Sunday, November 23, 2008 Mindanao caravan appeals for 'peace'
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO -- In a bid to bring to people here the "true picture" of the current Mindanao peace crisis, the Duyog (Cebuano for "solidarity") Mindanao peace caravan made a stopover Friday afternoon at City Hall, its second leg after a stint in Baguio City.
The group called for the renegotiation of the junked memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain (MOA-AD) between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
The MOA-AD was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and led to the failure of further talks and dissolution of the negotiating panels of both parties.
Augusto Miclat Jr., executive director of Initiatives for International Dialogue, the caravan's lead convener group, said their movement would take them to key cities - from Baguio to Cotabato - in an effort to "bring Mindanao to the people of Luzon and Visayas" and allow them to see the real score behind the impending "all-out-war" there and the social issues that are now haunting victims of the current conflict.
The victims of the elusive peace pact in Mindanao are mostly innocent civilians and indigenous tribes who have long fallen prey to the crisis beleaguering the country's southern territory for decades now, he said.
Almost half a million settlers in conflict-stricken areas, said Miclat, have been displaced and caught in hostilities, depriving them of a "normal life" wanton of essential basic services.
According to him, the caravan aims to eradicate "prejudicial rhetoric" which has portrayed the Mindanao and its people in states of dangerous proportions, and that their move is part of civil society's "heroic efforts" to sober up the situation and make millions of Filipinos understand the real situation there.
Miclat stressed that Duyog Mindanao, a component part of a bigger peace campaign for Mindanao, simply aims to generate public support for the protection of people in Mindanao, promote peace and an amicable resolution to armed conflicts, and identify concrete outputs that will benefit civilians and indigenous citizens there.
He said the main proponents of Duyog Mindanao, which includes his IID group, the Mindanao Peace Weavers, Waging Peace, Philippines, Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflicts, and various indigenous people's organizations, are all non-partisan, independent, and apolitical.
Duyog Mindanao, he added, "will properly culminate in Cotabato City during the observance of Mindanao Peace Week."
The peace caravan, in its stopover here, was welcomed by Mayor Oscar Rodriguez, Vice Mayor Edwin Santiago, and members of the Municipal Council. (JVTD)
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