Friday, November 14, 2008 Truce monitors mandate to end Nov. 30
THE stint of the Malaysian-led International Monitoring Team (IMT) in Mindanao is set to end on November 30, raising possibilities of widespread hostilities in southern Philippines unless the foreign truce monitors are given a new mandate.
Lieutenant Colonel Badrul Hisham bin Muhammad, IMT chief of staff, said they would not continue their peace keeping works in Mindanao should they not be given fresh authority, which can be obtained through a bilateral approval of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The IMT's presence has been largely credited for the drop in skirmishes between government security forces and the Moro rebels since its arrival in 2004.
Data from the government's Coordinating Committee on the Cessation of Hostilities (CCCH) showed that from 569 government-MILF skirmishes in 2003, it dropped to 16 when the IMT arrived the following year.
In 2007, there have been only eight skirmishes between the two groups from 13 in 2006, the report added.
There have been 128 gunbattles between the military and the MILF in the nine months to September 2008, the bulk of which happened in August with the botched signing of the controversial memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD), the government CCCH reported.
The MOA-AD, which was eventually declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court (SC) last month, seeks to give the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity wider political and economic powers since the coverage area would be expanded outside the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (Armm), but subject to a plebiscite.
Auxiliary Bishop Jose Colin M. Bagaforo of the Archdiocese of Cotabato urged both the government and the MILF to work out the extension of the IMT's stay in Mindanao to prevent the situation from worsening and spilling to other areas not included in current military offensives against rogue MILF elements.
Usually, the IMT's mandate lasts for a year.
This year's mandate was supposedly until August 31 only but it was extended for three more months from September 1 to November 30.
There were 57 IMT members this year but Malaysia pulled out some of its troops in May apparently due to the slow progress in the southern peace process.
Its force is now reduced to 29 members.
Aside from Malaysia, the IMT is composed of Brunei, Libya and a development specialist from Japan.
Bagaforo, in a report by the weekly Mindanao Cross, said that humanitarian workers are aware of the apprehensions of evacuees on the implications of the end of the IMT's tour of duty, given the pursuit military operations against "rogue" MILF commanders Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdulrahman Macapaar alias Bravo.
The latest war in parts of Mindanao that started in August has displaced half a million civilians.
"We will never return to our village unless we hear that the term of the IMT will be extended," Bai Sarifa Monting, a mother of five, was quoted as saying by the 60-year-old community newspaper.
Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesperson, has said the front would prefer the extension of the MILF tour of duty. (BSS)
