Moro rebel group and government could still not agree on the finer points of territory, resources, and transition mechanism under the ancestral domain agenda.
"We discussed these issues lengthily in our talks in Kuala Lumpur last May 2-4, 2006 but our movement forward is very modest," he said.
Mantawil issued this statement in the wake the pronouncement of Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo that Manila is hoping to sign a peace deal with the MILF well before the holy month of Ramadan.
Romulo reportedly said at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur of the Non-aligned Movement that the two sides are working on the issue of ancestral domain, or traditional Muslim lands.
He said peace talks with the MILF are in the final stages, with both parties firming up the details about how to handle ancestral domain.
The ancestral domain issue should have been finished in March, the timeframe both sides earlier set, after which formal peace talks would take place and the final peace agreement signed before the end of the year.
While Mantawil did not rule out the possibility of a September peace accord, he said it would be unfair to entertain false expectations.
Mantawil kidded that number "six" may not be the good number for signing peace deals with the government.
He said all the peace deals between the Moro National Liberation Front and the government were all signed in years ending in "six", citing the Tripoli Agreement of 1976, Jeddah Accord of 1986, and Jakarta Agreement of 1996.
"The perennial comments are that number 'six' stands for non-implementation of agreements," Mantawil said.
Peace talks with the MILF started in 1997 under the Ramos administration, was stopped during the Estrada administration's "all-out war" in 2000, resumed in March 2001 under the Arroyo administration's "all out peace" policy.
But President Arroyo suspended formal peace talks in March 2002 alleging ceasefire violations by the MILF.
The more than 10,000-strong MILF is presently the largest Islamic armed group in the Philippines.
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(June 5, 2006 issue)
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