COTABATO CITY (MindaNews/01 July) – The peace panel chairs of the government and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) today said they are ready to return to the negotiating table anytime and are only awaiting notification from the Malaysian facilitator.
In separate interviews Wednesday with Mindanao-and Manila-based media who participated in the three-day “State of the Bakwits” joint coverage, government peace panel chair Rafael Seguis and MILF peace panel chair Mohagher Iqbal, said they were ready to meet anytime but apparently were not ready to tell the media their respective positions exchanged through the Malaysian facilitator.
The panels communicate through Datuk Othman bin Abdul Razak, the Malaysian facilitator. There is no word as yet from the facilitator, the two panel chairs said.
Seguis told reporters at the Estosan Garden hotel here at noon that the last time they communicated with the MILF through the Malaysian facilitator was “over a month ago” but there has been no response as yet.
Sequis declined to say what government was proposing to the MILF so the talks could resume. “Kami naman wala naman kaming conditions eh,” (we have no conditions), he said.
During his visit to the evacuation centers in Datu Piang, Maguindanao on June 4, Seguis told MindaNews, he was appalled by the squalid conditions the evacuees were forced to undergo as fighting resumed following the collapse of the peace talks between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in August last year.
"Kalooy kaayo. We cannot allow this situation to continue. Their suffering has to end," Seguis, also Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, said.
Seguis earlier that day met with Sultan Kudarat officials led by Vice Gov. Donato Ligo and told them that the government and MILF will resume talks “at the soonest” to end the problem of evacuees.
"I cannot tell you when the peace talks will start but this is the only way to stop the IDP (internally displaced persons) problem," Seguis said.
Asked at the morning forum at the multipurpose hall of the Office of the MILF Vice Chair for Political Affairs, what the MILF “minimum” would be for it to resume talks with government so that the suffering of civilians would end, Iqbal declined to answer, claiming, “we will be disclosing our position.”
Asked earlier how to end the suffering of civilians in the evacuation centers, Iqbal told MindaNews, that the “final solution” is to “solve the Bangsamoro problem and the armed conflict in Mindanao. This is not happening because the government is just fooling around and the larger Filipino nation especially most of their oligarchs are not yet ready for such accommodation.”
“The short term, but a palliative, is re-declare a ceasefire and return to negotiation. This can even be tricky, because if fooling around becomes the policy, then conflict complicates and hardens,” he said.
Seguis said it was best to communicate through the negotiating table, instead of through media.
“We cannot solve this problem by just telegraphing our thoughts through the media. We want to talk to them person to person” and that if it is not possible for a panel to panel meet as yet, then the two chairs could meet, he said.
Datu Michael Mastura, senior peace panel member of the MILF, said they were correct about asking for international guarantors, so that whatever agreement is made, will be implemented by both parties.
He said nation-states are quite sensitive to the word “guarantor.”
“But we can settle for another word,” he said, citing “eminent persons” from the Bogota, Columbia pact, or “persuaders.”
“In other words, we (want that) whatever we sign will be carried out even by the next administration,” Mastura said.
MILF chair Al Haj Murad had, in a five-point declaration in late 2008, called for an “international guarantor” that both GRP and MILF will honor the agreements; that the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) issue be resolved; that the International Monitoring Team (IMT) be allowed to investigate all violations of ceasefire since July 1, 2008; that the Armed Forces of the Philippines “immediately cease military offensive in Mindanao against the MILF even in the guise of running after its three ‘rogue commanders,’” and that Malaysia will remain as facilitator of the peace talks.”
“It may be she will not be the one to carry out (the agreement). We can sign something that will be implemented in the next administration,” Mastura said, as he reiterated that the MILF is “negotiating with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,” not just the Arroyo administration.
Lawyer Camilo Montesa, Undersecretary of the Peace Process and spokesperson of the government peace panel, told reporters, the government panel’s agenda is “to complete the negotiation for the comprehensive compact (of the peace process) with the MILF within the term of the President.”
The Arroyo administration is scheduled to end a year from now, at noon of June 30, 2010.
Cotabato Archbishop Orlando Quevedo, OMI wrote in late December that individual (violent) incidents have become a problem of ‘chicken-egg.”
What should be denounced is “not so much individual incidents but the entire problem of conflict of which ‘action-retaliation’ is a symptom, but a symptom that inflicts massive tragedy to thousands of civilians and to its combatants.”
“What should we tirelessly promote,” he said, is “ peace: restart the talks and end the conflict.”
“How shall we promote such peace - first by not imposing preconditions that make it impossible for parties to resume talking; second, by urging the parties to go into talks by including the ‘impossible’ conditions part of the peace talks but also urging the parties to look into what is really essential (for it could be that some ‘impossible’ pre-conditions may not really be essential); third, by making sure that both parties consult their constituents before and during the peace talks; fourth, by making sure that no violent incident initiated by any hothead would distract the process,” Quevedo wrote. (Carolyn O. Arguillas/MindaNews)
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